The Major Project is in the focus area of Textile art and is a wearable art piece in the style of an Edwardian era gown with a mermaid silhouette, sweetheart neckline, hand and machine embroidery, handmade flowers, digital printing and a collage depicting the Covent garden area of London. The gown was inspired by the film 'My Fair Lady' as it celebrates the life of late actress Audrey Hepburn as 2023 marks 30 years since her passing. Hepburn's critical role and performance in the film as character Eliza Doolittle motivated the silhouette and shape and inspired the experimentation of different innovative manipulation techniques to create a contemporary Textile art. The monochromatic colour scheme of the combination of costumes in the race scene provided an immense amount of stimulation which allowed for me to design the piece with the iconic black stripes and white lace silhouette. While researching and designing the piece, the significance the costuming has had on today's society, allowed other designers to inspire my aesthetics including, Valentino, Ralph Loren and Chanel, as well as utilising contemporary research in Pinterest and Vogue for current trends. My most enjoyable experience while creating this wearable art piece was using open freestyle machine embroidery on a soluble non-woven in different creative forms, such as separate motifs or directly on the silk panel. Experimenting to minimise distortion with different equipment was a fun challenge. The digital printing on silk allowed me to create a collage reflective of the historical context. The flowers were also created through experimenting with dyes, ribbons, heating and hand manipulation so that the flowers of Covent garden could be emphasised. My greatest challenge was the printing of black stripes onto the bralette as they were hand painted using freezer paper onto each individual pattern piece before assembly. Aligning each stripe with its corresponding sides took patience. The functional features of the design include the inserted elastic on the self-drafted bodice to give security on the neckline, pearl buttons on the cuffs and neck piece ,the invisible zipper on the back and the Chantilly lace which allowed the shape to be more form fitting.
