Made in Mexico. The Rebozo in Art, Culture & Fashion

The rebozo lies at the heart of Mexican life and is a part of every stage of the journey from birth through childhood, courtship, marriage, death and mourning. The importance of the garment is written into the literature, music, poetry, history and popular culture of the country.

Design motifs woven into the rebozo depict the daily life of Mexico, including its flor and fauna. Ikat, known as jasper in Spanish, is a technique of resist dyeing a pattern on threads before they are woven, and is the best known and credited style of rebozo. Skill and patience are require to mark out the design and execute the many stages involved. Each jasper design has its own name that refers to the mix of pattern and colours: labor double, caramel, poblano, marvilla, de bolita, serpiente, llovisna, venido, greca, paloma.

The fashion industry in Mexico is the most established and important in Central and South America. Within this large and commercial sphere is a small group of designers who are exploring and celebrating indigenous textiles and skills through their fashion collections. The designer Beatriz Russek is a pioneer of blending fashion and tradition. Carmen Rion, Carla Fernández and Lydia Lavin all collaborate with communities of weavers and artisans to create textiles and embroideries that they then interpret in contemporary clothing. They have all featured the rebozo in their collection. Cooperatives such as Fábrica Social and El Camino de Los Altos have also been established to help promote self-sufficiency and sustainability in local communities.

POP - Design, Culture, Fashion Exhibition at the FTM London

 

 

 

 

 

Designing Women at the FTM in London

Post-war recovery of Britain through creativity and beautiful design - this is what Designing Women exhibition at the FTM stands for. Three remarkable women , with an even more remarkable talent have revolutionized the world of prints as we know it.

Lucienne Day, Jacqueline Goag and Marian Mahler are some of the most influential female designers to make an impact in the creation of printed patterns for furnishing fabrics, hand-towels and dishware. They have designed some of the most avangarde and abstract prints of their time. 

The exhibition is on until the 16th of June so if you love prints and want to see how three women managed to revive Britain's textile industry, this is the place to be.

Photoshop and Illustrator Courses at the Fashion and Textile Museum

Next month, more exactly 12th of January 2012 I will start my Masters in Fashion Merchandise Management, hoping to specialize in either Buying or Visual Merchandising, haven't decided yet. Anyways because I only have a business background I didn't get a chance to learn all these software programs , which are more than necessary for a career in fashion. Now with Photoshop I've played around a little bit, but I can't say I really knew much, but Illustrator was an enigma for me. So I browsed the internet to find some courses to help with this issue and found the best ones. First of all the location is absolutely fabulous, FTM London is just great and it's in a great area of the city too, close to London Bridge station , on Bermondsey Street, which is just beautiful.

FTM on Bermondsey Street - London

Secondly the courses are affordable for students, all the ones I've found were at around 400 pounds for three days. FTM offers one course for 175 but if you book 2 courses you get a discount and you can book 2 for 300 pounds, which is very reasonable. The courses are held by tutors Newham College of Further Education and they are super helpful. I will make sure to book the Intermediate ones because I was very pleased!

I took the Introduction to Illustrator Course on Saturdays, that was held every Saturday morning from 10:00 till 14:00 o'clock, with a 30 minute lunch break; and the Introduction to Photoshop - a three-day course starting on the 22nd of November till the 24th, from 10:00 till the 16:00, with an hour lunch break.

The Illustrator Course was hosted by David Wright and we covered everything from the basic tools and pallets all the way to creating clipping masks, simple repeat patterns, beginning and completing a garment trace and dividing shapes. I took some snaps with my phone of the things we did, just to get an idea. There is also a Repeat Pattern Course for intermediate students if you are interested in taking, it is very helpful for young emerging designers!

The Photoshop course was hosted by Deepa Panchamia, which is the friendliest and nicest person I have ever met. She is very helpful and has alot of patience with everything you ask her. I found Photoshop to be alot easier to understand than Illustrator , it's not so complex and so technical, it is more creative and playful. I heard that most of the students have the same feedback, let that not be understood that this is caused by the teacher, but it's just the program and level of difficulty which makes it more unpleasant to use.

So what we did in the three-day course with Deepa was very exciting. After learning the basic comands of the program like the image adjustment tools and the filter gallery. We played with the layers palette, we coloured hand drawn illustration, filled garment drawings with fabric and at the end we created a couple of moodboards and product sheets. Here are some of the things I managed to do and save to take with me:

 Do not analyze the colours and patterns too much, I was just playing around with the tools ! :)