Embroidery Samples

Emroidery Schmoidery

I absolutely hate emboirdery, i really hate adding anything to a garments material, i'm quite simplistic in that sense HOWEVER this is an embroidery project and the skill will come in handy so i can't completely dismiss this or lack in this part since everything else is looking brilliant.

I've finished my general research into marie antoinette and found all the focus points that im basing my designs on ( currently have 9 with about 4/5 more to draw up and obviously anything else that comes into my head while continuing this project )
After this i was gonna start putting my designs, however i have decided not to and am gonna have the next part of my sketchbook dedicated to developing embroidery techniques that can be applied to my material for this project. Then i can re-edit my basic designs with the new techniques.

Embroidery Story
I also think that the embroidery has to mean something and tell a story not just something that looks pretty. ( will check the brief )
Keeping that in mind after looking back at my research and genereal designs i have ideas for genereal embroidery of the time and then my initial story which for me will be apart of an added detail to each design (secret).

I'm gonna be looking at embroidered flowers:


Fabric Flowers:

Thankfully my nan has been a florist all her life and can do anything to do with flowers!
Porcelain Patterns (Sevres):


Carpenters Carvings:

General Research Into Marie Antoinette *DONE*

*upload pics later*

The Wallace Collection

I would love to go to this exhibition - but with the deadline of the project and funding i might have to miss it unfortunately and just google the exhibit.

Basically the collection houses one of Europes finest collections of works of art, paintings, furniture, arms & armour and porcelain.
I would like to look at the porcelain used since at Marie Antoinettes Hamlet there we're porcelain milk churns - so im interested in the patterns they would have had

Here is an exquisite piece of porcelain from

• Sèvres, France
• 1758 - 1759

Designed by Jean-Claude Duplessis the Elder, this is perhaps the most important object in Sèvres porcelain in the Wallace Collection. Only two other examples of this design are recorded, but this one has particular prestige because it was given by Louis XV to his favourite daughter, Madame Adélaïde.

I love the swirls, and elegance of such a small piece of porcelain

Other stuff i have looked at is also one of my favourite pieces of art work EVER!

• Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732 - 1806)
• The Swing
• France
• 1767

According to the poet Collé, the history painter Doyen was commissioned by an unnamed ‘gentleman of the Court’ to paint his young mistress on a swing, pushed by a bishop with himself admiring her legs from below.
Fragonard, who became well-known for his erotic genre-pictures, proved better suited to paint the work, in which the impudent reference to the church has been omitted, leaving the girl as the main focus, delicious in her froth of pink silk, poised mid-air tantalizingly beyond the reach of both her elderly seated admirer and her excited young lover.

I just love all the connotation behind this paiting and in an extent reminds me of marie antoinette alot - very beautiful and young - and at the same time very naive and playful and susceptible to rumours being layed upon her due to her immature and air-head manner.

Tie your collar and you can cuff me anytime!

I struggled before to find any information on collars and cuffs but maybe that's because i was literally just typing in collar and cuffs to google - not good - then my brain turned on and i typed 18th century etc etc and WALLAH im back in the game.

I'm only looking at cuffs and collars relevant to my era since i know the direction i want to go in so there is no point in researching all the others - just a waste of space in my sketchbook!

Ok here goes:
Cuffs
They were fake!! which i find really interesting - they would be pinned or tucked under tight elbow length sleeves - so basically they were an added extra and were called Engageantes - In the 18th century, engageantes took the form of ruffles or flounces of linen, cotton, or lace.

The photo of Marie Antoinette here shows a closeup of the engageantes she would have worn in her era.
Because im so determined not to make nothing costumey or that can even be mentioned in the name of costume - i want to re-invent these maybe change their position as none of my garments have sleeves ( i have a slight phobia of having my sleeves down lol )
but keep the same principal - that they are removable and at the wearers discretion to wear them or not.

Moving on to....
Collars
Fichu was the main collar for an 18th century female - A fichu is a large, square kerchief worn by women to fill in the low neckline of a bodice. The fichu was generally of linen fabric and was folded diagonally into a triangle and tied, pinned, or tucked into the bodice in front - again here are some examples:

Here is a painting by Vestier ( stunning i know ) - this is a more exxagerated and fulfilling Fichu collar as opposed to the image above - again avoiding a costume look - i would like to further develop my designs by incorporating this type of collar into certain designs - Possibly by the shape of the top half of the garment or by creating a Fichu Shawl etc

Either way these new findings have inspired atleast another 5 designs that are swimming around my head!!

Singular Royal Tale

(Sorry but my work will be from google as my comp is again an E-G-I-T)


I came across this article in an old issue of Vogue Italia it is titled "A Singular Royal Tale"
and what's beautiful about it is that it's not in english it's in italian (or so i assume).
You must be thinking what? and no i can't speak italian
what made this article beautiful and relevant to me is that seeing the article in a foreign language made me feel like i was looking through the looking glass into a world which was different and strange to mine.


with it not being in english i felt more intrigued by the story the pictures were telling.

When putting it in my sketchbook I decided to keep bits of the article so it would transport u to a world u didnt know existed and where your'e not invited - this is the feeling that i want when i and you look at my garment - feeling of being overwhelmed and consumed by something so gorgeous and out of your own in which you don't belong in.

Royal Trimmings

Here is the extensive collection of blue fabric samples and some trimmings - from all over Birmingham not just fancy silk believe it or not lmao!
fancy silk
barrys
market
*secret location* aint giving this bad boy up for no-one!
john lewis
house of fraser
etc etc u get the jist of it.

and as u can tell my computers an E-G-I-T and i cn't upload any photos which is ashame since the presentation is tommorow.
Only one i managed to get was my opening page so heres a sneek peak into the world of my royalty...

yes thats Vicktor & Rolf
Yes thats wax
and YES ITS SCRUMMY!