Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Thursday, 4 November 2010
My Vinatage Charms
This afternoon I found a website which sells vintage 'charms'.
You can but vintage chains, pendants, buttons, beads, fabric and more online here.
This could be really useful to my project!
Photoshiop Manipulation- Printing onto a dress
Unfortunately I don't have time to test this print onto a real dress, but I can simulate the outcome using Photoshop:
Then I tested what the dress would look like both in colour and in black and white.
I prefer the colour version because I think the red lips and blonde hair contrast well against the blue fabric. However, I'm not sure how well the colours would come out on a coloured fabric.
Photoshop Manipulation Continued...
I love the colours in this photograph of 1950's icon Marilyn Monroe.
The bright red lips really stand out against the creamy skin and golden hair.
The overall effect is dreamlike.
Using the stock image below from Quiet Storm Stock...
I created my own version by playing with the colour levels, adding hilights and lowlights using the brush and adding a Monroe style mole again.
My next step is to see what this would look like on a garment.
Photoshop Manipulation continued...
I found, by simply adding a Monroe style mole, i made the photograph look a lot more like it could have been taken in the 1950's! Comparing the two I think toning down the hair colour would have made a big difference to the vintage feel- colour photographs in the 50's didn't have the bright colour quality that I gave my image.
However, I'm not sure I would want to print such a faded image onto fabric-it might look too washed out and boring.
Photoshop Manipulation
The printing technique I am most familiar with is digital printing, so I will try this technique first. For this I need a digital image to print onto fabric. As I don't yet have my own primary photos of 1950's makeup, I will use stock images to see how well I can manipulate the photos on Photoshop, to make them print worthy. If I like the results I will take my own makeup photographs and print the finished images onto fabric.
Edit:After searching for some vintage makeup stock photographs on deviantart.com, I came across this image of a model wearing the classic 1950's red lipstick and black, winged eyeliner by Quiet Storm Stock.
I opened the image in Photoshop, cropped it and started playing with the colour levels, filters and brushes. I added highlights to her hair, eyes, nose, upper lip and gave her cheeks a rosy glow using the paintbrush. I 'desasturated' the top layer, making it a 'grayscale' image, before lowering the opacity to get a pale skin effect. However, I erased the grayscale layer around her hair, lips and eyes to really make the yellow, blue and red pop out.
This was my end result:
I really like the way the image turned out- the colours really pop and the whole image looks good enough to print in my opinion. However, I think the image looks more like a 1930's illustration than a 1950's one, after comparing it to this image:
I got rid of the rosy cheeks, blue irises (which looked purple) and darkened the lips slightly, making the lipstick look more matte.
I still felt the hair was perhaps too yellow, so I gave her red hair instead:
However, I thought it looked too unnatural, almost like an orange dye, so I prefer my second attempt overall.
I would like to experiment with some different stock images though, to see if I can get closer to the 1950's look.
Monday, 1 November 2010
VINTAGE RUFFLES
There are so many fashions from the 1950s which feature ruffles in their designs.
It wasn't only womenswear which featured ruffles. The ruffled tuxedo shirt was a popular choice for men in the 1950s, especially to formal events such as the American prom.
I will use the research I have gathered here to help me design a final piece. I'm not sure yet if I will use ruffles in the final design, first I will experiment with ruffles on a sewing machine, using a ruffler foot, which will help me to create different kinds of ruffles.
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