Have you been watching the Sewing Bee?
Aside from football matches and breakfast news, it is rare for me to watch television. However, I make an exception every time a new series of the Great British Sewing Bee comes around! Do you watch it? Although the concept and the format of the programme goes unchanged from year to year, the judges seem to get more and more imaginative with their tasks and challenges, which always keeps things interesting for return viewers!
This week was themed Art Week, and I was excited at the very thought of seeing two of my passions (art and fashion) combined. As I often seek inspiration for my own work from the world of art, I was eager to see how the judges would use art as a stimulus, and how the contestants would interpret the work of artists and artistic movements to create their garments.
The first task (the pattern challenge) was to create a modernism-inspired skirt; it was refreshing to see the contestants’ bold use of colour to create strong and impactful designs. I found the second challenge (the transformation challenge) truly fascinating to watch: the task was to convert a canvas painting into a structured garment whilst ‘incorporating elements of the painting in a considered way.’ This grabbed my attention immediately as for a previous collection of my own, I began by cutting up printouts of a Matisse painting (Le Bonheur de Vivre), following the lines and curves that I could see in the piece. I then placed the different segments in varying ways to create fashion collages that would come to inspire my final designs. (You can see how I see ‘dissected’ Matisse’s painting in the images below). In the programme, I thought that Asmaa’s finished piece was truly remarkable; she created a standout garment whilst managing to preserve many of the motifs that were present in the artwork. It is worth watching the episode on iplayer purely for that!
The last part of the programme is always the made-to-measure challenge. This week, the garments were to be inspired by the surrealist movement, a theme that resonated with me given that one of my all-time favourite designers is Elsa Schiaparelli. For many of her garments, she collaborated with the surrealists, including Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau, to produce garments that were playful, impactful, but also truly exquisite. I remember referencing Schiaparelli’s tear dress when working on a fabric manipulation project several years ago, and I found her work so captivating that I was able to reach real depth when tapping into my own creativity. You can see some pages from my sketchbook - along with the satin fabric sample I created - below. I would certainly like to revisit and rework some of these ideas in the future and I did wonder if the Sewing Bee contestants would also look to Schiaparelli’s work, or if they would respond to the challenge in an entirely different way.
And now, back to the programme! The made-to-measure garments were really quite special. I really loved Lauren’s playful piece with an undersized shirt and floating coat hanger, although I am struggling to decide on which one would be my ultimate favourite. What did you think of Fauve’s garment of the week? Did you have a favourite?
Next week on the Sewing Bee it will be Kids’ Week; I am sure that the programme will not disappoint!
Shelley xoxox