Module 3, Chapter 10: Design an accessory- initial ideas

To collect some initial ideas for my accessory I looked back at all my previous work and reflected on some of the images and samples I had worked with to see if they brought to mind any specific types of accessories:



3/10/1: initial thoughts for accessory



 

Two particular accessories came to mind- some kind of head piece/hat and some kind of neck piece such as a collar, scarf or necklace. At this stage I decided to gather some ideas from the Internet to help consider possibilities for shape and style:

 



3/10/2: hat and headpiece accessory research



3/10/3: neck accessory research





I decided at this stage that I was feeling far more inspired by the neck accessories. I had thoughts of creating a spiral piece that could wrap around the neck and perhaps fall into further spirals but was unsure how to do this. I started to create some mini spirals out of paper and card to generate some ideas. I quickly realised that both sides of the paper/card would be visible and therefore equally important for embellishment so I developed my spirals further using my decorated and coloured papers and photographing them from different angles:


3/10/4: Card spiral experiments


I really liked the fact that there were so many different possibilities with the way these shapes could be arranged and thought this would translate really well into a neck accessory that could be worn in different ways. To test this out I tried out a range of different sizes in plain paper and then arranged them around a mannequin to see how they could look. I also experimented with the spiral shape and proportions. I finally settled on a spiral cut out of paper that was approximately A3 in size. The results of just a small selection of my draping possibilities with this are as follows:


3/10/5: Paper spiral draping

At this stage I knew this was the direction I wanted my accessory to go in although I realised that for my final piece I would like the width to be a little larger so I would need to ensure my fabric starting shape was larger than A3 to accommodate this.