Bridge writing assignment on pattern collection book

The pattern collection book

 My book is based on the theme of my research project, “The history of sheer textiles”. In my beauty map, I narrowed down the subject into 2 fabrics, which is lace and chiffon. Before making the 16 variations of my patterns, I made a simple motif design. I wanted it to have a feminine feeling, so I kept it small and put some curves in it. This motif became the basis of my whole patterns.

As looking at lace fabrics, I realized it is also composed of repeated small patterns. Some parts were made with mesh, and others were made with combined threads, but they were all repeated in a regular order. I made the patterns in illustrator, and tried to create the similar looks that I felt from that specific fabric, lace. I chose my color palette from the feeling of femininity and luxury. I have 7 swatches in my palette, and they are chosen from different hues in purple, ivory and burgundy. When I was researching for my sheer fabrics, especially lace and chiffon, I found that many people chose purple and ivory colors for it because they thought it conveyed luxurious looks. I agreed with that and also chose them as my basic color palette. With my patterns, I repeated the small segments from my motif modification pieces, and colored them harmoniously, using the colors from my swatches.

For my research, I am consistently seeking more resources of the history of lace and chiffon. Since the research is about the history and how and why those specific fabrics became popular, I’m trying to search for the books or design pieces from ancient times, and how it changed throughout the time. The whole process of pattern making was not only an interesting thing to do, but also was very helpful for my overall research. I could understand about the characteristic of the fabric more easily, and it helped me to design and apply the patterns to elsewhere.