My MA thesis

Final print dress from my MA collection All Stories Have Endings at Central Saint Martins, 2006.

So in order to provide some context for my interest in clothing and fashion I thought I would publish my MA thesis this week. I always write that I am interested in "the intangible qualities inherent in clothing like air, time, light, and action." Publishing my thesis should give some in-depth insight into that simplified version of my interests. I also hope that posting this information will show the design process at the MA level at an UK university. I have received lots of questions about my education there and whether it's what I expected or how it's different. I'll start with my project proposal, following with the body of my dissertation, and finishing with my bibliography and appendices. You can see a collage of my MA work in the portfolio area of my site from the link below.

Project Title: All Stories Have Endings
Research Question: Can one redefine how we experience design and consume fashion?

Design Rationale:
'I often try to have a beginning and an end, because emotion comes from time. but it’s a different kind of time than theatre or cinema..... it’s theatre without text, without spectacle. what I wish to do is something between theatre and installation.’ —Christian Boltanski

Clothing and fashion are traditionally concerned with space, the shape of the garment, its form on the body, etc. but I'm interested in exploring the relationship between time and clothing, whether it's the time in your life you wear something, the length of time the garment exists, or the amount of time you wear a specific item. The affects of time on fashion, dress, and clothing is little explored from a design perspective, unlike space and form.

There has always been something so fascinating to me about someone making clothes for a particular customer. I am in love with the idea that haute couture and made-to-measure clothes from days gone by carried more significance than the high street mass produced clothes of today. Not only because clothing was a more precious and expensive commodity for market reasons (oh the time required!) but because creating clothes in the craft tradition creates an intimate personal connection triangle between the maker, wearer, and the garment. Those days are fading fast because that kind of work is no longer feasible in today’s economy.

I want to explore what is so compelling to me about that sector of design and see if there is some way to keep alive the human, emotional aspect of designing clothes and dressing in our contemporary economic climate by investigating other ways of using time in the realm of dress. I think all the emotional connections and preciousness of clothing today can be related to the connection between time and clothes.

Aim of the Project:
To explore the aspect of time in dress. To consider how to make clothes that carry the emotional traditions of made-to-measure clothing in our changing economic climate and that recognize the personal and public power of clothing and dress through the creative use of time.

Objectives:
• Investigate the relationship between maker and wearer
• Investigate the relationship between woman and her clothes, specifically the narrative and emotional relationships involved and how they can be manipulated with time
• Push the boundaries of what is fashion
• Explore the connections between the process of producing the garment and the experience of wearing it
• Develop prints, silhouettes and texture through a process that takes into account the wearer without losing the significance of the maker
• Design garments, and eventually a collection (S/S 2007)

Intended Design Outcomes:
• A final collection of 6 garments, possibly including hats or accessories
• A textile collection
• Interim work and design development would include performance work developed into written and graphic communication (a book or magazine)

List of Research Methodologies:
• Questionnaires/ethnographic research • Reading • Time • Drawing/design experiments/storytelling • Encounters/performances • Written and graphic communication

Where and How Can This Lead to Design Innovation?
• Design concept: in that I will be exploring innovative ways to approach clothing design
• Marketplace: in that I will be exploring ways to produce and disseminate my clothes and accessories
• Materials: in that I may develop fabrics or surface treatments;

How Do You Locate Your Project in Terms of Futures?
• A new “fashion system” that grants status to the importance of time in dress, as opposed to the traditional view that space is the preeminent value in fashion/dress
• My work will be considering the future in that I am interested in pushing the boundaries of what is fashion as well as encouraging people to think about themselves and their clothes in new ways in regards to sustainable values (particularly introducing longevity into fashion).
• I think the future of fashion is considered somewhat tenuous right now, between high fashion and the high street, the relevance of the catwalk, and the meaning of “designer looks”, much of the fashion world is in flux. I am also flirting with playing around with ideas of technological future and how it relates to the relationships I am looking at, at least in the design development phase.

Identify Key Players in Your Chosen Field:
• Bless Collective • Maria Blaisse • Sophie Calle • Hussein Chalayan • Shelley Fox • Tess Giberson • Imitation of Christ • Nikki S. Lee • Eri Matsui • Linda Montano • Jessica Ogden • Mary Ping • Alyce Santoro • Cindy Sherman • Andrea Zittel

What Will Be the Design Direction?
• Laser etching • Digital printing • Using support fabrics as fashion fabrics (taking materials out of context is my interest here, but the key is texture and context) • Materials that change over time

Key Bibliography:
Books • The Fashion System by Roland Barthes • La Dernière Mode by Stéphane Mallarmé • Second Skin by Marilyn J. Horn & Lois M. Gurel • Material Memory eds. Marius Kwint, Christopher Breward, Jeremy Aynsle • Body Dressing by Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth B. Wilson
Authors • Fred Davis • Efrat Tseëlon • Jennifer Craik • Marcel Proust
Magazines • Selvedge • i-D • Mirabella

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...please note this piece is © 2006 Kimberly Hall. Do not copy, steal, or reproduce without permission. If you're interested in my work, please drop me a line. Thanks.