WEEK 1: DAY 3

The first interview that I decided to do was with one of my classmates, Bernice. I asked her the questions that I came up with the day before and she gave me some really interesting answers. She talked a lot about how women, black women in particular, should support each other. She also told me about how at school it was not seen as normal for a black girl to be interested in creative subjects such as fashion and art and that this is one of the reasons she first became interested in black feminism. I filmed the whole interview because I thought it could be interesting if I made a short film as part of my final piece but since I have no experience in film making or video editing I think it would take too much time learning this skills which is time I would prefer to spend designing. Instead of making a film I think I want to make a zine instead with interviews, collages, photos etc..

Working from the interview, I'm going to use some of the ideas and topics that Bernice brought up (black women in the creative industry, supporting each other, black girl power, natural hair movement) as research starting points for the zine and clothes.

One photographer that I'm really interested in is a woman called Nadine Ijewere. I think her work is really interesting so I did some research on her work. One of her projects that I particularly admire is called 'Flowers'. She took photos of black girls with flowers as a symbol of their beauty. Then I started to look into flowers and their different meanings. I like the idea of using flowers, as a symbol for the beauty of black women and it could be an ongoing motif throughout my collection.

One flower that I really like, aesthetically and because of its meaning, is the orchid which symbolises 'exotic beauty' and 'glorious femininity'. I want to develop some prints maybe using the orchid and also use the shape of the orchid as inspiration for stand work.