I was far too concerned about the state to of the thesis to write about it at all. Days went by since I went to the wedding of the most glamorous vicar in England and temporary seemed to put an end to my fragile schedule. Since then I barely wrote anything. It was like a long break on the will and the want at the same time. Looking at the piles on the massive desk (big enough to cut complicated patterns on) and all over made me think, do I really want to do this? Do I really need to sit down almost every single day, when finally I can just be here in The House with The Garden? I am so used to do many things at the same time, that now time seems to run through my hands without leaving any single touchable trace it was there. I have been trying to do the writing first and leaving the design after, but I have to admit my theory was a big mistake. I should have done half-half to let them push each other. Oh, well, it happened now.
I went to the hospital with mum this morning and while we were waiting I started to think about the products. I found it very strange to feel so creative amongst patients with broken limbs including mum. I took my black note book and did some sketches about the bags I originally had in mind in early 2009. I remember having a tutorial with Alan Jones, who is a really encouraging tutor. He takes real interest in every single students` work. Everybody I talked to loved his tutorials. He shared information and came up with ideas that could push the project forward. I only went to see him twice though as I did less and less I felt I would just waste his time. And it is not a kind of raising-self-respect-feeling to see a tutor without making any progression from the last time and hoping to be able to blah-blah enough to get away with it. I have a feeling they always know when one blahs. I certainly had enough of my own blah-blahs. I found it humiliating to be so exhausted and that there was no real enthusiasm anymore about anything. For months I just made up things as I went along on tutorials, crits and even presentations. That is how I ended up with that enormously complicated MA proposal with all the workshops about building trust and embracing on the elements of team work between artisans and design students. But in this hugely elaborate thinking the original idea got completely lost. And the question at the end remained the same: even if the best products are designed and made by wonderfully talented students from MOME and LCF and other colleges, still how an artisan (like my case study) and even myself once I move back home is able to start up as a self-employed freelancer having to pay extremely high entrepreneurial taxes in Hungary comparing to the English sole-traders? I remember Dilys saying to trim my project down. I didn’t want to. I kept saying I had to do it as it was. In reality I felt it was a defeat if I did trim it down, I blahd far too much to let it go. I felt I had to do it to make up for the blahs all the way long to keep myself credible. But I had no real interest in the whole thing. It was beyond my physical and financial ability. It was almost the size of a Phd. Finally, after having to leave a year out and being able to stand back I did trim it down. I trimmed out all the workshops! Half of the proposal has gone. And the better half is left to work on!
This is how since Joanna`s wedding all the days I felt guilty about not wanting to write the final structure of the thesis it somehow miraculously evolved. Thank you Lord! I went back to the original idea of developing a small range of products from local skills (felt making) and from local materials (wool) for local markets (spas) and examining the possibilities of how an artisan can start up, comparing the English and Hungarian system. I also trimmed down the idea of a group project for a single artisan/sole-trader to be authentic to my case studies. I divided the idea of trying to incorporate technology into artisan products such as digital print and laser cutting to make the range more innovative and landed with the idea that the best way of showing the differences between the English and Hungarian system is to demonstrate an initiative each.
Burcak gave me the same advice as Dilys, keep it simple and concentrate directly on the questions, research it and give possible answers, suggestions. It feels a lot lighter on my shoulder already, huh…
The original idea came from the Fashioning The Future Summit and listening all the clever things been said there about luxury and redefining luxury, where the conclusion was that luxury might going to change with time from big brands making their products in China and India to hand crafted products made by artisans locally from local materials. I remember starting to draw the first sketches of the felted bag there. It was at Rootstein Hopkins Space and I set on the left hand side and I just knew that was and is going to be a Vondores bag. I have been playing around with the idea of having a hand-and-custom-made felted bag that can be put together in different ways and taken apart and having a service where it can be sent to have the brass and copper elements cleaned, since then. I did put it aside when I couldn’t see how it could be connected with the workshops, when I already had a specific product in my mind and the idea of the workshops were to let the students and the artisans work out the designs as a team using traditional craft such as embroidery on the felt. My idea seemed far too elaborate to be done in Hungary because I had in mind having digitally printed linings in the bags with traditional Hungarian motifs and laser cutting as the idea evolved around a group of spa products. I kept thinking no Hungarian artisan would have the money and the technology to make those products and it would defeat the object of local. The carbon foot print of the making of the product would be still high, because the materials have to be transported abroad and back. The idea of combining local materials with the developing technology is great I believe and was inspired by the Fashion CGI lecture, but not yet applicable in terms of local material, skills and markets, unless the technology exist at the same geographical area.
Local in Hungarian felted product making involves the shepherd/owner who breads the sheep, the wool-washer/processor, who makes the wool feltable, the felt maker, the herb-gardener who grows the herbs to put into the products to prevent moth and the trader. This could all be done by one person, or more. If we are looking at products made in London using digital print and laser cut would be ideal, as the technology is given and the fabric has to come into the city to be sold anyway. Therefore carbon footprint is not raised as much as if it would be coming from Hungary and going back to be sold there in the spas. The low carbon footprint considerate design really started to interest me when some of us from MA took part in workshops at one LCF`s research programmes headed up by Professor Sandy Black. It was a fascinating process of thinking through all the different ways and complexity of sustainable and new design processes from Fashion and The Environment point of view.
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