By Eleanor G, Year 9

Last week, we visited the Victoria and Albert museum in South Kensington to inspire us when working on our projects incorporating fashion and architecture.

We participated in a workshop looking at how architecture, surroundings and objects we use in our daily lives influence fashion and worked on drawing shapes and styles from them and translating them into pieces of clothing. We looked at examples of fashion throughout different time periods  in the gallery and designed alterations for them to fit certain briefs (such as making the item of clothing gender neutral) which was interesting as we could keep certain elements of the design and work on changing components which would otherwise detract from the aim of modifying the outfit.

We then got to look at the Africa fashion exhibition which was fascinating to look at the wide range of styles, shapes and colours used to make the outfits stand out. I also liked seeing the different materials used for texture and how they added to the piece overall. Certain garments were also layered to create outfits. These were intriguing as you could see how they were put together to complement or contrast each other. We observed the patterns used and drew sketches of them to later use in our research pages before taking the tube back to school. My favourite exhibit was the green dress and headscarf ensemble because they were both simple yet elegant.

This trip inspired us and left us with many ideas to take forward into our project.