juju diamond: East meets West

Sums me up – similar to my style as I like mixing different cultures.

Japan and Manga –

Japan has a wide range of styles and strange clothes and styles.

Japan seems to stand out against the other countries regarding its style. I merged the Japanese Manga and the English Goth.

I liked the Illustrative technique of Manga – the wide eyes and sticking out hair. I chose to use large illustrations of Gothic style Manga characters on an English Gothic style cardigan.

I like black as a colour.

I liked the silk bodices that were Gothic styled so I translated this into the cardigan. So this was also an influence.

I knew I was going to use large illustrations so needed a large area to put them on and this influenced my choice of garment. I was influenced by Gothic dresses which I extended and then some of my research was into period clothing - the Victorians and my final design had a Victorian influence. The shape of this cardigan was classic Gothic – long and narrow.

I added the white belt because a lot of Manga illustrations use black and white.

The collar and cuffs are ribbed and stretchy because I wanted them to be comfortable and allow movement of the wrists. The collar design came from some research into Japanese Goth/ Punk style collars. I wanted the collar and cuffs to be modern and not old fashioned.

The metal belt comes from an Issey Miyake design which grabbed my attention form a book formIssey Miyake (Fashion Memoir) (Hardcover)
by Laurence Benaim (Author) . It was futuristic and strange. I liked the fluid movement of the skirt that was with it and this influenced how I wanted my cardigan to feel and look – light and cool.

Vivienne Westwood ‘ punk styles were an influence as they have similarities to the Gothic look. The long platform boots are an influence form Westwood

I don’t like my final designs. I should have done more research. If I had more time I would make the cardigan shorter. I would also add buttons and more detail. I would also change the background colour of the heart so it wasn’t white.