statement of intent

I hope to study British history because I think as a country we have a fascinating history with the invasions, the monarchy and the ‘celebrities’. I hope to firstly look at British history as a whole and the different periods it has gone through and i am going to look a different period of housing and local historic things such as the roman fort in Lanchester and hopefully i can revisit Vinelanda. Then I am thinking of looking into the Tudor period as I find it extremely interesting within this I am going to look at the monarchy within Henry the VIII and his wives. But deeper into this time I’m going to look at Shakespeare works and all the old English language he used and how his works convey to today’s society. I am also going to look in detail at the fashion of this time especially the dresses they wore as they were extremely heavy and what i find most interesting is the sheer amount of layers involved in one garment, even within the neck pieces there is a lot of detail and a lot of layers and work that has gone into the garment as a whole. For an artist I am going to look a man called Hans Holbein as Henry the VIII hired him to do numerous paintings of him and his family and he painted the most famous painting of Henry, a picture in whom we all associate with him. I am going to go and get lots of pictures of houses and buildings from the various eras I am looking at and i am going to compare them to the modern buildings we have today. For example Tudor housing has lots of black beams which you can see from the exterior however today’s housing is made of bricks and stone and no such beams are apparent from the outside of the buildings. For my secondary research i am going to look at the more famous of Shakespeare’s works and pick the quotes that appeal to me most and try to link them somehow with the rest of the Tudor times despite them being set in numerous countries within numerous periods. For a textiles designer i am going to look at a costume artist whom works alongside Shakespeare productions throughout the world. I also would like to look at neckpieces especially through the tudor period as they are a an unusual shape and I could research and compare them to neckpieces throughout British history as a fashion statement. As they Know what they wore for each production for example in the film of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet wears a long cream floating dress with a band around the waist which I think represents a roman style belt despite not being set during that time it shows even fashion them was influenced from earlier periods and manipulated even in that period of time. I hope to study all these aspects as I find them extremely interesting and think the branches it could lead me to with my project is immense.

to look at actual british history........

i realised i needed to look at british history in more detail and i picked out three main areas within british history that i felt inspired me the most.

I picked Tudors, for henry viii and his wives i'd like to look more at the artist hans holbein whom drew the most famous pictures of henry i'd like to make a canvas inspired by his work.

I also found the victorians extremely interesting this is when british history really started modernising with mining and child labour and queen victoria's rein.
i would like to look more at posh victorian fashion and possibly make a victorian dolls house and costumes for dolls... maybe???

Finally i'd like to look at the two world wars as they have heavily shaped britain today in its devides and bonds. Ive liked finding out about how people coped in the war and the food that we enjoy today was rationed then! i feel the colours and styles of clothes worn in the war could heavily influence me in designing and creating something with it.