Juxtaposing An Exaggerated Female Silhouette With The 1950’s Americana Male Suit─Fashion Designer Jade Davis From Bath University Explains Her Latest Work
Jade Davis is a Fashion design graduate specialising in womenswear.
“My design style is bold in silhouette and colour - taking inspiration from historical techniques and clothing to redevelop into contemporary designs.
My collection was initially inspired by depictions of women in cartoons, especially Jessica Rabbit from the film ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’.
My research centred around how clothes have been used over the centuries to alter the shape of the human body to fit an ideal.
My work is often inspired by aspects of femininity and gender and I want my work to raise questions on how we view gender in fashion and society.
What does it mean to be feminine or masculine and what does it mean to be both?
This collection is built around how we see women and how we have created an idea of femininity throughout history and continuously altered the shape of our bodies through clothing to conform.
I want to challenge the way we view women and how this has been represented in the ways we have depicted them.
As a society we are slowly learning the impact of how prescribed gender roles have and continue to impact us as individuals and wider society.
In my work I have explored extreme end of masculine and feminine dress and the possibility meeting in the middle.”
My Initial Idea Came From Watching 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' During Last Years Lockdown.
“It's a film I had watched countless times before, however this time I became enamoured with the character of Jessica Rabbit.
This character had been created as a hyperbole of the female form being overtly sexual in appearance but demure in attitude - an amalgamation of what is expected of a woman but exaggerated to the point of humour.
This led to researching and becoming obsessed with the drawn depictions of women in film and the real life people that inspired them.
I chose to juxtapose the exaggerated female silhouette with the 1950’s Americana style men’s suit tailoring that exaggerated the parts of men that made them look more masculine - wider shoulders, raised waistlines and an overall bolder, sharper shape.
The contrast of the amplified curves of a woman and sharpness of the masculine tailoring has been the key element of this collection.”
The Silhouette Of My Garments Is Created Through Intricate Pattern Cutting Techniques.
“These designs are influenced by the methods of creating shape I discovered when researching corsetry and other historical shapewear garments.
Elements of corsetry crop up throughout all of my designs from my carefully placed boning channels to emphasise the extreme silhouette, intricate handwork that supports shape from the inside of the garment and methods of padding the hip and bust to make the waist appear smaller.
When creating my toiles I experimented with using various forms of bustles to act as a padding for the interior of the garments but when doing this realised how beautiful bustles can be so they became a key design detail.
This collection is about emphasising and distorting shape so my print is a warped version of a houndstooth I created by reflecting various silhouettes of Jessica Rabbit and placing in specific parts of the body to further amplify the curves.”
