WOman: the Paradigm Shift

Zee takes us through his artistic, inspiring and creative journey!

By Zee Iqbal

Hello everybody and welcome back to my journey toward becoming a fashion designer!

Since my last post the class' developments have been incredibly strong. We’ve drawn our ideas together to create our moodboards, supported by a host of research that explores the concepts we’ve chosen which we then presented to the class... I can safely say that I’ve never felt more like an artist!

The process began in quite a obscure way. It was up to us to explore the possibilities with our concepts and how we would like to demonstrate them, with guidance from our tutor to help us reach our goals. It was quite daunting at first because there are an infinite number of ideas we could invest in, but I remembered my intentions.

This was the moment that I could create something that really matters, something that can challenge peoples perceptions. I asked myself the necessary questions and with all things considered my concept was born; WOman: the Paradigm Shift.

"I could create something that really matters, something that can challenge peoples perceptions..."

My concept seeks to explore the perception of women in society vs how I perceive women as an individual. Recent times have seen women rise against cultural and traditional stereotypes seeking justice and equality in society. The movement is then reinforced by my personal experience of women. I’ve grown up with the most beautiful, strongest women who pioneered my life. Essentially they are the reason I am who I am, and it only felt right to honour them with my first collection.

My idea was first captured by a picture I came across years ago on facebook. It shows flowers erupting through concrete to exist in their absolute beauty. To me the picture represents the concept perfectly; the concrete is the traditional stereotypes that women have broken through to reveal flowers that are not disrupted in any way by the process they had to go through to break through.

Ever beautiful they remain, they represent the women who acknowledge the need to create this awareness, and they stand gloriously. The contrast between the delicacy of the flowers and the tough concrete and how aggressively it’s erupted is so fascinating to me and rightly demonstrates the power women possess.

I decided to use this visual as the template for my moodboard. It was a more conceptual approach to the work but I wanted to challenge myself to create something that could be considered an artwork in itself. I decided to make 5 separate flowers, each representing an important woman in my life.

That meant different identities, styles, colour schemes and pictures. Our trips to Portobello Market and the V&A Museum gave us a lot of content to use both as inspiration and as part of our moodboards, not to mention instilling the habit of taking pictures everywhere I go! 

I spent the best part of two weeks working on the project. It was an awesome experience with a lot of uncertainty, but what I’ve acknowledged in the process is that you have to allow yourself to explore the possibilities, take risks and be unafraid of making mistakes. It certainly helped that I was working on my moodboard and research at night, when I was too tired to overthink! The end result is something I’m quite proud of and I couldn’t have imagined it that way... then came the time to present.

"I've learnt that art can truly be anything and it's able to expand your awareness massively. It has its own language which is understood by each individual in their own way..."

It was a surprisingly pleasant experience! We had encouraging feedback from our tutor, who helped us draw out artistic references from our work to help us with the garment design process which is to come (bring it on quilting and tapestry!). I've learnt that art can truly be anything and it's able to expand your awareness massively.

It has its own language which is understood by each individual in their own way, yet every different interpretation is truth... essentially it helps you to know yourself. It's going to be incredible watching my collection speak to its spectators.

Presenting felt like a celebration of what we’ve achieved so far. I'm really proud of my classmates because we’ve all worked really hard and we value the course greatly. Together we create a supportive, creative environment and it makes for an even greater course experience. I'm excited to see how we all develop and all the ideas we will come up with.

I’ll sign this post off with a quote by Mahatma Gandhi, in which he says: "Be the change that you wish to see in the world"... Till next time!

Follow Zee on Instagram: zshn

Our Big Local Fashion Project runs every Tuesday 2 to 4pm at the Brabazon Community Centre in Heston. For more information please click here.