Oh, opposites. What would we do without you? One cannot coexist without the other and it's this juxtaposition that makes it all the more interesting.
So far, all the drawings I’ve been doing on the raw cotton fabric have been quite restrained. Almost getting obsessive about the perfection of a line. Is it straight? Did the ink bleed through the stencil? Is the circle perfect?
I’ve talked about perfectly imperfect beauty before, and I actually thought I was getting good at being more “freehand” but actually I wasn’t. Until now.
I experimented with proper freehand drawing on textiles, and also resist printing with metallic frames. At first, I thought the result was messy and unsophisticated, both of those things were words my tutor at uni used to use to describe my work. Upon closer reflection i.e ignore that shitty voice inside of me that says those words, I actually really liked the result.
Thinking of my fashion collection and how I want these fabrics to look and feel, I am now torn between the geometric/ precise patterns I created initially vs. the freehand experiments I’ve been playing around with lately. Should I stick to one?
And there has been another development in terms of the fabric creation: embroidery. I love embroidery! It’s so quintessentially Latin American that my collection would feel incomplete without it. But I tread lightly with it because I don’t want to go down the 100% ethnic vibe. It’s a mix really, it’s ethnic eclectic. (errrr hashtag alert!)
What do you think? Geometric or Freehand?
