HARMONY IN ART, DESIGN AND FILM
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Black Swan is a supernatural thriller, which centers the story of Nina, a ballerina in a New York City ballet whose life is consumed with dance. She lives with her mother Erica who supports her daughter’s professional ambition. As two young dancers compete against each other for the Black swans role, Nina gets more in touch with her dark side which later destroys her. In this movie a lot of importance is given to the black and white good and evil. At one point in the movie Nina is dressed in white and crosses the path of another Nina dressed in black. This represents the rising of Nina’s dark alter-ego.
ART :
Reflections by Bonnie Hamlin
• cool, relaxing colors
• balanced
• very harmonious
•depth, movement
DESIGN
My concept choice is fashion design. I chose fashion because after choosing the black swan as my film I was really inspired by the elegance shown in the film and I thought it’d be perfect inspiration for an evening dress.
My first attempt was to brainstorm and look up different ideas and designers that relate to Harmony so I tried to look at designs which were flowing and loose not tight and geometrical.
These are some keywords which helped me do my research : Harmonious, flowing, graceful, black and white, sensual, elegant.
ZUHAIR MURAD
Zuhair Murad is a Lebanese fashion designer who opened his first shop in Beirut in 1995. His work is intricate and incredible and he knows how to design for everyone from ball gowns to high fashion.
ZUHAIR MURAD COUTURE FALL/WINTER 2012-2013 COLLECTION
In this collection the Lebanese designer pretty much takes every trend and every color and makes it his own in this collection with clothes in red lace, deep aquamarine, embroidered floral, feathers, capes, velvet, and 20s motifs in exquisite fabrics.
Elements used in my design :
Colour scheme nude and black :
I decided to use this colour scheme as in the film black swan there was alot of emphases on white and black representing good and evil and I wanted to show this in my dress. Another reason for choosing this colour scheme was because i find these two colours together to be very sensual and elegant and that was what I wanted to show in my design.
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Material chiffon :
I chose this type of material as it is one of the materials that is mostly used by m chosen designer , Zuhair Murad. Another reason i chose this material was because I wanted my design to be elegant and flowy and I wanted it to represent the seamless movement of the ballerina and this material would have been very suitable.
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Feathers :
An obvious reason of why I incorporated feathers in my design was the inspiration from the black swan and the representation of feathers in the film. Apart from using actual feathers in my design I used the structure and pattern of the wings to create a design on my dress which represents a swan inspired also from the make up used on the poster of the film and in the actual film.
Inspiration :
Make up
Swan wings
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My design shape representing the swan
Shoulder Pads :
The power of the Black Swan is represented by black wings in different stages of the movie. Shortly after she is crowned Swan Queen, Nina is fascinated by a creepy statue which shows a dark figure of a man with wings and later on in the film tattooed wings are shown on Lily’s back and these represent the power of the Black Swan which is rising and becoming one with Nina. I decided to use shoulder pads in my design as a symbol that would represent the wings in the film.
Sketching final design ideas :
When I researched everything I needed I started sketching some ideas incorporating all my research in the design each one leading to the next one.
Sketches :
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Final design :
The idea of using nude colours on the swan design and for the rest of the dress to be black was to show
the bad taking over the good like when in the film we see the dark character of the role she's portraying, the black swan, taking over her innocent humble self, the white swan.
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