Jodie Tompsett

The idea of my final collection stemmed from my hobby of illustrating buildings local to my hometown, Lewes. I loved looking at the details, shapes and textures of the architecture and exploring ways to draw it using black ink pens. During my research, I began by gathering photographs and making sketches of Gothic Architecture around London, which had always caught my eye during trips to the city. I became invested in the silhouettes of the architecture and began looking for ways it could fit on the body in a sleek but distinct way.

Tudor clothing and style choices of the time also played a large role in forming my designs. Growing up I would partake in Lewes Bonfire Night in which my family and I would dress up in Tudor costumes, handmade by my mum and other friends in the Bonfire Society, which is where my interest in the detail of the clothing came into this project, as well as the Tudors being the same era of Gothic Architecture. I also bought in elements of 90’s Mugler focussing on the well-defined silhouettes, therefore I took inspiration from how these shapes worked on a woman, accentuating specific parts of the body to develop my designs further.

I decided to translate these ideas by making my entire collection black, using different types of fabrics to achieve a variety of textures, such as velvet, wool blend suiting, pleather, and satin shiny fabric. Choosing to make my collection out of just black fabrics gives a polished and snatched feel and appearance to the outfits, allowing your eyes to be drawn to the silhouettes and points yet still have depth from the variety of textures.