Thursday 23 February 2012

When I started looking at Peruvian weaving I chose it like something that was the best option out of a bad bunch in my view, and was dreading looking at the historical weaving and thought I would find the contemporary side of things a lot more interesting, but after getting into it I really enjoyed the historical researching, especially learning how long the process took. I think the colours that are used in Peruvian weaving are much brighter then most things found in clothes and home wear nowadays as well which played quite a big part in my liking of them.

In my own project i was looking at toothpaste with stripes in which involves red and blue and I don't know if maybe it happened subconsciously but the brightness of the colours does seem to reflect the Peruvian weaves in some way, especially in the red.





I also wanted to try to create the marks that are found in a lot of the high street Peruvian/Aztec style clothes. I done that by twisting two threads that were woven at the same time.
 

Peruvian Connection is a company started by a mother and daughter in 1976. Biddy Hurlbut, the mother, was fascinated with the peruvian style weaves and pretty much passed that love oonto her daughter, Annie. Annie then began designing and making her own sweaters in the Peruvian style and sold them.

the companies main ethos is to be able to sell artisan made garments and home wear pieces and to celebrate the history and the preciousness of the peruvian weaves.




this is an image from the on line store Darkroom which sells menswear, womenswear and items for the home. This is from their 'Aztec Camera' collection which takes inspiration from central america looking at Aztec patterns and Peruvian weaving. You can easily see the link between Peruvian weaving and the collection through the bright colours they have chosen.
One particular place i have personally seen the inflluence of Peruvian weaving is in the 2012 collection of Topman shorts. The shorts here have just a flash of the theme round the hem in many bright colours, probably because for a shop a whole short made with this pattern in all these colours would be relatively hard to sell.


Here is another example of shorts were the pattern and colours have clearly descended from traditional peruvian weaving, especially with the bright red which is favoured by the weavers of Peru.
The dress above is by a designer named Jennifer Parry Dodge, whose company is Ermie. here you can see the use of the main colour red, mixed with greens and blues in quite natural looking hues. you can also see the influence of Peruvian weaving in the triangular shapes which are involved on the blue stripe.

Tuesday 21 February 2012

~ PERUVIAN WEAVING. hola .

hi

Most peruvian weavings are made using Sheep, Llama or Alpaca wool. They wools are then dyed and woven using a portable backstrap loom.


The thing that attracted me to Peruvian weaving was mainly the colours and to a lesser extent the patterns.

this is one of my favourite pictures ever.
Traditionally the yarns are dyed with natural dyes made from plants but in the past century the natives have started using synthetic dyes because they achieve a vivider, brighter hue. Although people have now realised how important it is to keep the tradition and knowledge of natural dye and have started learning from the elders.

The patterns used are normally representing the village they live in, every village has its own pattern. The natives of peru think that the brighter the colours the better, one of the most favourable colours is flourescent red. The colours used in a weave will very often show how the weaver was feeling at that time, dark colours normally mean sadness.