After finishing the patching on my fleece jacket, I looked at it and felt that patches somewhat take away from the messages that I wanted to portray on the jacket. I think the fabric used for the patches didn't work in contrast to the actual fleece as well as the text and I think that this idea worked in my head, but the execution was not as effective. I decided to take these patches off and rework the fleece.
I decided to go in and embroider into the fleece using white thread. I wanted to try and keep it simple and embroider words onto the fleece using similar stitching to that of the official logo on the fleece. I used words that depicted my feelings while working in this job, as well as quotes that had effected me a lot, such as 'You're quite bossy.' I felt that this quote effected me as a woman in a managerial role is rare enough, being told you're bossy for doing the same job as the men in your workplace just makes you feel really horrible and less motivated to work. I kept the stitching to the front of the jacket, and I was planning to embroider into the sleeves as well, but I felt that the embroidery on the front of the jacket was enough and felt that anymore would be too overpowering and the message would be lost.
Overall, I think that the hand embroidery worked a lot better than the patches, and weren't as distracting as the fabric used previously. However, I do think that the hand embroidery didn't look clear enough for me, and I do think that I would like to have a few more jackets with single words embroidered in place of the logo which would hold much more context of the workplace than the hand embroidered words across the front of my original fleece.
I decided to have a look online and see where I could order some professionally embroidered fleeces for a cheap price. I manage to find one place called My Workwear which offered a range of clothing pieces that could be personalised through print or embroidery. I chose to order one red fleece embroidered with one word just to see how it looks and whether or not I liked the quality of the stitch. The word I used for my first fleece was overworked. I chose this word as it was one of the most personal words to me as it was what I always felt while working in my last job, and to an extent how I feel sometimes at my current job. I made sure to use white thread, in the same font as my previous workplace and made sure it was over the left breast like official work fleeces do.
My first fleece arrived and I really liked how the embroidered text looked. It looked really effective and a lot better than my initial fleece. I think the single word is so much more effective than the complete covering of words, although the initial fleece has more of an artistic flair with the embroidery being hand made, and covering the front of it to resemble how the feelings just pile on top of me. I do think that overall I prefer the professionally embroidered fleece in comparison to the fully embroidered fleece.
I have decided to order one more embroidered fleece as well as an embroidered red polo shirt. On the second fleece I have requested the word unappreciated embroidered onto it and on the red polo shirt, I've requested the quote You're quite bossy to be embroidered onto the left breast as well. I think these will compliment each other nicely, and I do think that the professionally embroidered text works better for providing context of the piece than the hand embroidered piece.
In terms of the Degree Show, I was originally going to show my first fleece draped over an office chair, but I do think that showcasing these other fleeces would be more interesting as they are more impactful in comparison. I am currently playing around with different methods of display, ranging from placing them on plinths to placing them on a white desk folded, to having them hung from the wall. I have used some cubes to create a plinth and documented these fleeces folded, with the embroidered text showing, and I do like this. I think that showcasing the text effectively will be most important for the success for these pieces.
I also have experimented with draping my original fleece over chairs, inspired by Nicole Wermer's Infrastruktur where she draped fur coats over many chairs in the gallery space. This has been a major influence on me within this unit, and it has inspired my proposed degree show piece. However this may change now depending as I feel that there are other ways in which these pieces of clothing could be displayed effectively. I need to do some more experiments to further develop an effective method of display.
Overall, I'm extremely happy with these professionally embroidered pieces of clothing and I feel that they are a successful outcome of my work. They effectively demonstrate my ideas and themes, as well as bringing me out of my comfort zone. I think these definitely need to be shown in Degree Show in some way, I just need to figure out the best way to do so.