Week 9 – Materiality

Thinking about materiality I wanted something lightweight and semi transparent and with the nod to bridal veils in the design I also wanted to try a material that is commonly used in bridal wear. An uncommon material for a curtain was appealing to me as going against the grain is essentially the theme of my work. The materials I tested were tulle, nylon netting, satin, panama suiting (polyester) and organza.

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To test the different materials I took three photos in natural light and three in a dark room with a phone light. Each material would be photographed as a single layer a double layer and a triple layer in the respective lightings. This layering was to test how it would react when pleated as a curtain and how much light and image would be visible at the different times of day.

I felt that tulle was a bit too fine for what I was after. During the day it could have been suitable although the single layer was a more transparent than I wanted. In the dark with artificial lighting the tulle offered no visual resistance that I was looking for, just a slight cloudy feel. The flexibility of the tulle was nice, it bent and fell in a way that would have been suitable for my design.

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Nylon Netting was better than the tulle, being thicker. Again it had a similar issue, suitable during the day but not opaque enough in the artificial lighting. The nylon netting had quite a firm structure making it harder to fall and flow nicely as a curtain.

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Satin unfortunately didn’t work as expected. I had imagined it would have more of a transparency to it especially as a single layer. Sadly I was wrong and I wasn’t able to get much out of it.

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The polyester suiting was similar to the satin, not a lot of transparency. Although it did show up shadows with the artificial lighting it wasn’t what I was looking for.

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Organza worked well in both lighting situations. During the day it had a nice variation in opacity between the layers. At night it acted similarly to the day and still allowed colour and form to be visible to different extents. The material is lightweight and very flexible. Although not the easiest to work with due to its lack of structure I think once set as a curtain like form it would have a good amount of movement in the glasshouse environment. It also has a sheen that I think would react nicely to the lighting and environment in the glasshouse. For me organza was an easy choice to make between the materials tested as it unexpectedly met all the requirements I had been aiming for.

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