James Hackett

A deconstructed Jacket I did some months ago

Takes a deep breath.

Since people may be asking my views lot for the  next few days ( weeks).

I give Anya she win. I eh even vex about it, is a path that she took upon herself to walk and it paid off for her, well done!

The TV show is a TV show, and she was the right story for it. Plus her timing is good, the fashion industry, and by extension, the art world is looking for fresh new stars. I believe the Caribbean is ground zero for that. She is creative and her graphic design background plus her traveling and building her clothing line over the last few years was quite an arsenal.

Then again, is not about Anya, is it?

Read More

digital batik

Digital batik exploration next few days

Catching up on uploading the days I missed.  Creole inspired.

This was a logo I did for ” The Art of Wear” fashion line. Well it is a version of it.

More croquis sketching

Yaye finished my denim reconstruction project!

Click to see a larger version.

Simple does it keeping to just pencil sketches.

Lots of activities for me the past 4 months. Most of it I would say was unplanned but I still enjoyed every second of it. From We Does Draw outings and events to getting ready to do a comic with a bunch of gifted illustrators for our Donkey Eye Magazine initiative, the next year is going to be quite interesting.

I have my eyes on and almost ready for the new school year, my final school year. We miss our teacher and main administrator Carol Mongo. She steered and pioneered the programme for four years and now we are off.

The image here is part of a project I am working on with ZIGWA. More pics of it as that develops.

Fly Free

For the new book I thought I will bring a lot of my fashion ideas into the design of the characters, in fact I have slowed down a bit in my progression to think about how these people look. In my mind I am looking at the people and imagining us how we would dress with more assertion about our own local flavour and tastes as opposed to it being heavily influenced by specific dominant cultures.

With the douens, these were drawn some months back as I observed how a lot of  the younger people dress now. It started off with me kinda poking fun but then I thought how can I make it a cool fashion statement. I called them chicken heads with the mohawks and calf cut style jeans.

Every time I imagine douens I think of lost children, and I think in this time that is the look of a lot of these types. My designs are an attempt to put some edge to that look.

We have an ongoing project at school this semester working with established designers in the field. We chose a topic based beforehand and we found out who our designer was a week later.

I am working with Zadd and Eastman (Nigel Eastman) who will oversee our concepts from start to finish and critique etc as we exectute. I have survived round one, which involved showing my sketches, fabric and colour story. It is going to be very Project runway like. Should be fun!

September rolled around and I expected this wave of confidence and a triumphant return to my art world. I was so wrong. I found myself second guessing a lot of my work and doubting the quality of everything I do.

In trying to figure what was happening I sat back and bit and tried to slow things down, I drove myself into a more humble state ( a personal criticism that I put on myself). I realise that entering fashion year 3 I am now in a position where I feel at a crossroads, watching what I was able to do as an artist in the past and realising that I am about to enter new territory. This time it is harder work than I have done before where anything new I learned seemed effortless,  these new abilities and skills I am trying to acquire is more challenging than anything that I have taken on before.

It is a bit scary because I can’t just “wing it”. I have to go all in, it is a devotion and a passion I must unlock even more that I always reserved for pockets  of various interests of mine, but those have only gotten me so far. Now it is about commitment and me taking the plunge to do what I must to fully benefit from this decision to do fashion.