Researching for Unit X project, I explored the Heritage Craft Association Radcliffe Red List of Endangered Crafts and decided to choose skills such as Button Making and Passementerie. The reason I chose these was due to the fact that I wanted to either produce a piece of jewellery or body adornment and believed these crafts would be best suited to this idea. Whilst investigating these skills I not only observed the information provided by the Red List but also used various other websites and visited a couple of exhibitions in order to find both historical/cultural context and contemporary artists/ designers/ makers that use the crafts I have chosen. For instance, I found that Button Making in Britain originated in the 17th Century beginning in Dorset and Passementerie was founded in around the 16th century in France. Despite it being unknown when this craft began to become relevant in the UK, it is known that its production here began in cities such as London and Manchester. Furthermore, from my investigations I discovered some contemporaries who use  traditional techniques to work with materials and processes, which would aid me with my own work. For example, makers such as: Yann Petillault a French company who produce hand stamped ceramic buttons, dress maker Felicity Brown who incorporates fringing passementerie into her designs, University of Westminster graduate Eleanor Amoroso creator of fringed body adornment and sculptor Kate Haywood maker of pieces from porcelain, glass and metal incorporated with textile elements. In addition to this, I also found relevant work from different cultures, for instance pieces from the South Asian Design exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery such as the women’s Anarkali dress produced by Tarun Tahiliani Studio, the children’s tunics created in Kachchh Gujarat India and the Cap made in north west Pakistan. The reason I believed that these would also be relevant to my work was due to the fact that they were heavily adorned with passementerie: buttons, beads, mirrors and tassels, and would also link with our group’s chosen theme even more specifically my selected aspect of it. This aforementioned theme, was European Medieval Myths and Legends; the section I chose along with another member of the group was Arthurian Myths and Legends. I chose the reimagining of the Poem the Lady of Shalot by Alfred Lord Tennyson (which the other AMaL member chose); the name of the poem being Lancelot and Elaine written for his book Idylls of the King. My reasoning for why the said pieces from the South Asian Design Exhibition, Kate Haywood Show and the work from those chosen designers/ artists / makers was significant to my particular narrative, was because they connected well with my favourite part of this quote from Tennyson’s poem:

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Well, I will wear it: fetch it out to me:
What is it?' and she told him 'A red sleeve
Broidered with pearls,' and brought it: then he bound
Her token on his helmet, with a smile
Saying, 'I never yet have done so much
For any maiden living,' and the blood
Sprang to her face and filled her with delight;

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Moreover, I believed that this phrase a ‘A red sleeve Broidered with pearls’ would both fit brilliantly with my crafts of Button Making and Passementerie and my idea of creating a piece of either jewellery or body adornment using my preferred material of ceramics as well as trying out other mediums such as textiles and found objects in order to create said final piece.

Once this project was underway and designing and material investigations for my outcome were being produced, I did some further research into aspects that linked not only to this part of the quote but also the whole theme of the poem – unrequited love, grieving and ultimately death.

This research was based around searching for visuals of death shrouds, grieving veils, death related festivals and cultural burial rituals. As well as this I also gathered images of depictions of Elaine and her demise at the end of the poem. Using this research, I changed my design from unimaginative red passementerie cape, to scarlet, pearlescent beaded and ceramic buttoned tasselled sleeve/possible contemporary, characterised grieving veil.