Tailoring Proccesses

This brief focused more on construction and attention to detail on garments (eg: hand finishing techniques) which initially I thought would appeal to my strengths, due to experience of previous modules. The brief required a Research Manual of historic and contemporary tailoring, including; shop reports, exhibition visits and a visit to the costume department at West Yorkshire Playhouse. From my personal research I developed an androgynous concept for tailoring, for example introducing more 'shaping' into men's tailored jackets by using the construction techniques of that of a women's tailored jacket. The second section of the brief was ongoing throughout; a technical file of tailoring techniques, for example buttonholes, shoulder pads, finished hems, the insertion of a 2-piece sleeve and finally creating a collar and rever. Although I now appreciate the knowledge of these techniques, I found most of them time consuming and rather tedious (especially techniques requiring hand-sewing.) For example, hand-padding a rever and various hand sewing of hems. I found creating the collar and rever very challenging indeed, with many elements to perfect. When it came to prototyping our own innovative version of a collar and rever, I did not feel confident enough with the basic construction to do so. However I compromised with the challenge and altered the rever only. The final section of the brief was to create a Professional Design Package. Including design sheets and a working drawing complete with sampling of the final idea. I came up with the design of a bottom rever at the hemline with a decorative take on the techniques of hand-padding. This suited my design nature of simplistic yet innovative and therefore fashion-forward.

Thankfully the sun was shining for the day of my shoot! I took approximately 50 images on the day in a nearby woodland, varying camera settings and shooting from different angles. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

I found editing the images on Photoshop very simple, as I merely experimented with the various settings to improve my images.

I chose a to display my images as a series of 6, pegged onto a string 'washing line' to reflect the images. I am extremely pleased with the final outcome and the images are more than i had hoped for, I could easily repeat this technique to promote some of my own garments/ final collections.

I set my own mini-brief, which I enjoyed the freedom of, 'To promote/display a collection of garments through photography, in an innovative way whilst illustrating the nature and fluidity of each garment.'

Imagery that inspired my set mini brief (above.)

Before the shoot, we experimented greatly with the SLR and it's different settings. To guarantee an appearance of movement and a blurred/misted effect within my images I focused on lowering the shutter speed.

Elective- Digital Photography

I was really looking forward to this Elective, as I had never used a proffessional SLR camera before...

The Brief I thought was a short, fun brief and appropraite to the time scale we were given. It consisted of; taking a series of digital images illustrating an idea/concept, to use Photoshop to finalise these images and to display these photos in an appropriate outcome.

I kept a workbook upto date along the way with written technical notes and concept ideas.

Firstly we researched fashion photographers and their styles, ie lighting, model positioning.

I was particualry taken with some images by Glen Luchford (Above.) They are hugely seductive yet feminine and the use of light creates a soft pink mist, a musk you can almost smell...

Applied Fashion Design- Briefing

We were fully briefed at the beginning of 2nd year.
The brief consisted of a brand evaluation on a chosen contemporary brand.
Creating a trend book (for designers) inspired by our summer research and relevant WGSN information.
We were then to design from our trend book for our chosen brand and produce a final collection of six outfits (including 6 tailored or denim pieces.)
6 stylised fashion illustrations were to be produced to illustrate each outfit, technical flats of garments to accompany the illustrations.
Finally we were to give a presentation to the 'head of design' at our chosen brand using PowerPoint, informing them about our trend and collection and why it should go in store.

I chose French Connection to produce my Brand Evaluation on and produced a very thorough evaluation including:
Brand History, Customer Profile, Shop layout, Trends and colours, Key silhouettes and fabrics, Pricing and labelling and finally, Marketing and Advertisement. This helped enormously when designing for their brand as I achieved a huge amount of knowledge and understanding of their brand.

I am very proud of my trend book and the majority of imagery used was my own; this stemmed from the thorough research I produced. The majority of my trend book was hand crafted and overall it looked professional, however I would like to improve the quality of professionalism in future projects (further use of CAD.)

Designing from my trend book came easier than I predicted, After producing my trend book I had a clear vision of the collection I wanted to produce. I do find designing quite taxing, as its easy to loose focus and go off on a tangent. However producing a 'collection action plan' beforehand was most helpful.

I was daunted at the idea of producing 6 fashion illustrations, as drawing is not a strong area of mine. However I researched into this and adopted a child-like style (Rodarte) to reinforce my trend. I am pleased with my illustrations and the way in which they are presented simplistically. Improvements on the rendering of my fabrics is something I should be working on in future modules.

Finally, my presentation went smoothly, i was nervous beforehand but had a clear vision of my trend and confidence in my collection. I merely shared this information with my audience and answered any criticisms I thought they would have (for example the light cotton fabrics for winter use were justified with the use of layering.)

A few of my research pages...

Applied Fashion Design- Summer Task

During the summer 2010, we were set a pre-module task to be completed during summer and before the beginning of 2nd year.

The tasks consisted of: 6 or more A3 research pages on a chosen word and including 'cool hunting.' A fabric swatch file with swatches relevant to my research, detailing fabric suppliers and prices and details of all swatches. The final task was to illustrate a dynamic 'cool hunting' image taken from the research in 3 different styles.

I chose the word 'Modern-rural' and thoroughly enjoyed the research stage. Because I had the summer and the luxury of time to complete my research I was able to collate ample imagery and sift through to pick which was relevant. I explored farmyard living and scenery, the modern farmers wife, afternoon tea and today's brands which are inspired by these; mainly Cath Kidston and Jack Wills.

I am very proud of my research and produced 9 pages, I have struggled with research in the past, however I steered the term 'Modern rural' to incorporate a theme I am very passionate about (the world of cake baking and afternoon tea!)

I found the 'cool hunting' a struggle, as it is extremely time consuming looking for people dressed in a certain trend and not always possible to take their picture. However I used my initiative and styled a friend using the new autumn/winter stock available.