Next Interview

This week, we had an interview with the company that we have chosen to work with for the last few months. My company was Next. In this interview, we showed them our portfolio and the collection that we have been deigning, mine being childrenswear.

I wasn’t feeling to bad about this interview, I had done all the work and it shouldn’t be too hard to talk about what I had been designing for the past few months. The portfolio had to be printed on A3 sheets, however when I went into class to use the printers, I couldn’t get my work up because they use a different form of Illustrator to me. I could open them, but I couldn’t open them properly. I also did a few new pages on Illustrator, but the computer crashed and I lost it unfortunately. After all that trouble, I tried to print but the printer could do it in colour and I couldn’t sort it out (some of the pages wouldn’t even send to the printer anyway!). I gave up with that and ended up trying to print them myself. I printed them all off at home, but I dont have an A3 printer so I had to do them in A4 and tile them together, a skill I learn while working in Tindalls and making all the A1 poster to go in the A Frame.

On the day, I started to feel a lot more worried, but once I got to the Minories, Jade had already been in and she said they were really nice. I had to wait quite a while but I finally got in. They were 2 young people so I felt slightly better talking to them. I really liked my ideas too! They liked that my ideas were different to everyone else, in that I chose to look at space. And they loved my marbeling prints that I did, they were really inpressed with them wouldn’t put them down. I was really happy with how it went in the end.

Sewing the Bamboo

Next lesson, I moved onto cutting out and putting together the bamboo folding idea. This was actually a lot easier than I found it would be, I did a lot of practice on the paper version so I knew what I was doing.

I started by lining up the calico version with the paper version on top, that way I know where all the marks and lines were. I then put a pin in the angle where it folds, the mark that I am folding over, and the line that I am folding to. I then ripped the paper temple out the way and did the folding. I started by pinning the fabric over in place so it didn’t fall apart. I then put all the rest of that folded fabric under the rest so it didn’t get in the way. I then moved onto the next fold. I did the same as the first one, pinning where I needed to fold it and folding it over. I did this with the rest of the folds until I got to the top. I decided to move all the pins from the font to the back, so that they could hold it in place without being visible. I will later on tack the back with a few stitches so that it doesn’t fall apart and there are not any pins in it.

Bamboo Origami Fashion Construction

For our support module, we have to design and make a final toile using techniques that we had already learnt. We also had to try and incorporate our initials into it. I found that really hard because mine is a S so it is just a wiggly line. Instead, I tried to use an A from my surname instead. I originaly found it realy hard to think of ideas but then Val game me the idea to look at TR Cutting. I really loved the bamboo folding that I saw on there and thought it would be something great to have a go at. I also thought that the make the folding look like a A shape which brings in my initials.

I started by drawing round the bodice block. I closed up the waist dart and opened it up in the shoulder dart. I then drew the tuck lines that I wanted, making sure the top two lines connect with the bust points. I decided to do my lines the other way to what they are usually done so I made it harder for myself. Because of that, I had to do my pattern piece upside down, so that it is like the original way. I turned it upside down and cut up each line to the end point. I then laid out the piece on a different pieces of paper and opened it up. I had to draw a 10cm line to open up each gap the right length and stuck them down there. I also had to make the middle of each of those lines. I continued drawing the lines so that I had the arms for folding the pieces under each other. I cut down each of those new lines to the cross line, and then round the whole bodies. The piece was ready for folding now! I was really confused by this to start, the paper was really stiff and I couldn’t get it to where I wanted it to go, and the pins wouldn’t go through.

SWOT

Strengths:

I originally went into this field because I like sewing. I did art textiles at GCSE and that was when I realised that I liked it. I feel that I want to keep in this field because I enjoy sitting at a sewing machine. I feel that I do this well and that these last few years have helped me to get better and learn new things. Crafting is another big strength that I have. I know how to knit, sew, embroider, paper craft and much more because that is what I enjoy to do in my spare time. I feel that that could help me be different because I have many skills.

Weaknesses:

I feel that I am not very good at the designing aspect of this area. I find it hard to come up with ideas and to progress further once I get stuck. I can also get lost quite easily. I am also not very good at time managment, I learned more on this last semester when I did the drawing module and had to do everything myself. I feel that I can work on this though.

Opportunites: 

I have already tried to do bits and pieces to help me get some experience in different fields. I did some costume design for a school play, I really enjoyed it and I also got my name in the leaflet which I was very proud of. Last semester,my final project was based on wedding dresses and this really interested me. I have wrote into a few different wedding stores in town, hoping that they will give me and week or two experience with them so that I can understand what it’s like and help me understand the industry.

Threats:

I feel that I will need to do more research to get into this industry because I am not fully prepared. However, as people are always having wedding I feel that they will always need people in this industry. I also don’t know if it will be too specialisted to either get into, or afterwards for unemployment and moving on.

Portfolio Pages

Over the last few week, I have been working on my portfoilio pages for my childrenswear projects.

This is my first board. We had to do a shop report on the chosen store in our project. My store was Next. As I talked about on my other blog post (here), I went into Next and looked at the collections in there.

After that, I went into competitor stores and compared their clothes to the ones in Next. I also wrote about this in my other post here. As well as high street stores, I looked at a higher end, designer store so that I could get a feel for what more money would be. I also looked at some of the trends in childrens clothing now so I know whats in trend.

For my moodboard, I wanted to show a range of ideas that I have been thinking about. I put on a few trend boards so that it shows what trends I was interested in from the beginning. I put on a couple of artists and designers that I inspired me. I then put on some inspiration, the spaceman outfits, the NASA photos, and some next clothing that I liked the idea of.

My development sheet is a collection of drawings and pieces that I did to help develop this project. We did a workshop in class where we had to bring in objects that related to our theme. As mine was about space I found it had to bring in objects that related to that, so I brought in as much as I could, but I also looked at objects by other people doing the same project. Later on, I did some marbelling because it reminds me of a galaxy. After the marbelling, I scanned it into the computer and adjusted the colour levels so that they were bright colours.

To help with designing childrens clothing. Becky brough in some clothing where we could look at the different design aspects of them. This really helped me because I could fully analyse the clothing and know what it is that manufactures put in them. The badges was one of the ideas that really stuck with me, I just didn’t want to do it in the common way they are usually done.

This is my lineup so far. I kept everything quite simple because childrens clothing is basic, but I tried to add new and improved aspects that I haven’t seen before. My dungarees, jeans and hoodie were all designed with a astronaut suit in mind. I really like this idea and I like the reinforced padding that I put on the knees, this is for a space man aesthetic but also as a safety measure for when a child is playing because it will protect their knees.

 

Subtraction Cutting

Today, we were trying out substraction cutting, a different kind of fashion construction to what we normally do. Instead of the usually was of havng a block that we work from then make from there, this one is done so that we don’t know what it will end up looking like in the end. I was very wary of this because I like to know that it will look like how I designed, but with this method I will never know.

We started by laying out two sheets of material on top of each other, then sewed round three sides so that one side was still free. We then placed two circles over it, making sure that we only cut through the top layer. The further away the circles were placed, the shorter the dress, whereas the closer the circles were, the longer the dress would be.

We then turned the fabric over and they chose where we wanted the head and shoulder holes to go.The placement occured here too, so if they were further away they were shorter. We were going for a shorter dress so we placed them further away again.We then connected up the armholes and cut them out, making sure to only cut the top layer again.

The next part was sewing it together. We started by pinching the shoulders together and lifting the dress up. We sewed along the shoulders, then along the curved lines that we just made to the armholes. There was a lot of fabric which made it very hard to sew, but we did it in partners so that we could help each other. We then made to sew the circles. We turned the dress the right way then put it on a mannequin. I found it really difficult to turn try and do the circles. I couldn’t find them in the first place, then I couldn’t pin them because there was so much fabric. We checked with Louise to see if it was right because the skirt was twisted so we had to unpin and pin it again. We did it again but it still didn’t look right, we think we did it too short so it didn’t actually work.

These were the final result, it didn’t actually end up like a proper subtraction cut because the tunnel wasn’t in the right, instead the tunnel was on the outside of the dress on the back. I like how it turned out because it looks like a shift dress, all the fabric is at the bottom of the dress shape. We then started styling it in different styles.

Sleeves

Today in fashion construction, we moved onto making different sleeves.

We started off with a dropped sleeve, this means that the shoulder seam doesn’t actually sit on the shoulder, but lower down on the arm. To start making it, we drew round the front, back and sleeve blocks. We then measured how much we wanted to drop the sleeve on the center line of the sleeve. We curved off this mark to the 2 corners. We then cut out the excess shoulder parts that we just curved out of our sleeves, and layed them on top of the shoulders on the front and back blocks, making sure that the bottom curve lines up with the original block curve. We didn’t actually make this pieces, but I have all the pieces so that I can at a later date.

We then moved onto raglan sleeves. This sleeves mean that the arm piece is conected into the neck. These are usually seen on sports tops. To start these off, we drew round the front, back and shoulder blocks. The front and back block both need the shoulder dart moved into the waist dart. A curved line that is connected to the neck hole and the armhole is drawn, this is what it will look like when sewn together. We cut out the two sections we just drew in and we placed them on the sleeve, so that the two curves fit together. These were stuck down in place. The sleeve could either be done in two pieces, so there is a seam down the top of the arm, or done in one section with a dart at the top. I did it in one piece. We traced round the pieces, pinned them to fabric, and cut them out. The first bits sewn were the darts. I then lined up the sleeve with the front and back sections and sewed them together, making sure that they are on the right side. I then sewed the bottom sleeve seam and the side seam. The raglan sleeve is probably one of my favourite pieces that we have made in this lesson. I have garments, or have seen garments that have this kind of sleeve and think they look nice. I would love to bring this into the final piece that I make in this lesson.

Grown-on Collar

Today, we spent the whole day making a grown-on collar.

We started by drawing round the whole of the bodice block. We then drew a line that was 1cm from the CF. Anywhere on that line we marked the breakpoint. We connected the breakpoint to the shoulder point with a straight line. We measured how big the back neck was (4cm) and drew a line from the shoulder line we just drew measuring that. Draw a right angle line to the right in 9cm. From the line we just drew to the breakpoint, draw a curved line that would be the shape of the collar.

We then traced off all the pieces that we needed. The original front with the collar. A piece with only the collar, the front facing. A back piece. And a back neck facing.

To start sewing, we did all the darts. We then sewed the shoulder seam on the front facing together. We then sewed the back facing to the back piece along the neck and shoulder. On the front facing pieces, we sewed the back neck facing to it. We then sewed the curved collar pieces together. Then we just sewed the finishing pieces like the side seams and the back facing to the back to keep it down.

This is the finished pieces, it was a lot of trouble to make and put together but it looks really good in the end and I am very happy with it.

Research Presentation

As part of our Developmental Research module, we had to do a presentation about the theme we have chosen to write about. I chose to write about Diversity in Fashion, I feel strongly about people not being judge for how they look and act and that they should equal.

When I started to look into diversity in fashion, I found plenty on disablity. I found this really interesting because there was so many different kinds of disablities that I could talk about. I didn’t just want to talk about disablity though, I thought I could bring in some of the gender ideas that I did in semester 1 for our diversity projection. 

FTL Moda was one of the companied that I found information on straight away. They are different to the usual companies that show at fashion week. Instead, they show new talents in the fashion and modelling industry.

For their 2015 show, they decided to have a range of differnt models, these included disabled models. The show was done in collaboration with Italy’s Fondazione, an organisation that researches spinal cord injuries.

One of the models that became very popular out of show was Madeline Stuart. She was only 18 years old when she modelled for the FTL MODA 2015 show. She has now become the first professional model with down syndrome. She has also become the face of a cosmetics company Glossigirl, she has lent her name to EverMaya for a new handbag where 5% of the proceeds are donated to the National Down Syndrome Society, and even has very own range of leggings.

These are some pictures of her modelling career. The top left one was her first photoshoot that she did, the two next to it were her walk in the FTL MODA 2015 show. The one underneath is the Madeline EverMaya bag that she lent her name to, and the one next to that is her most recent photoshoot where it was wedding themed and she was dressed in beautiful dresses.

These are some of the quotes that I found about either the show or models that were in it. My favourite quote is bottom one. It talks about how if she still get lots of attention from her second walk down the runway then that meants that everyone is still talking about diversity and inclusion in the world, however if she doesn’t get as much then it means that she as already been accepted into the world.

I looked a few comments on articles and photos of Maddie. I wanted to show what real people thought about her. Everything was very positive, which I think is really great.

On the day of presentation I was very nervous. I had practiced my presentation but I was very worried. I put everything on a usb stick, and came in the next day ready to do it. I also checked it on my sister’s windows laptop to checj it would. However, when I put it in the computer, it had corrupted and I couldn’t open it. This made me feel even worse because I didn’t have a working presentation to give. Gill gave me another chance and let me go home and fix it and come back into another group and do it. I grabbed my laptop and came back and did it. I did pass in the end but with some struggle and it really taught me that alwasy be prepared, even if you think that it will work perfectly.

Panels

Today in fashion construction, we moved on to creating panels.

We started off with a centre shoulder to waist panel. To do this, we started by drawing round the block, darts and all. We also had a back block that we drew round. We connected up the two dart lines so make one big line. We then took in the outer sides by 0.5cms and the same on the bottom of the waist darts. We traced round the 4 sections and added seam allowance to the dart sides

We then moved onto a armhole to waist offset bodice panel lines. We started by drawing round both the front and back block. We started by drawing the curve bodice panel that went from the armhole to the waist. We then measured the original waist dart and drew it in over the line that we just drew. We were adding a dart in the side rather than they shoulder so we had to move it. We drew in the dart that we want in the front, connecting with the bust dart point. We then did the cut and stick method to get rid of the shoulder dart but open up the one in the side. We drew in the balance points and cut out the 4 different sections.

We then moved onto a skirt with complex lines.We drew round the front and back of the skirt block, lining up the sides together. We drew in the style lines that we wanted, making sure that they went through the bottom of all the dart points and hit the bottom of the block. We cut up all the panel pieces, making sure the middle seam was cut out as one, then closed the original darts up. We pinned them to the fabric and added seam allowance to the seams we would be sewing. We started by sewing the two middle sections together and one of the darts at the waist. We then pinned in the curved sections carefully and sewed them in place. We kept one of the darts open so that we could get it on the mannequin and photograph it.