At the end of our last project - Cornish China Clay we held a fashion show with the People and Gardens Charity to help them raise money. I really enjoyed the fashion show at the eden project, it was great to be able to go through the whole design process and then be able to show your work to others. I found it really rewarding to see my outfit go down the catwalk. I think that our collection looked great together and I was proud of my whole group for pulling it off!! We also made a group outfit for a member of the charity to wear on the catwalk! The group outfit that we designed and made really pulled everything together as we tried to incorporate a small part of everyones individual outfits into the final design. |
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Bags Of Love is an online company who I am looking to purchase digitally printed fabric from for my collection this year. They recently started a competition for a clutch bag design - this included designing a print and a slogan for the bag. I have submitted 2 designs to them in the hope of winning a voucher to purchase fabric from them which would come in very handy!! Below are the competition brief and my 2 submissions:
Statement Clutch Bag Design Contest At Bags of Love you can print your designs on more than 50 types of fabric, which is why we partnered with YouTube star - Stitchless TV - maker of easy to follow sewing tutorials, to bring you a new design competition. We are looking for entrants to create their own clutch bag design, inspired by the power of the graphic slogan or statement. On one side, we want you to choose a slogan – a word or a sentence – something powerful, and on the other, we want to see a print, designed by you. I decided to enter the SDC competition,I made some notes to help me get started: Buy less, choose well – timeless classic, little black dress, repeatedly in fashion so longer life in your wardrobe. What is your final product? Will it be used to dress the body or to furnish the home? – a modern take on the little black dress, by incorporating images taken using cutting edge technology Think about colour, texture, pattern, weight and handle. – majority of the dress will be made from black silk, panels of the dress will be made from digitally printed silk. I wanted the dress to look luxurious and have a nice sheen I believe silk will achieve this. I have made a print for the dress – info. Colour palette – wgsn offbeat – uplifted to fit Consider the context in which it will appear and why it is ultimately a good piece of design in terms of industry’s commercial value and sustainability. - Where will it be sold? Who will buy it? – mid level market – few but effective processes, desirable shape. I decided to enter the George competition - this was useful for me as the theme was heritage so I used work from my Cornish China Clay module. I really liked the module and though that some of my work was strong so picked out my best bits to merge together into mood boards. One part of the module that I wasn't happy with was my illustrations of the capsule collection so the competition gave me the opportunity to improve them. I picked garments out of my range plan and put them into 6 outfits, I was much happier with my choices this time around, I drew them all out and then scanned them into photoshop to add fabrics and colour. I am really happy with the outcome of my illustrations, I think they look really effective and modern. I tried to keep my work quite commercial for the competition as I think that this is important for George's customer. I included several boards with images and small amounts of text showing my inspiration and development, trends, colour palette and fabrics, technical drawings and colour ways and finally my 6 illustrations. I was given the topic Cornish China Clay workers and the shop Dover Street Market, I started by researching the china clay industry in Cornwall and how and when it was produced. I also looked at the area – St Austell, where the industry was mainly situated. Next I looked at the shop that I had been given in London – I visited Dover Street Market on my last trip to London, which was useful as I had a feel for the shop already. I created a visual customer profile for the shop which is who I needed to be aiming my collection at, the things I included were someone ages 25-35 who was fashion conscious, contemporary and wealthy. Laws of Attraction Review
The exhibition was full of outstanding and thought provoking pieces. Each piece is unique, although they fit well together. The display is held in a series of large, dark, open rooms, which enhances your view of the digital pieces. Each piece highlights a different point and makes you see things in new ways; it would be hard to pick a definite favourite piece from this collection, as they are all so different. Anna’s inspiration behind these films is a world “deserted by humans, a world in which movement is the result of mechanical action”.
A piece that captures many is titled: ‘The player may not change his position’ from 2009, it is one of the longest videos in the exhibition at 17 minutes. Shown in a large separate room to the rest of the pieces, the film plays on your emotions by changing a place that you associate with fun, freedom and escapism to one of fear and uncertainty. It highlights all of the terrors of a fairground and collates them into one video, showing an empty scene full of bright hypnotizing colour whirring across the screen, the film alarmingly ends with flashing lights and an image of a man’s legs hanging. The feet aren’t touching the floor, yet are swaying slightly. Without reading any information on the pieces before viewing the exhibition you come out feeling inspired and excited. Each piece has a distinct meaning to you, making the exhibition personal. After reading information on the work some of the initial thoughts and feelings developed throughout the show were changed, as the actual meanings of the pieces weren’t as first perceived. The exhibition is a worthwhile visit for a very engaging and refreshing experience. For more information on Anna Franceschini or the exhibition visit: http://www.spikeisland.org.uk or http://www.annafranceschini.net
The first Betty Mag was started as a 2nd year university project, 5 or 6 years ago. Charlotte studied at UCA in Kent, on a fashion promotion course. In her final year she produced the first proper Betty magazine, it was 16 pages and cost £300 to print 5 copies – although it was never published.
The magazine started out as being completely self-indulgent but then more and more people started following Charlotte on social media and blogging sites and she realised that people had the same interests as she did. The content in Betty includes Betty Recommends and Bettys Wardrobe. Her inspiration came from Jackie magazine, Good House Keeping magazine and Nova Vintage Magazines. A big turning point for Betty was appearing on Susie Bubbles website, Style Bubble! Charlotte was busy blogging for Betty and had a growing list of followers. She needed a stylist to help with shoots etc. and moved to Lincoln. She met her current business partner, Charlotte, over a social networking site and shared similar interests. Zoey and Brian started Boudicca in 1997. They both studied their BA’s at different times at the royal college of art. Whilst at university you created an identity for yourself but never learnt about business. They met in the 90’s and both agree that they were both quite naïve when starting their business. Their third show was called System Error. They had to take out a loan to buy a mac to complete all of the graphics and images for this. The garments in this show had hidden tunnels within it, giving the feeling of needing to be held. For this show they used only 1 model for all 13 outfits. They had 1 minute to change her in and out of outfits. This was a unique thing to be done in a collection show. The hairstyle that they used represented Queen Christina, who was a warrior queen – these ghosts fascinate Boudicca. This collection was showing clothes as a sexual attraction – tension, crave for touch, awkward, unknown whether it’s male or female. The collections were only majorly selling in America so they made a huge decision to move to New York. Another exciting venture happening for Boudicca was being an invited member as an independent company to the couture shows in France. For these shows they could spend anything up to 2-3 days making shoulder pads. This work was technically challenging but fabric and prices weren’t an object. They would look at the smell of a place, the look and feel etc. to decide where to hold the shows. They completed 2 couture shows but couldn’t afford to fund a 3rd! Another venture that Boudicca has been working on is animation. They believe that this is not to be restricted. They like this way of working because you can use any materials including paper, card, tissue etc. Another reason that this works for Boudicca is because they aren’t scared to try new things because you’re not spending huge amounts of money. It also doesn’t have to be technically correct as long as it photographs well. The tornado dress – 2009, to make this animation they built up a dress out of paper and cut parts of it away whilst filming using a motion sense camera. Boudicca was invited to do an exhibition at Kensington Palace – dresses the colour of time in 2010. They created 4 metal creatures that hung from the ceiling on the chandeliers and spun. Another exhibition that they did was at the Royal Opera House – just tell the truth. For this they filmed ballet dancers dancing whilst being wrapped in the lightest fabric in the world – this cost £2000 for 10m!! They also strapped charcoal and paint to their feet whilst they danced to trace the movement. One of my favourite projects that they did was in 2002 when they made their perfume – Wode. In history the highest warriors wore wode. It was made from a specific type of leaf that turns blue when sprayed but then disappears. They worked with this theory and made the first coloured perfume! Although there work is fantastic they do it for the love of it. Making different things each day and not doing the same as everyone else comes with a price of being financially unstable!!
A family member came to me with an idea of making an owl costume for a fancy dress costume, we researched online for a few ideas and here is what we came up with. This costume started out as a brown long sleeved jersey dress bought online. I started by making it shorter; I cut and re-hemmed the dress to the desired length. Now that it was the correct length, I measured the length from the end of the sleeve (at the wrist) down to the hem of the dress. From this measurement I made a pattern for the wings; below is a diagram of how to construct this: I made the two wings out of brown cotton, which matched the dress. I sewed each of these onto the side of the dress along from the cuff (end of the sleeve) down to the hem (bottom) of the dress. I also bought some `fun fur’ fabric, which I cut an oval out of for a fur patch on the front of the dress. This was top-stitched with a zig-zag stitch onto the front of the dress. Next came the fun task of gluing each individual feather on by hand! For some this would be tedious but I loved it! I started at the edges of the wings and glued a row on at a time – this was so that I could overlay each row to hide the top stalks of the feathers. I started by gluing on larger feathers (black, white, cream and brown) and I filled both wings with these. I had also bought some small delicate feathers to add a little colour and detail to the wings – I had speckled brown and blue feathers, which I stuck on over the top of the other feathers. I also used these to cover any small holes that I had missed or any glue that had been left exposed. I think in total I used 600-700 feathers! To finish off the dress I have stuck feathers (both small and large) around the bottom of the front of the dress – this joins across the wings. I also stuck some feathers on the fur patch and on the front of the dress. I have left the back of the dress plain; this really gives the front the wow-factor! I love how the costume has turned out but it was quite expensive to make and is really heavy! It is a fantastic one off piece and will look spectacular at the party; I want one for myself now!
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AuthorHolly Vintner. Graduated with a 1st class BA hons in Fashion from Plymouth College of Art. Archives
May 2015
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