Major Project - waistcoat and skirt

I have sewn together the final pieces using actual fabric and I am very happy with the outcome.  I will need to finish with origami applique but I think it looks really nice so far

Major Project - waistcoat tail

I have played around with the tail and have decided to go with three layers with the corners stitched over as this will reflect the folds of the origami

Major Project - waistcoat and skirt

I have made the toile and I think I need more weight to the skirt so have decided to add lining to each layer and interfacing, then applique the origami to the front
The Waistcoat has gone together well but again will require interfacing and lining and I will need to decide on the tail of the waistcoat.  I have decided to remove the high collar though and stick with a straight halterneck.

Major Project - tshirt

I decided I wanted to design a t shirt and trousers. I have been looking at the lines of the scaffolding within my research and the caging and I have drawn a link to weaving, and the lines that make up the weaving and the shapes that are there after produced

I have been playing around with jersey and looked at ways of weaving the fabric.

I need to look into what can be achieved with the cotton and whether it is a look I want to continue with.Perhaps applique; perhaps using the Couture technique previously experimented with or maybe use the jersey itself to weave with.
I have carried out a few experiments as you can see.
I want the design to be simple and easy to wear.
The trousers I want wide legged and with an eastern feel and using the origami theme within the construction somehow.

Major Project - waistcoat and skirt

Today I started the draft for the skirt. I removed the darts and used that to give the skirt its flare.  A have decided on just two layers and I will applique the origami onto the front.
The pattern went quite well and I have decided to self line the skirt so that I can add some structure within the silhouette  I now have to decide on interfacing or bondaweb to add structure, but can I get bonaweb in large enough pieces?  Some investigation needs to be done.

The waisrcoat drafting didn't go quite as well. When I used the block I felt that the toile was too loose and I leart thst the whole garment will need lining and interfacing. I started the drafting agian fron scratch by using the stand and tape. I then attached fabric to the silhouette shaped pieces and used these to create pattern pieces. I added interfacing to the toile to ensure my judgement was correct. But now I have to think about the tail of the waistcoat and what to do.

Essay

BBC The LOOK - Material World on Vimeo

Lacroix said he loved the accidental errors that can happen when producing garments entirely by hand. it makes the peice more magical more organic and more individual.

The practice of one off pieces does not help to support the cottage industries that produce the painstakingly hand made fabrics  the fact that only one or two will ever be made and that next season that crafted fabric style will no longer be on trend means that the companies that produce these exquisite fabrics may not be financially supported enough to carry through to the new decade. History is forgotten and fashion has moved on.

Fabric adds to the movement of the body, it needs to compliment the movement and add to. The starting point for design should be the body.

Fashion design should suit everyone but be challenging.  Issey miyake and his fabric designer beleive this and it shows within his designs. Clothes that are practical yet revelutionary. He uses his couture background and education to produce clothes that are easy to wear without forgetting the craftsmanship and the art. Practical art.

Major Project - waistcoat and skirt

I have drafted the first toile pattern for the skirt and waistcoat.  I will need to cut it out in fabric and make up the toiles as there are a few things bothering me:

The Skirt:
I have concerns about how I am going to add a large origami structure to the front of the skirt and still make it look like a layered wrap skirt

The Waistcoat:
I don't yet know the best way to make the waistcoat back design or which design to use for the finished garment
I will also need to buy some interfacing before I can make up the toile to ensure the structure is true to the finished look

I have decided to make the toile up and then ask a few people for feedback and see what will work in reality.

Major Project - Drafting the shift dress

I cinpleted tgw pattern for the dress snd made it symetrical left to right, instead of off the shoulder. I have also decided to add my version of budellini by covering piping in the printed jersey and weaving it to form a cage kike structure at the bottom of the dress.
This will need to be considered for elegance and high quality.  I will need to pull on my skills from working on army dress uniform cording to ensure the best quality finish

Major Project - design development skirt

I have been looking at the waistcoat I have designed and thinking about what to design to go with it and I want to design a skirt, something that fits comfortably but can be worn dressed up or down. I am going to use a layering effect that mirrors the kines element but also holds the layers of origami
Need to design a skirt
Need to keep it layered or add origami

I have looked through my sketch book to gain ideas and decided to develop the layered designs I sketched over christmas. 

After plenty of developing and thinking through of construction I have the following designs

A basic but developed wrap skirt, the idea was taken from a skirt I saw when I visited Thailand, a sarong style skirt that could be used for by the pool and equally for an evening out. I like the idea of it being comfortable yet stylish.

Now I need to create the pattern and toile.

Major Project - Designing

I have carried out some design development and I like where it is going. I have developed it into a waistcoat. I like the one that simple has one fold at the back, I will need to starch the fabric and it will need to be lined as the inside of the fabric is the one that is seen at the back.
I will also need to think of colour, my colour palette is dirty pink, grey and a maroon, with the blues that come from the dying process too.
I need to design an item of clothing that goes with this top.
Trousers maybe or a skirt

Major Project - Dying the fabric

I have died some fabric today. I decided to use the crinkle dye process, this process means you scrunch up your fabric, giving it as many folds and lines as possible. You then push it into a small container, the smaller the better.

You place a small amount of dye into a cup and pour it down the side of the container that holds the fabric. you then weight down the fabric and wait about 3 hours, you then rinse and dry it ready for a second colour or application.

I like this process, but want to see if I will need to dye the fabric before cutting the pattern pieces or dying the pattern pieces. I will see how it works when I starch the fabric and try and fold it.

Final Major - Design development

Looking back through my sketchbook I have done a few designs that I want to pull out and develop, work into and see where thet lead, so need to take each one of my designs and develop using fabric chosen and print to encourage the process.

I really like the way this one has the top front panel folding back behind the body like the paper of the origami folds back against itself.

I also like the beading, this forms lines that grow from the garment, like the caging or scaffolding of a building

I will need to develop this design to see where it lead.

Seminar on Web Presence

Today I attended a workshop on creating a portfolio website with a tutor Ben Hodson
I learnt the following:

Before setting up a website it is key to ask yourself who is your key audience?
1. Clients
2. Employers
3. Colleagues

What is the primary purpose of the site:
1.Get Clients
2.Sell Yourself
3. Make money

4.Make direct sales

5.What is your best work?6.Always get as many opinions as possible
7.What are your greatest accomplishments?
8.Have you sold some work?
9.Have you had work published?

What is your style?
1.What makes you unique
2.What is it about you that makes you employable? Work long hours, work cheaply?

Who's portfolio do you admire and what elements can you implement in your design
Research:
1.Look at other people on the internet
2.The platform is normally quite minimalist
3.You want the portfolio work to pop out of the screen

Building a website from scratch
If you want to build your website from scratch, it is a lot of hard work. If you want a job that may require these skills then its worth considering but it is not the quickest way to showcase your work. It takes time and dedication. You can befriend or collaborate with a professional who is just starting out as a web designer. Website management requires a CMS Control Management System:
Wordpress
concrete5
CMSlite
expression engine
joomla
drupal
textpattern

Or a hosted CMS - does all the background work for you
Spuarespace
Virb
VAEAll of these require a subscription, a monthly fee, but its a vey professional choice.

You also have Social Media

Tumblr
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Google+
Instagram
Flickr
YouTube
Vimeo

Get people to follow you and this would be a strength that could be used in an interview.

Dedicated Portfolio Websites

Behance
Deviant Arts
Carbon Made
Redbubble - put images on the and t-shirts could be sold with your image on.
Photo Shelter
Design Taxi
Communication Arts
Livebooks
Smug Mug

Behance is the one that Ben recommends for Fashion and ease. These are all free to use.

Blog platforms
Wordpress
Blogspot
Blogger
Blog.com
Jux
Weebly

Mostly free, but the downside is that they only work in chronological order or upload, also it date every upload so if you haven't touched the site in weeks then its obvious to the reader and it appears out of date.

Resources:

www.dandad.org/awards/students
www.cssawards.net
www.w3.org
www.thebestdesigns.com
These websites can help you to achieve a top quality website be looking at others to help inspire

Online Portfolio content

Less is more - no less than 10 but more than twenty means they need to be outstanding in order to keep the viewer engaged long enough to stay till the end.
Everything in the portfolio needs to hold its own.
Show your website to colleagues - get constructive feedback
Only use what is important
RESEARCH - make sure you keep aware of what is going on out there
Branding - the biggest branding is your name.Make sure its consistent, tie in all your public audience platforms but keep it minimal and  backgound. 
Tag-lines, be clear who you are and what you want to be and get your portfolios to reflect that.
Language and communication - don't be boring but keep it professional. Keep it chatty. Keep it short, keep it interesting and inspire people.
Keep it relevant, keep it short.
Blog - maybe add a blog to your website even if you don't have a blog website
Contact - always give at least two ways of contacting you. without this what purpose does the website have. You may be missing a chance of a lifetime without it.
Be careful with music or anything that it directly connected to personal taste - it may irritate without  meaning to.
Ask them to contact you - Please contact me for more details. Research shows people are 80% more likely to contact you if you ask.
Navigation - top to bottom, left to right.

I am going to take another look at my website and ask my colleagues, peers and tutors for feedback so that I can improve it for hand in.

Final Major - Valentino 2013 Spring couture

http://m.stylebistro.com/runway/Valentino/Couture+Spring+2013/Details

Taking a look at Valentinos 2013 Spring couture collect and was very interested to see that he also has decided to use Budellini in a modern was that gives the outfits a beautifully aged look. This is the type of way I want to use the process for my outfit One, short dress at the front.

Final Major - Outfit 2 trousers and top

I have altered the top, amended the arm and shoulder, dropped the shoulder seam down the front and self lined the front in 100% cotton.
Much happier with the finish, toile complete!
Started drafting the trousers by slashing and opening a wide legged dropped waist block, I want the front to be like a wrap dress type opening so that it reflects the paper folding of origami, and I think it works, I will have to consider the facing and how to acheive it around the waistband with this way of opening the garment but I think the toile is nice.
Final thing to consider is whether I have an asymetric hem line on the trouser legs as per my design. During yhe crit it was suggested that I reconsider this hem kine when its toiled just in case the symmetry on the outfit becomes a little overly balanced.
Outfit two toile complete and I think I will use the top pattern to help sort the issues with outfit one, the short dress.

Final Major - Budellini technique

After visiting the Valentino exhibition I decided that I wanted to include some of the Couture techniques within my garment but at a more high street level. The one outfit I liked the most was a chiffon dress that used a technique known as Budellini
'Budellini (a couture technique specific to Valentino), where you start with a flat fabric, you roll sheep's wool into tubes, and then cover them with satin'
Valentino: Master of Couture' exhibition at Somerset House, London
By Apphia Michael
http://www.wallpaper.com/fashion/valentino-master-of-couture-exhibition-at-somerset-house-london/6215
I have looked into making these with something that has body like plastic tubing and although it looks nice its quite heavy, so I came across somee piping cord that shoild be used for piping around cushions when I was rooting around a haberdashers that was only 23p per meter and I used this with jersey overlocked to make a long narrow sock type cover and I fed it through.  I like this and will use it within the short dress at the front and the jersey top, like caging or scaffolding and the waistcoat maybe.

Final Major - Outfit 1 short dress

Started the toile for my short dress and I am not happy with it at all, its shapeless and very unattractive looking, not the look I was after. I have tried to pin it to give it more shape but there is still something wrong, I think I will move onto another outfit and come back to this one when I've thought about it some more.

Final Major - Draft Outfit 2 Top

The design i am working to is as attached
After making my first toile for the top I have decided that it is too shapeless and I want a little more structure.
I decided to change the neck line so that it was without polo styling and amend my long dress so that it was polo necked. Also improve the armhole as it seems to pull. Finally I will change the fabric at the front so that its 100% cotton, I will have to see how it looks if I self line the front but I will also have to look into having a seam across the front so that the shoulder weaving is still in the jersey one the front and back and remove the shoulder seam as I dont want a join in the middle of my weaving.
To do: amend pattern and re-toile