“Live your life, do your work, then take your hat”

My favourtie piece I made this year, was my hat that I produced in my Millinery elective.
I think it was very sucessful in terms of how I wanted it to look, and I was very proud of myself, especially as I found hat making is a hard process to go through. These are final images of the hat.

Millinery - Elective

Millinery:

Today, we had our first session in Millinery. I was slightly worried about it thinking it was going to be really hard and quite challenging, but the tutor demonstrated how to mould the felt onto the chosen crown template, and although it required a bit of 'elbow grease' it looked relatively easy and simple. Most people decided to go straight into the moulding of the felt. But i decided along with a few others to carry out some research first, as there are so many different designs i want to be sure with i design i go for as we only have one chance to make a hat. I like the cloche hats of the 1920's but i tend to go for that type of era quite a lot. As its a black theme, i want to go for a simple, sexy, sultry hat, with millinery netting. But at the moment im still brainstorming ideas. I had a really productive day, and produced a moodboard on photoshop, which suprisingly didnt take that long and was really sucessful.

The millinery process: Add steam, and push onto crown template. Do this several times, need it on to the crown. Add pins and elastic to keep into place, and add steam and pull through.

Fashion, Art and Culture

Fashion, Art and Culture:
We started this on this new module, on the 15th of January. And the seminars consisted of a run through of the history of fashion starting from the early 1900's all the way through to present. I have really enjoyed these lectures, because i don't feel any courses i have done have ever done taught you a history of fashion. The way it was taught was through a slide show, and the tutors would explain each slide thoroughly giving you a chance to write down notes for yourself. Ive noticed in myself, that I am becoming much more of a quick learner, i was worried initially that i wouldn't remember things from the sessions, but i have found it really interesting and i think that helps you remember facts a lot more. I wasn't so sure about the discussion bit of the day where you converse with others about what you have learnt as i felt we had already done that, however, i really like how the tutors put you into different groups as it enables you to meet other people in your class. A technique i do hope they carry on with as i feel i still haven't met everybody.

My View:

I was really shocked that technology hasn't actually been around for that long, and its only designers such as Hussein Chalayan and Gareth Pugh who have actually made it as futuristic designers if you like. You can argue that it has been around for longer if you think about when new fabrics were invented, that in itself is new technology. But i am thinking more along the lines of information technology being Incorporated. i.e. Hussein Chalayan's Aeroplane dress.
I was also surprised with the whole "ideal woman" being around as early as 1905 when they had the Gibson girl being the girl that every woman wanted to be and every man wanted to be with. I found it interesting that, that early on, popular culture was starting to arise. I'm starting to look at fashion history as being a sort of domino effect, everything influences the next thing, the next movement, the next style. Very interesting how the war was such a major influence on fashion, because the men were at war the usual jobs a man would undertake - a woman would then have to do, because obviously the man wasn't around. Once taking up this masculine role, they wouldn't obviously wear their pretty womanly clothes and wouldn't throw on something less feminine. After getting a taste of this, trousers and casual wear for women became more common to wear. - It just makes me wonder whats next for fashion? After this futuristic movement in fashion... what more can they possibly invent? That sort of worries me.. where my place in fashion lies.

Resultsssssssss

Critical Studies - A while ago i did my presentation and essay. And i got my mark back recently and was really suprised, i did not think that i was going to achieve a good mark with it, as i was extremely nervous about speaking and thought that it might show through.. but i got a mark i was really pleased with and my confidence increased :)

Creative Design Practices and CDR

Creative Approaches to Fashion: - Notes taken from my notebook.

We had a new briefing, i really liked the sound of this module, the first task was to sign up to the wgsn-edu.com website and find out the trends for Autumn/Winter 08, we was then sent out to find items of clothing that portrayed the trends for the season. With these photographs and research collected we had to represent four chosen trends of the season in four A3 moodboards using a mixture of hand rendering techniques and photoshop.. Aghh the dreaded photoshop!. I chose, Old Heritage, Soft Tech, On The Move and Kitch Mix. At the beginning the market level report really worried me, i was apprehensive into going into the big stores like Harvey Nichols and taking photographs of their clothing. So my biggest mistake in this project was putting that off for a long time, which meant my time management was off.

Christmas Holidays! - Felt so good returning home over Christmas, and worked the whole time to earn some money, i work in a department store which meant i could gather inside information on different concessions, like Warehouse, Miss Selfridge, Principles etc which would help me with the first part of the project, the managers were really helpful, and gave me lots of Visual Merchandising packs, and their trend boards for the A/W08 season.

However, i unfortunately got really ill over the Christmas holidays, and have been since which effected my work. I came back from the holidays, feeling down and worried that i hadn't done much work, however i knew i had time to catch up, and found that everybody else had fallen into that comfortable routine of home, and hadn't completed much either. Lesson learnt. Will not do that again!

Since then, work had been steady and have found it really easy to complete the research and really enjoyed doing it!

The CAD workshops are interesting although i did find that i came out with a migraine after every one. and you do find that its alot of information to take in with one session.

The Final Line Up! - Well that only took four hours to complete...... i do not like photoshop. But practice makes almost perfect! and although it was extremely time consuming, i am so so proud of myself with the final outcome, and i have learnt sooo much with photoshop! I designed for Zara, and my collection was really good, i was really happy with it. Having worked in retail for two years, I know what a collection should look like, although it being the first collection Ive designed now looking back, there are things i would change. But knowing you can improve is a good thing.

Creative Design Realisation:

I was looking forward to this for ages. Having doing a foundation at Camberwell College of Arts, i knew how to complete a good body of research however, they never taught us how to pattern cut or put together a garment.

I was eager to learn, although found it incredibly difficult, I spoke to Angie, and she said my problem was i couldn't see the how the pattern pieces would fit together into a garment, which i completely agreed with.... it just looked like a bunch of lines. I found the lessons were really good and we were taught well, we all had the chance to have one on one with the tutor, and i learnt alot in three lessons. I was pleased with the final outcome, although when i got my feedback and mark i was slightly disappointed, it said that i relied too much on help and needed more confidence - a problem that has been repeated a fair few times in my education. I do feel, that i was awarded the mark i deserved, and took it as constructive criticism and reminded myself that i am still learning. :)