Digital Prints

To make my work look more professional I tried creating my prints digitally. I took the image of my current prints and tried to recreate them on illustrator. These are the results.

The original, hand drawn print is on the left and the digital is on the right. I really do not like the digital version and much prefer the hand drawn as it is easier to get flowing lines and curves.

The original print is at the top and the digital is below it. Again the had drawn print is much better as the digital is too angular and straight. The swirling lines and rounded leaves give a much better effect.

The original print is again at the top and the digital is below, the third is a test of the different ways the print can be repeated. This print has turned out the best out of all the digital prints however I still much prefer the hand drawn one. This is just a personal preference of mine and I would pretty much always prefer the hand drawn type for swirling patterns. If the pattern was more angular then I may consider the digital.

Weekly Diary

3rd November 2014

This week I made samples from my rough designs. I used a small mannequin and wrapped the fabric around to sample a few designs to see what they would look like.

I sampled five of these designs.

This design would work better on a larger scale. I would use interfacing to keep the petals sticking up and out. I would also add more petals and they would look better with different colours and patterns

This design worked really well but again would look better on a larger scale.

I tested out the skirt on this design and I really liked the effect that it gave however it would work better on a real person as it would mould to the body shape instead of the wood of the mannequin.

This design didn't work as well as the petals on the skirt didn't stick out like I wanted them to. I would need to use interfacing to make this work.

I really liked the effect of this design and the way that the skirt is asymmetrical.

I tested out one of these designs by draping on a large mannequin.

This skirt looks good however I think I may have to use a pattern to get a more structured skirt. Also I would use another fabric for the skirt so I can use machine embroidery on it.

 

 



What Is Needed To Acheive The Grade

Target Audience:

• Research into audience
• Designs that link
• Target audience questionnaire

Collaboration:

• Meetings with partner recorded on blog
• Emails with partner recorded on blog
• Notes made in meetings recorded on blog

Professional presentation:

• Photo shoot
• Digital illustrations
• Outcome - garment

Printing Companies

Printing own design onto products:

• Asda
• QPR - Oldham
• Red Bubble

T-shirt printers:

• Spread Shirt
• Workwear Express
• C2O - Clothes2Order

Short run fabric print - no minimum:

• Spoonflower
• RASmart

How Am I Going To Build External Links?

To make external links I am going to make my own website to show my work, this will act as my portfolio. I am also going to try and find costume competitions to enter and I am going to enter Noise Festival competition. There is also a magazine called Vintage Life, I am going to write an article about my work and send it off and hopefully it will get published. Another thing that I am going to do is some work experience at The Royal Exchange Theatre costume department. I have already emailed the owner and I have set it up for the summer holidays.

Connecting with Chelsea

Review of Photography Partner

This week we got partnered with somebody from photography to work with throughout our project. We will work with the same theme and my garment will be shown in their magazine. We are supposed to communicate with our partners throughout the week then every Friday we will meet up to work further on our outcomes and discuss our thoughts, problems and potential ideas.

After meeting with our partner's for the first time we are supposed to write a review on how well we worked together etc. This is a little hard due to the fact that my partner wasn't even in. I had to work on my own to come up with a theme, target audience etc. I had to make all of the decisions on my own. Normally this wouldn't bother me, however, knowing that I need to make it work with my partner and for them to like it, put more pressure on me and made it harder to make decisions. It was especially hard due to the fact that I have never met her before so I do not know her style, the way she works, what she's good at and what she's not so good at. Her not being there made a lot of questions pop up making it harder for me to complete my work.

I made this mood board linking it to a magazine I found interesting called York's New Love. I liked the idea of the notebook background to link it to the fairy tale. There are ideas for the background of the photo shoot. An upcoming film guide, film reviews, film advertisements, recipes for things to eat at films, an idea of what the costume will look like and advertisements/images of Thumbelina. I really like this mood board and it ties together the idea of the fairy tale film with the magazine.

Pitch for Costume Design

This week we had to present a pitch for a certain career which we would like to do in the future, I chose costume design. We also had to link this pitch to a specific target audience and a collection of our final designs from textiles. My pitch was a costume I designed for a film of Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina, I researched into the flowers and animals mentioned in the story and the century in which he was writing. I linked this to five of my textiles samples by choosing the ones containing floral patterns, feathers and butterflies. The target audience for my design would be the people watching the film (9-19 years of ages), the director/producer of the film. The cost of the design depends on the cost of fabric and the textiles techniques used.

 

The pitches were all scored by the members of our class and first years. These votes were added together and the winner was announced. The winner was Kate with 108 points, I came in second, just three points behind, with 105. I did a lot better than I expected and was very proud of my score.

 

 

In my pitch I seemed pretty confident however I said "erm" a lot, I will need to learn from this and learn to talk in flowing sentences, maybe I should practice my pitch a little more. You can hear me very clearly and see what I am talking about however, when I do not have a board in my hands to show to the audience I come across a little nervous, this is shown in the way I play with my hair and look at the screen.

 

 

 

After re-watching Kate's pitch I realised that, just as I did, she seemed to say "erm" a lot, also "whatever". Despite this Kate came across more confident than I did and faced the audience a little more. She always had a board in her hands and this meant she always had to be facing the audience so that they could see it. I may try this tactic next time so that I come across more confident as I won't look as nervous with nothing in my hands. 

Practice on Photo shop

I found a feather pattern on the internet and used the pattern tool on photo shop to repeat it. I repeated this process with another feather pattern and then used these two repeated patterns on flat illustrations.

The brighter pattern worked really well as it was smaller on the illustration whereas the other pattern was larger and flowed off the garment.

 I really loved the feel of the patterns combined on the garment. I also tried the pattern in black and white.

 The bright pattern also looked really good in black and white as it showed the outlines of the feather and defined the pattern.














Next I took an image of a butterfly off the internet. I cut around the butterfly shape and removed the background. Then I added a blue background and applied it to an illustration. I used a child's garment as the pattern was quite simple and the red butterfly on sky blue was fitting for a child.

The effect was beautiful and worked really well however next time I would maybe try and change the pattern to make it repeat and it would look brilliant as a small pattern all the way across the dress.

 

 

 
 
 
 

 

      
 

  
 
 
 

Workshop Diary

3rd October 2014

The challenge this week was Costume Design. We got given a Grimm Brothers story and had to choose a character and design a costume for them. The story I got given was 'Little Red Cap'. It was the traditional Red Riding Hood story however instead of a cape she had "a little red cap of velvet". I researched into all the different way Red Riding Hood has been done before and came up with the style board below.

As shown the story has been done in a gothic style, girly, fantasy and the classic 19th century in which the story was set.

I took the long fantasy style white dress from the board and drew it in my own design shown below.

 

 I then designed a long black cloak with a shorter red cape over the top to add a twist on the traditional Red Riding Hood. I took the idea of embellishment on the cloak from a haute couture design and also added it to the shorter cape so that the red on the hood stands out to emphasise the 'little red cap' from the story.

 

I added lace to the white dress and velvet to the red cape.

 

I really enjoyed this challenge and it definitely suited my style a lot more than the other challenges did.

Job Skills

High Street Designer


Skills needed:

• Need to be good at CAD
• Need to have trend knowledge
• Need to be able to create simple designs that can be mass produced

Target Audience:

• The average everyday working person
• People with jobs and some money

My skills:

• Garment construction
• Designing
• Drawing
• Creativity
• Textile skills
• Sewing skills

I am not suited to this job as I am more of a creative person and prefer to draw and hand make my designs rather than mass produce them. I am not the best at designing on the computer and I do not have knowledge of the latest trends.


Costume Designer


Skills needed:

• Drawing
• Contextual/history knowledge
• Fabric knowledge
• Textile skills
• Imaginative
• Machine and hand sewing skills

Target Audience:

• Director of commission (show, film etc.)
• Audience of above

My skills:

Garment construction

Designing

Drawing

Creativity

Textile skills

Sewing skills

I am suited to this job as I have the sewing, construction and textile skills needed. I can draw and am imaginative so can create beautiful designs. I will also learn more about history and gain fabric knowledge as I continue on my college course.


Stylist


Skills needed:

• Understand trends
• Understand clients needs
• Suit clothes to clients body shape

Target Audience:

• Celebs
• Wealthy people

My skills:

• Garment construction
• Designing
• Drawing
• Creativity
• Textile skills
• Sewing skills

I am definitely not suited to this job as I do not understand the latest trends and would not be able to work to the clients needs. I am more of a designer with my own style.


Haute Couture

Skills needed:

• Being unique
• Drawing
• Sewing
• Imaginative
• Hand sewing
• Creative
• Detailed

Target Audience:

• Celebrities
• Wealthy people
• High Street Designers
• High Street Shoppers

My skills:

• Garment construction
• Designing
• Drawing
• Creativity
• Textile skills
• Sewing skills

I could possibly do this job as I have the sewing skills and creativity needed however I prefer the idea of creating costumes for a specific production.

Target Audience

Factors that affect target audience appeal are:

• age
• if you have a job or not
• How much money you earn
• where you live
• what style/trends you are into

H&M:

• Target audience - teenagers both genders
• Fashionable people
• Trendy clothes at a cheaper price
• Price range £1-£150
• Sell all items of clothing, accessories and underwear etc.

Zara:

• Target audience - Fashionable people
• Gender - Male and Female
• Age - Teenagers to adults
• On trend clothes every season

Next:

• Good quality
• Middle aged people
• Price Range - Middle
• Both genders
• People with jobs - good wage

Aldo:

• Good quality shoes
• People with jobs
• Expensive
• Both genders

Marks & Spencer's:

• Older people
• Quite expensive/Middle priced
• Good quality
• Both genders
• On trend but older style

Workshop Diary - Fashion

26th September 2014

This week we had a styling challenge. We had to pick an image of a teacher from the college out of a hat and pick a celebrity, we then had to style them both using the latest A/W trends however the teacher had a budget of £200. We had to factor in the body shape and the event we needed to style them for.

The teacher I picked is called Ali Sparkes. She is a course tutor in Art and Design. She is in the age group 30-50 and her body shape from this image looks to be an apple shape. 

The celebrity that I chose was Meryl Streep. She is a 65 year old actress and also looks to have a more apple shaped body.



 
The event I chose to style them for was an evening event such as a ball. The trend that this came from is Shadow Play which is all about the delicacy of evening gowns. The designer's collection I took a dress from for my celebrity style was Elie Saab's Ready to Wear Autumn/Winter 2014-15 collection. The dress as shown below is elegant and beautiful but also suitable for Streep's age category as I would get the designer to make it either with the leg slit starting lower down or no slit at all. The wrap/pleated technique around the stomach draws your attention in and the subtle change from pale pink to black catches your eye. This therefore takes your attention away from the torso which is the biggest problem with apple figures. There are also sleeves on the dress, this is helpful as Streep always has her arms covered.
 

 
I teamed the dress with a nude Alexander McQueen clutch, elegant Manolo Blahnik sandals and beautiful chandelier style earrings by John Calleija.

 
 

 

 
 
To trickle this trend down for the teacher and to stay on budget I chose to look in the Debenhams evening wear collection. I managed to get a dress, shoes, clutch, earring and hair comb all for a total of £158.24. The gown still fits in with the trend as it is flowing and has delicate lace sleeves, a wrapped centre and a slit up the back centre. The wrap around centre, lace sleeves and plunging neckline all take attention away from the torso and the dress is also age suitable for Ali Sparkes. This teamed with the silver clutch, shoes and hair comb and the black and silver earrings creates a sophisticated, elegant look for someone in her age group.
 
£74.25
£32
£20
£6.39
£25.60
 
The style for the teacher and celebrity has trickled down beautifully. They both have elegant gowns which fit in with the Shadow Play trend, clutch bags, strappy shoes and delicate earrings. The differences are simply that the celebrity has all designer items whereas the teacher has items that are more affordable from Debenhams, also that the celebrity has a different colour scheme to the teacher.
 
There are a few different body shapes for women and they all have different names depending on who you ask. These body shapes change how a stylist would dress you due to the fact that different items of clothing suit different shapes better.

 


 Planning















Style board for celebrity




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Style board for teacher

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
After our planning and research we had to create style boards for the celebrity and teacher and then pitch them to the class. We were scored out of 10 on five different things: Organised and finished; Is it on trend?; Suits body shape; Cost suitable and does it trickle down well.
 
 
For my pitch my strength was sticking to all the points. I made sure that I mentioned all the points I was being marked on and stuck to the time limit which was a few minutes each. However, my weakness is that I am not very confident, this was why I was stood there with my arms folded which isn't very good body language, I need to work on this.
 

Different Careers

Haute Couture Designer - http://uk.pinterest.com/aaurora0862/haute-couture/

Elements: Many different patterns created with many different, expensive techniques, detailed and beautifully done. Each collection has a certain colour scheme which is produced using all the colours in the world. Beautiful, sculptured shapes clearly created for the runway only, can't be worn day to day. There are different textures for each different piece as different materials are used; metal, paper, plastic any material really. Textures can also be created by the techniques used such as beading, embroidery, pleating, weaving etc.

Draping Designer - http://uk.pinterest.com/aaurora0862/draping/

Elements: As with the haute couture the colour differs with each designer and collection, many different colours can be used. There isn't much pattern in draped designs as the techniques used are what the audience concentrate on, patterns would take attention away from that. Beautiful shapes can be created when draping, sometimes within the garment sometimes as an extra piece to the garment. Textures are again created within the techniques, pleating, weaving, smocking etc.

Tailor - http://uk.pinterest.com/aaurora0862/tailoring/

Elements: The colours used within tailoring are usually the classic black, grey, brown and different shades of blue. The patterns used are usually checked or striped however pattern can also be put into the lining of suits as shown with Leonard Logsdail's work. There aren't any unusual shapes within tailoring, just the classic suit jackets and trousers. Textures within tailoring only differ due to the different fabrics.

Commercial Designer - http://uk.pinterest.com/aaurora0862/commercial-fashion/

Elements: The colour scheme within commercial designing differs depending on the season, it can vary from any colour but always comes from the schemes shown in haute couture design as does the shape and pattern in the garments. The textures can again either be from the different fabrics or the techniques used.

Interior Designer - http://uk.pinterest.com/aaurora0862/interior-design/

Elements: Colours can differ with different designs however, as with most designers, there is usually a set colour scheme for a certain set of designs. Patterns also differ depending on which designer it is creating the piece, it depends what the designer is inspired by. Shapes can also come in a wide variety depending on the designer and textures again vary depending on which techniques are used.

Costume Designer - http://uk.pinterest.com/aaurora0862/costume-design/

Elements: Colours, patterns, shapes and styles all depend on what the designer is working on at the time, they have to stick to a certain limit due to the demands of the film or director. They could be designing for a sci-fi film set in the future or a theatrical performance set in the 18th century. They have to make sure everything works and fits together in a certain way. The textures again depend on the materials and techniques used.

Future Careers

Careers A-Z

 

A Assistant Buyer

B Buyer

C Costume Designer

D Dress Maker

E Editor

F Footwear Designer

G Garment Technologist

H Haute Couture Designer

I Interior Designer

J Jewellery Designer

K Knitwear Designer

L Lingerie Designer

M Merchandiser

N Nightwear Designer

O Online Sales Manager

P Print Designer

Q Quality Control Manager

R Retail Merchandiser

S Stylist

T Tailor

U Underwear Designer

V Visual Merchandiser

W Wardrobe Assistant

X

Y Youth Designer

Z Zip Technologist

 

Wardrobe Assistant – Starting salary and hours are variable. There is no set entry route for this job, just need to be interested in fashion and need some sewing skills. Practical experience will help with this job. College and university courses would help give some of the skills needed for this job.

Costume Designer – Starting salary £13,000+ per year, hours variable. Need a knowledge of fashion and costume history. Need design skills and to be organised and work to a budget. Need a university qualification and may need to start as a wardrobe assistant or costume maker. Could also get the job through an advanced apprenticeship.

Series Costume Designer Eastenders - BBC

 

 

BTEC Fashion

Oldham College 2 years

 

Work Experience

Royal Exchange Theatre Costume Department - Summer Holidays

 

Apprenticeship or Degree

LIPA - Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts

AUB - Arts University Bournemouth

UAL - University of the Arts London

 

Summer University

Northern College of Costume - 15 weeks

6 week placement afterwards

 

Wardrobe Assistant

This will help get a job as a costume designer

 

Costume Designer