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.