Traces Project

Traces Project


Industrial shut down

Day 1 of our project me and Nat discussed some initial ideas for our team theme. We decided to look into the industrial shut down in England to give us Inspiration for a fashion trend.
We proposed our ideas to the designers of our group, Jen, Jasper and Amy. They seemed very impressed with our initial research and industrial shut down era and have decided to take our inspiration to research further for their design work.
Our theme is based on the survival of unemployment looking particularly at old factories, derelict buildings, and old industrial towns. We will take photographs and look at colours, textures and shapes to inspire the designers of the group.

For our next meeting the promoters (Me and Nat) will prepare 6 mood boards to present to the designers to show a visual mood of our ideas.

After getting to know all of the people in our group we decided to note down our strengths that we all bring to the group to help us decide what roles we should each take.

Amy – Strengths in pattern cutting, construction and fabric technology

Jasper – strengths in sourcing, designing and sketching

Sam – strengths in creating mood boards, creating work digitally.

Jen – strengths in Design, illustration and construction

Nat – strengths in coming up with initial ideas, project management, and trend forecasting

2nd group meeting

We have all researched in more detail, to expand our theme. We all discuss what we have collected and found when researching individually. The designers of our group had made a start on some sketch book work. Jen has showed an interest in 1940’s tailored jackets, and has found lots of inspirational images of stitching details, and Kate Moss’s 1940’s collection.
Jasper has created a range of hand drawn designs and wants to explore the idea of deconstruct/ reconstruct with second hand, used clothes.
Amy has researched images and photos relating to our theme, looking at rust and derelict buildings.

Our Next meeting

The promoters of the group have collected images, colours, fabrics and trend research to create mood boards to present in a group tutorial. We have shown and discussed the research we have gathered with the designers to see if it will inspire them. The designers were pleased with our ideas so for the tutorial we will have a good range or boards to present to our team.

Meeting before Tutorial

We met up prior to our group tutorial to show the designers our finished mood boards and went through what we where going to say when presenting our ideas. The designers will take the bits they like from our boards and expand into jacket designs

Tutorial

The tutorial went well and we were all impressed with the boards and ideas. The designers have picked out the bits they liked and will produce some illustrations for next time.

Next meeting

We have all decided to use a textiles student to help us with making our fabric for the final jackets. Kay has joined our group meeting and showed us some really exciting samples that we where all very impressed with. This will help the designers to create really original garments reflecting our theme.

Next meeting

At this stage the designers are very busy with constructing their garments. Kay will be dyeing and texturing the fabric for the designers. Promoters are creating professional trend books. When all the work is complete we will meet to discuss how we are going to present our final outcome. Selecting modals to wear the garments, and how we will style them. And how we will present our Industrial Shut down idea.

Work Placement

Planning for my placement

I prepared for my work placement by completing a professional CV using my CV writing notes
i then wrote up a cover letter to send to my selected company. i also created a portfolio just incase i needed to attend an interview.

During my placement I will need to record day by day diary of my experiences to reflect my progress and achievements. I will need to consider many things such as: Who I am working with, reasons for choosing my work placement, a typical days duties, what kind of work is involved, and the company structure and brief history.

There are lots of things that I want to achieve from my placement, for example:

· Take the opportunity to apply my practical and creative skills
· Meet other people in the industry
· Identify my personal strengths and weaknesses
· Apply my learning in the workplace
· Develop knowledge and understanding of the operations of the business/industry
· An understanding of the professional relevant business
· Achieve practical experiences within relevant professional context
· Understanding legal consideration and requirements associated within a professional environment

Pathway

I have decided to take Promotion as my pathway for next year as i feel this area of fashion willl interest me the most. After this terms assessments i reolized design isnt my strongest area on the course as im not confident with the construction of my garments, however i did enjoy creating sketchbook work and theme boards.
I found Buying and Merchandising interesting but i only enjoyed creating a magazine spread using InDesign. I put in a lot of effort into this piece of work as i really enjoyed using the InDesign software to create something i was proud of. Hopefully i can use this skill within promotion as i felt it was one of my strengths.
I am looking forward to studing promotion next term as it covers all the areas i enjoy and hopefully this will be a chance for me to boost my marks and produce much more satisfying work.

Fashion design Principles

Design

What I intend to do in this unit

Create a final design including toile and fabric samples, sketch book work and presentation boards. With finished garment construction.

Plan of work

- Research – present initial ideas and theme research
- Customer and market research
- Trend , Fabric and colour research
- Developed ideas presented in a sketchbook, deciding on theme, customer, and trend research
- Design ideas relating to research
- Developed design ideas showing a range of possible outcomes, including fabric swatches
- Experimentation of fabrics and decoration
- Fabric samples and materials of tests
- Final design with fabric swatches and flat drawings
- Pattern research in selected shapes
- Create boards to present research
- Create final boards to present final design including fabric swatches, illustration and flat drawings
- Elaborate patterns ready for construction
- Make a toile from patterns
- Fit toile on stand or modal to check size and fit
- Cut selected fabrics using toile and patterns
- Construction and fitting of the garment with special attention to detail and finish

Hand inconstruction and sketchbook work.

My thoughts on this unit

The first assessment for my portfolio of project work was quite disappointing. To start with I found it difficult to show my ideas in a sketch book. I enjoyed making the mood boards and presentation boards as I like playing with colour and design. Also I enjoyed illustrating my ideas but found it hard to use my research to inspire my drawings. Since the assessment iv found working in a sketch book much easier and I feel I have greatly improved, I found a way to manage my work and am now enjoying this area much more. I have tried to research in much more detail and have learnt how to take inspiration for design ideas. The current project were doing seems to be much more enjoyable as I have my work organised and I have focused on my presentation more.

Pattern cutting and Construction

What I intend to do in this unit

Pattern cutting

-I will create a set of patterns for a variety of garments
-At this stage I will be helped step by step by staff to create accurate patterns
-I will also gain experience in modelling patterns and toiles of each garment on a stand.
-I want to elaborate a range or patterns to show quality control processes.

Construction

-I will learn how to sew and finish garments in a variety of fabrics. For example creating hems, folds, topstitches etc
-I will make samples of everything learnt to refer back to when making and constructing garments.
-I will learn how to place patterns on to fabrics, then cutting and preparing for the construction of garments.
-I want to build confidence with sewing machines and pressing to construct garments to a high finish.

After completing the unit

I enjoyed the first unit Pattern cutting and Construction. Found pattern cutting quite simple and I understood and learnt basic skills. However after assessment realized I could have taken more time to make it neat and tidy. I didn’t enjoy construction as much as I was frustrated with the machines at first but after a couple of weeks I improved quite a lot. Again I needed to pay more attention to detail and make my work neater and more professional. I was happy with my assessment mark but don’t want to consider specialising in these areas as I found them quite difficult and that made it harder to enjoy. I feel that I have learnt a lot from these lessons however and look at garments in a completely different light now that I know how they are prepaired and constructed.