Final Digital Collection and Garments

Although I have experimented with my digital print collection quite a bit I finally decided to keep it completely digital. I also altered the colours again to make them more vibrant, like my inspiration Clover Canyon. Prabal Gurung was the inspiration behind bringing back solid lines and grids to contrast with my distorted imagery. I really like how this looks against the more detailed watercolour images, and I even brought it into my screen print collection too.

I also developed my garment shapes to go with my digital collection. Julie's Fashion workshops helped me to look into shape and drape. After more research I found a company called SaboSkirt. They do a lot of relaxed beachwear for higher end high street, but also have a luxe range which is where I found a lot of garment shape inspiration. I particularly like their waistbands and the way some of their garments cross over.

I used images like these and also my stand work/drawings to draw up some designs for garments. I was quite happy with how these turned out, although the only thing I would have liked to try would be attempting a toile to photograph. Due to time restrictions I've had to put my time towards other things, however this might be something I try during Unit X. 

I haven't had my prints digitally printed this unit as some of the fabrics I wanted cant be printed on in our facilities. I am submitting mounted paper prints with fabric swatches to explain my thoughts. 

Projection and Garment Research

As I have been very stuck with my designing this Unit, I decided to do some projection onto stand work. This process has really helped me in the past and I felt that it would benefit me this time too.

Rather than aim for actual garments I decided to just create as much drape as I could, so that I could see what draping might do to my prints.

Even though the stand work I did wouldn't be practical for a high street garment, I believe I can still take inspiration from them in order to draw up some more realistic ideas.

I used my projection photographs to play around with illustrations and placement on the body and

I realized I need to look at length, as well as researching what garments I actually want to design. 

Although I roughly dragged and dropped these images, I think they have helped me to decide what kind of shapes I want. I plan on looking further into this and also using these images to help develop my print designs. As I want to make a high street collection I need to make the garments more wearable.



Print Designs and Bradford Textile Association

I took the drawings I created last week into Photoshop and tried to generate some motifs to design with. These were really easy to put together and blended how I intended successfully. I am happy with how the black and white line drawings look in contrast to the colourful mark making, and I think they give a similar feel to the Clover Canyon garments I looked at previously.

I found it difficult to keep in mind my fashion context when designing prints, and I felt that some of my designs weren't suited to be used on clothing. I am also concerned with my colour palette as I think the bright pinks and blues are becoming too over powering. Many of the designs I made are repeat prints, I feel I need to explore more print placement designs instead to hopefully help me develop further.

I attempted some fashion collage illustrations with my prints in order to try and inspire myself to create print placement designs, and also to try and get an idea of what shape I am going for. I have been conducting market research during Julie's fashion workshops, and in particular I am drawn to garments that have drape. I like the idea of my prints being distorted even after the print itself has been created.

For the Bradford Textile Association live brief I decided to take one of the prints from my self initiated project and adapt it to a live brief. I wanted to submit something more traditional and elegant for this brief, which is why I reduced the colours to black and white. I found it interesting to see how changing the colours of a print can alter its whole vibe.

I decided to put the black one forward for Bradford because I like the proportion of black to white. I haven't often done this with my work and I feel like it really works well with this print.

Unit X | Final Collection

Our presentation to Tom went well last week, and the main point to improve on was the presentation of the samples, and to provide pictures of the knits as they are too complicated to draw. We were really happy with the feedback we got from him and the other groups.

Now that the group work is done we had a week to focus on our individual projects. We have continued to work together in the studio to help each other out until the deadline. Me and Pipp have been taking advice from Nicole on things we haven't had to do before, like garment flats, breakdowns of each design and other things we need to create a final collection file. I'm glad we have had this unit to learn things that are needed to design for the fashion industry, such as technical drawings and range plans. I feel like learning these skills is going to benefit me in future units.

I finally put together my final collection. I made decisions based on people's opinions and I also tried to incorporate as many of my best samples as I could. I wanted to make use of both my print and embroidery samples so that there was a mix of texture through my collection. 

I am happy with the way my collections looks, however if I could go back and change one thing it would be to be less safe with my designs. As this is the first fashion unit I have done I was focused on the new processes we had to do. In the future, I would like to me more experimental and out-going with my final collections. 

Unit X | Group Presentation

This week we have been working on the group collection for the presentation to Tom from James Long.

Although we have been going into the studio and working around each other while we talk through ideas, we have been working on our own collections, just keeping links between them. Our drawing styles really vary so we worked together to create 12 final garments that incorporate everyone's designs.

We all sat and decided on what outfits we were going to create before drawing them out. This really helped us to not throw garments together for the sake of it, and we thought a lot about placement, colour and texture. Elle and I drew the garment shapes, then each of us filled in the area which was taken from our designs. This worked really well for us as our drawing styles came together successfully without the job being left to one person. I am proud of our final line up and I think we worked really well as a team.

Unit X | Starting to Design

This week we started to take our ideas and turn them into actual designs. Me and Pipp are used to just sampling fabrics and materials, so this is another step further for us. I have previously experimented with placing prints onto very plain and basic garments however I haven't yet designed my own in such detail.

I really enjoyed designing different outfits. I started by drawing templates in order to put in different prints in different places and experiment with placement and tones. During our tutorial with Louise, she told us about range plans and showed us Prada 14 as an example. The collection followed a certain set of trends or elements and injected them into various different garments. For example, they repeatedly used large faces on their designs, imitations of bra shapes on the chest and sports trims. 

I tried to keep this in mind when creating my own designs. I wanted to keep our concept of martial arts in mind at the same time, so I decided to repeat these elements; cross over v-neck, cinching at the waist, culottes, various fabrics wrapped around the body and sheer fabrics. I chose each of these based on martial arts uniforms such as karate jackets and kickboxing shorts.

Unit X | Fashion Collage and Muse

We've had several workshops since Easter with Sarah, which have been focused on fashion illustrations and collages. The first thing we had to do was pick a muse to aim towards and take inspiration. The muse we chose is the lead character of the film 'Stick It'. She is a boyish personality with a lot of attitude and opinion, but also has feminine features and is pretty. This is the mix that we have been trying to achieve in our collection. 

I started by sketching different images of her facial expressions to work and collage from.

 The next step was to collage together some illustrations, trying to locate where different textures might be on a garment or what different pieces might be made of. I particularly tried to work on print placement and scale, using the photographs from the projector work really helped with shape too. I think these went quite successfully considering I've never done them before and felt a bit lost to start with. I realized the trick was to not think about it too much.

Unit X | Stand Work and Design Development

To start off the design process, we decided to look at the structure of martial arts garments that already exist. Nicole purchased a karate uniform online so that we could do some stand work, and pin it in different formations. One of the things we specifically tried to do was see if we could make the bulky/spacious garment look more feminine.
This helped us to picture what kind of garments we might have in our collection.

In our tutorial with Louise she suggested that we test print placement with a projector. After we had our screens sent off we took our chosen motifs to the projector to experiment. Unfortunately because of the projector the edges were blurred, however we could still get a jist of what the print looked like. We might have to try the process again with smaller images on the acetate to see if we can get a well-focused image with better positioning.

Locating | Unit Evaluation

The Locating Unit is the first in which we were required to produce both a Self-Initiated Brief and a Live Brief. Producing two sets of work along side each other has been really beneficial for me, and I feel I have produced better work because of it. I thought that I would become stressed and find it difficult, however if anything I have been more relaxed.

 I often get frustrated with my work because of seeing it too much or getting temporarily stuck. Sometimes I need to take a break from it or a step back in order to overcome the issues. Having another project to work on at the same time has meant that I haven't had to stop working to take a breather. When one project came to a stand still, I would work on the other until I was ready to resume both. I also think I made less mistakes because I wasn't doing things for the sake of doing something, I had more time to think about what I wanted to do. My time management has always been one of my strongest points, however I feel like having two projects has helped me improve it massively.

One of the things I feel I could have done more of is new techniques. I have developed my skills in Photoshop which is what I stated I wanted to do when I wrote my brief;  the Mirror-effect, Offset Repeat and Image Editing are a few of the things I have experimented with. However, in a way I wish I could have pushed the boundaries a little more and tried something completely new. I will definitely be pushing myself to do this is Unit X.

Nevertheless, when it comes to processes I have greatly benefited from experimenting with stand work. I find it way too easy to just copy and paste a print onto a garment in photoshop. The stand work made me really consider where the print was going and how it would look on a finalised garment. The anatomical feel to the final collection was largely due to the placements of the prints as a result of using a mannequin. I will definitely be repeating this development process in future units.

One of the learning objectives in this unit was to build networks and contacts as a career development resource. I took part in a Threadless competition and also adapted my self initiated work to fit a Bradford Textiles Association brief. As I said above I felt this was beneficial to me in terms of time management and work load.

In addition to the live briefs, I also decided to create profiles on popular social medias to get my work seen by the outside world. This has certainly been a productive and valuable process for me, as the responses have helped me gain confidence in my work. The positive feedback has enabled me to overcome the fear that people won't like my work and that it isn't good enough, as well as giving me the confidence to send my work to companies or designers.

Additionally, the career development objective pushed me to write and design a creative CV that I can send to companies or use to apply for internships and placements online. My aim is to use this to arrange some placements over summer.

Overall during this unit I think I have come out feeling like I know where I belong in the Textile Industry. Through briefly dabbling in interiors I know that fashion is the right direction for me, and I have also cemented the fact that digital printing is where my strengths lie. The self-initiated brief shows me that I am capable of setting myself useful goals and achieving them. Positive feedback from social media and also from Louise Whitaker makes me think I am ready to connect fully with the outside world and start experiencing it myself through internships and placements.

   

Locating | Final Collections

This week I made the finishing touches to both my high end and high street collections.

I'm really happy with how they both turned out. My main fear was that the garments wouldn't be appropriate for the audience intended, as in the Intentions unit I aimed my collection at high street and although it was still high street in the end, the collection was more suited to high end high street, which was technically a different consumer.
Overall I am happy with the final garments and the prints themselves. This week I will be attending to finishing touches such as presentation of samples, consumer boards and finalising my submission for the Bradford Textiles project.

 

 As my final collections are finished I had to choose fabrics for each print to be printed on. This process is very limited for me as I don't have the budget to buy my own fabric rolls, which means I have to use the ones available to me in the studio. I have experienced these fabrics from the previous unit so I already have knowledge of which ones will or won't work for this units prints.

Luckily, most of the fabrics weren't too different to what I imagined the garment to be in which was a plus. After choosing the most suitable fabrics for each print, I had three different materials being printed on; Habotai, Cotton Optic and Cotton Satin. I am really looking forward to seeing how these turn out this week.

 The only major change I would have liked would be the sweatshirt and tshirt in the high street collection, I would have preferred those to be in a more stretchy Jersey material.

Locating | Fashion Illustrations

Part of my self initiated brief for this Unit stated that I wanted to develop my fashion illustrations and make them more outgoing and playful. Because of the colourful and lively nature of my prints I feel like this is the perfect opportunity to create crazy illustrations to go with them.

I began with photographs of my friend's faces and altered them in an app to give perfect complexion and increase the size of their eyes, overall making them look strange. I found an artist on Pinterest called Niky Roehreke, who's collage work inspired me to collage peculiar hair onto my faces using marbling photocopies. I loved the results because of how ridiculous they look.

After showing these in my weekly tutorial it was suggested that I also add block colour features like eyebrows and lips to make them even more bizarre. At first when I did this I wasn't sure if I liked them or not because they really were strange, however I have definitely warmed to them and think they go perfectly with my print designs. They are particularly suitable for my high-end print collection.

I then experimented with poses to see if they looked better. However, with the addition of the heads the weirder seemed a little but too much and looked way over the top. Because of this I decided to go back to the original basic standing position with arms by the sides. I feel like this works better because it doesn't take attention away from the faces and also shows the garment well.

 There is a more cartoony-like feel to my illustrations this time, which definitely goes well with the print collection as it is very colourful and reminiscent of pop art.

Intentions | Fashion Illustrations

In order to start putting together a final collection of garments I needed to create my own fashion illustrations to photoshop them into, and make sure they are keeping in with my theme.

I see my collection is being grungy, which fits in with the original theme of 'Urban Influences'. I took to Pinterest again to research before creating my sketches, making a collection of fashion illustrations and mood boards to take inspiration from [Illustrations/moodboards]. I also did this to get ideas of how I might present my final designs when it comes to doing so. 

After tracing the garment shapes I wanted I then edited them by drawing in what I wanted to change.

The hair and shoes were the main things that needed changing, as well of a couple of arms and legs in a different position. On Pinterest I found that Grunge shoes were chunky and simple, and grunge hair was messy and undone with minimal styling if any. These are the ideas I want to portray however I also want to keep the idea that a certain amount of effort has been made too. I played around freehand with these ideas until I was happy with my sketches. The shading/scribbles links to my grunge theme and makes the sketches more my own. Here are the final designs:

Photoshopping my prints onto my sketches has gotten me really excited, I can finally see a collection coming together.

My plan is to create a couple of designs on each garment to begin with. To narrow it down to a final collection, I am debating asking people around the studio and making a tally chart of people's favourites, then using the results to pick my final garments. I want to be working towards a high street audience in particular young adults, which means the opinion of university students could really be a big help and give me some direction.

Intentions | Garments

In order to have an idea of what my collection would look like, I have been photoshopping my designs onto garments that already exist. I needed to get a sense of what I want my designs to be made into, so to brainstorm I took to Pinterest. The board I created, Garments, has a mix of outfits, individual pieces I like and also some plain garments which I can see my prints being used on. 

So far I have decided that I would like to create a collection of T-shirt dresses and possibly some skirts/shorts. I have created an inspiration board of garments similar to the ones I would like to make. This has really helped me to visualise my end products in more detail. The vision I have in mind is taking my grungy prints and using them on more feminine garments to create a 'girly-grunge' collection. This is what I have in mind when I picture a final collection.

Now I plan to spend time on photoshop using masks to really experiment with my designs and where I would like them to go.