It's over

Ok ok it's been forever since the show and I ignored this blog after a while, but I got really busy.

I'm planning on Starting a new blog, tomorrow perhaps. So I decided I should finish this one first.

Here are pictures from the fashion show!

Big Update

Sorry, I've been busy and forgot to stay on top of this ha ha.

So I had my first fittings on dressforms for my first 2 dresses. They both fit the dressform pretty well, just a little tight on them. For both of them I'm doing a re-drape for my chiffon pieces because they don't look the way I want them to.

I've fit them both on models as well this past week, and I have a few fit adjustments to make.

The third dress is done for first fitting requirements, that will be done next Thursday, but I wanted to get before going home for reading week. It fits the dressform I'm using pretty well. It fit perfectly until I put the facing in it and now it's a little tight. Other than that little issue, the dress is looking really good. And the colour is amazing. yay!

During this reading week I am going to work on thread marking the pieces for my 4th dress and getting them ready to sew for when I get back. And I am also working on my inter layer piece for my bubble/domed skirts with crinoline and boning.

Well I think that's all I have to say for now. Tootles

first fitting tomorrow

My first dress is together based on 1st fitting requirements. It's not looking quite the way I want it to right now. The straps and draped piece didn't turn out the way I wanted them too, so in fittings tomorrow I'll have to figure out what I can do to fix it.

Started getting the second dress together today. I have the bodice all together, the straps made and the darts put in the skirt pieces. Tomorrow I should be able to get it all together in the time I have in class.

the end.

Dress #1 is starting to take form :D

I've got a good start on dress #1 for sewing it. I have the main structured bodice together, and the skirt together, and they are now attached. The right side seam is all sewn up and the left is still open because that's the side that I need to put the zipper.

When I had the skirt made but separate from the bodice, I stuck the boning in the right side seam to see if it will make the dome shape I'm looking for, and it looks AWESOME. To make the casing for the boning, the side seam of the skirt had to be a french sea. A french seam is when you sew the fabric together with wrong sides together at 1/4", then flip the garment around that seam to make it right sides together, then sew 1/4"again, this makes a little casing for you to slide the boning into.

Now, here is my dilemma, I have a lapped zipper in my left side seam, and the zipper has to go into the skirt part of the dress because no one would be able to get it on otherwise. Soo it's a matter of figuring out how to make the same seam be a french seam, and still be able to do a lapped zipper :\


Other than the closure, what I have left to do is my facings and my chiffon straps and chiffon draped piece. I am quite excited. I'm probably going to be spending all day Saturday at the sewing lab getting it done and cutting out fabric for my second dress.

woo!

Let's get going!

I started sewing my first dress yesterday! And I am officially done pattern making for all of my dresses now.

Tonight after dinner I think I will go back to the school and continue sewing my first dress. I'm very excited about it, but nervous at the same time.

Last week my class talked to the photographer that will be doing our class magazine. Each of us will have our first outfits in the magazine and it's going to be bundled with Flare magazine. Today we found out we have the funds for a $10 000 distribution with them, which means our magazine will be going national!

We still need money for photographers and catering, but getting our names out there with Flare was a little more important, and we're still hopeful we can get funds for the rest of the stuff we need.

Today I printed off my line sheet for the judges at the show and my line book that will be set out at the show for people to look at. Cost me about $18.

I guess thats all I really have to say right now, I'm sure there will be a post in the near future talking about how sewing went tonight.

Tootles.

small update

Short post today because I'm really busy....

I now have patterns for 4 out of the 5 dresses done. And tomorrow I am going over to the school to start cutting out the pieces for Prototype#1 and I will begin sewing on the 9th. And on the 8th I will be working on the pattern for the 5th dress.

I did pre-sampling for 3 and 4 and now I'm working on 5. One of my samples was a bridal hem on chiffon, that was not fun, I must say.

Anyway, that's all I have time to say right now. Thanks for reading :) 

Patternmaking and Pre-sampling

I have my master pattern done for my 1st prototype, and the traced off pieces for it will be done by Thursday. I will probably work on that tonight. I met with my professor during yesterdays class to go over the master pattern and she approved it and said I can continue on.

I am done my masters for my 2nd prototype, and I'm working on my third, they will be checked next week.

I spoke to my sewing professor today about my pre-sampling for my 3rd and 4th prototypes, I'm doing another lapped zipper, a chiffon with thread elastic sample, chiffon bridal hem, front bodice, chiffon overlay gathered band, a hong kong hem, and a strap sample.

let's get started!

On Monday my class had meetings with my design professor to make final revisions/approvals. She liked my colour balance, and I just had one design change to make. I handed in the changes today during class, along with my style summary sheet and drafting planning sheet for my first dress I'm going to make.

I discovered that printing at the print shop isn't the best way to go, my tan colour turned out orange looking, so when I buy more ink for my printer, I'll be printing off another illustrations sheet to hand in for Monday.

On Tuesday, we met with our sewing professor for her to approve our fabrics and for us to find out what kind of pre-sampling we need to do for sewing. We also decided which outfits would be made 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. For my pre-sampling, I needed to make a sample for a lapped zipper, blind hem, chiffon strap application, and a curved seam with a casing and boning, and for my second dress, pre-sampling includes a pull through strap and a front bodice with the draped chiffon.

The 1st outfit we make will be featured in the magazine that our program puts out that features one design for each designer, but with our small class, we may be able to get 2 outfits in the magazine *fingers crossed*

Tomorrow I don't have school, so I'm going to be spending most of the day doing some patternmaking, and steaming my blue fabric so its already to go when it comes time to cut out my pieces.

I cannot wait to get sewing my dresses, thats when the time will really fly by!

Back From New York

I got back from New York yesterday at 5:30 in the morning. I spent most of yesterday re-cooperating and relaxing. Today I'm going to be working on the changes I'm making and illustrating the back views of the 5 that I'm going to make.

During the trip I had meetings with my professors to decide on which of my dresses I would make for the fashion show, as well as making decisions on fabrics and colours.

My colour palette was simplified from 5 colours to 3 colours. The colours I'm using are blue, green and tan. That's right, no pink.

Each dress will be made out of silk duchess satin for the structured part of the dress, and silk iridescent chiffon for the draping detail of the dresses.

All of my fabrics and linings were purchased at Mood Fabrics in New York, except my green duchess satin and chiffon was purchased at Silk House across the street from Mood because Mood didn't have the right shade of green I needed.

New York Tomorrow!

So I printed my illustrations at Staples yesterday, and right now I'm working on cutting them out and putting them on their boards for presenting to my professors in New York.

Tomorrow I leave for New York and my class and me will be going to Mood Fabrics to look at their large selection of fabrics in search for our fabrics for our final collection.

I will have a big update when I get back on the 15th. But for now I better get packing.

colours, fabrics, decisions decisions....

98 days until the fashion show! Oh boy.

So right now I'm looking around the mood fabrics website to see if they have the fabrics I have in mind in the colours I want, and looking for some other ideas for fabrics to use.

I have all my designs done and illustrated, now I just need to decide on colours and fabrics for them. That is what I'm going to spend the day doing because I don't work today. Hopefully I will have them done today so I can print them tomorrow.

I'm sitting here on my computer right now working on illustrator. I have 7 designs complete on there, one done that I'm going to change a bit, and 2 more that I'm in the middle of working on. I think I might do a few extra if I have time, just to be on the safe side.

After getting all of the designs done I'm going to work on my colours. That is going to be a pain because I think I might involve a floral pattern, but for now I will probably keep all my colours solid and see what my professors say about bringing in a pattern. With it being eveningwear, I'll have to be careful with a pattern choice.

I'm thinking what I might do is make every dress a different colour from my palette, print them all off and arrange them and figure out which way works best, and after choosing, I will still keep the other options somewhere for later in case I need to move to a plan B in the fabric store.

I'm feeling a little better about this line today than I was yesterday, it's finally coming together, I just hope I get at least 5 of the designs approved in New York, otherwise, I'm screwed.

Thats all for now!

Some design process today

From my original proposal back in December, I've kept about 2 or 3 of my designs and made changes to them. Today I've done some sketching in my sketch book and I'm pretty happy with what I have so far. I've also started transferring a couple of the sketches into illustrator images on the computer. So far I have 5 and a half done on illustrator, and I need 10.

I'm starting to get a little stressed about it now because there isn't a whole lot of time before going to New York for fabric shopping, so I'm going to be spending pretty much the rest of my break working on line proposal whenever I'm not at work. And I'll probably bring my sketchbook to work this week to work on it during breaks.

I work at 8am tomorrow and will be getting off at 4, after that, my evening will be spent with more sketching.

Anyways That's my little blurb for the night, time for bed.

Styling Details

Before I begin sketching and illustrating for the day, I decided to sort out what styling details from the WGSN website I am thinking about using.

So here they are:

Construction

Decoration

 

Necklines

 

Sleeves

 

 

 

Trims and Finishing

Inspiration

My collection is inspired by the Mudpie Trend "Enlighten" and with Direction 1 - Aspire
all the following information and pictures are from www.mudpie.ca

Colour Prediction

Aspire. Inspired by the mysticism of India and the Middle East, Aspire's palette features regal purple with earthy tones of brown and beige, combining the opulence of the rajah with the stark, ruggedness of the landscapes. A vibrant coral pink and lime green offer a juicy, citrus partnership to the soft grey, resulting in a contemporary palette with a traditional edge.

 






Fashion Preiction

Aspire explores the relationship between contemporary and traditional culture in a flourishing economy. India is set to become the centre of modern, sustainable architecture in the East, with an evolving identity which combines modernism with a deeply ingrained sense of tradition. With growing prosperity, India and the Middle East are becoming major players in the luxury goods market with an inherent love of quality and the status of designer brands. Graphic influence comes from the lush designs present on the traditional dress of the affluent classes, featuring florals contrasted with linear styles and hints towards technology juxtaposed with more traditional imagery.
Key words: technology combined with Indian & middle eastern styles; contrast between decorative & plain surfaces; floral contrasted with linear styles; subtle luxury; tradition meets innovation; muted colours, metallics.

Welcome

I'm not really a good writer, but I thought it would be a cool idea to blog about the process of creating my evening wear collection this next semester.

A little background information for those that don't know everything about what I am going to do. Basically, I am in my third year of the fashion design program at Fanshawe College. And for my third year, I have to design and create a collection of 5 outfits. This will involve illustrations, technicals, fabric shopping, patternmaking, sewing, and so much more. The outfits will be following spring/summer 2011 trends, and be for a Holt Renfrew Customer.

Anyways, I will try to update this as often as possible, but with the work load that this next semester is going to have for me, it may be hard to update very often.


Tomorrow I am going to spend most of my day working on my line proposal because I am going to New York on January 11th to shop for fabrics for the collection.

And that's all I have to report so far. So stay tuned for the rest of my eveningwear adventure :)