Garment Technology!

For my garment technology work, I have to do research boards. These are boards of images that are filled with different garment areas such as sleeves, hoods and fitted dresses. These are really time consuming but help with work as during research I can see how garments have been put together. By doing thsi, this helps me with my design work.

Wedding dress Designers!

In the future, I would love to be a bridal designer. Here are a few of the wedding designers and gowns that I love!

I love Vera Wang! Her gowns are just amazing but I don't see them as just dresses but as pieces of art as they are so beautifully made and constructed.

Another designer that I love is Carolina Herrera. I think her designs are so elegant and feminine. I love the way , they are quite plain yet beautiful.

Christmas Sparkles!!!!!

Finally its Christmas time and that means as much sparkle as possible on every piece of clothing!

After looking round the High Street shops, it is all about the glitter again yet with a bit of a twist as now, it is EVERYWHERE! I'm talking on trousers, on tops, on jackets, on desses, you name it and its got sparkle!

Love her or hate her - she makes you look!

Lady Gaga is the latest craze in every way! Her music, her attitude and her infamous wardrobe! Personally, I love the wacky, eye catching things she wears! I wouldnt want to wear them myself however but I love seeing what shes going to wear next! I feel that Lady Gaga embraces what clothes should be about - EXCITEMENT! They should reflect the way that you feel, your attitudes and your personality and lets face it, her clothes give us a pretty good idea of who she is or who she would like us to think she is! Here is a quick recap of some of the outfuts she has worn recently . . . .

Valentino - an undying Love!

Theres only one way of saying this - I just love Valentino! I feel that his collections just scream out glamour, femininity and romance which is what I think every girl wants to be! One of my aims in life is to own a Valentino couture gown so I have done a touch of research so that what the time happens, I am prepared to say exactly what I wants. So heres a few!

Flat drawings

To go with the illustrations, I also had to do some boards showing flat drawings. These are used to show how the garments would be constructed. I did this on computer which made presentation easier as I could experiment with different positionings and use the colors available on the computer. Here are some examples without the color:

Digital illustrations

For my design devlopment project, we were told to do our illustrations on computer. At first I felt that I would not be able to do this and felt so far out of my comfort zone. However after deciding to face my fear and just do it, I found that it wasnt as bad I thought and I found myself actually enjoying it and becoming more confident with the computer. Here are the illustrations:

I am really pleased with the outcome of designs and feel that I would choose to use this method of illustration again.

Designs for Rick Owens

For one of the projects in second year, we have been given the task of designing for a range of designers. I have been given Rick Owens. After researching his clothes, background and style, it was time to start designing. The trend that me and my group are using is called "Techno Rationalism" and I am designing for womenswear. Here are a few of the designs that I have come up with.

The Walker Art Gallery - Liverpool

I lately visited the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool to have a look at their latest exhibitions which I found extremely helpful to my course especially the exhibition " Bridget Riley Flashback". The exhibition is fairly small but showed her canvases which have an optical illusion style about them which was so helpful for my fashion trend that I was working on at university which was called "Optical illusion" so I used this for inspirational research. It also showed a video of Riley working and it was really interesting listening to her inspirations and style of work and seeing her create her art.

The other exhibition that I looked at was "The rise of Women artists". This was such an interesting exhibition as it showed not only paintings but also ceramics and sculptures that have been made or designed by women over the years and how it is only very recently that women have received the proper status recognition that they deserve. A lot of the pieces in exhibition are old yet there were modern pieces as well which was good as you could see how style has changed.

Within the collection was a Della Robia vase which was beautiful and was in the style of Art Nouveau and one of the finest vases that I have seen. I was interested in this because this was a local company and examples of Della Robia can be seen around Wirral on tiles so it was interesting to get close to the vase to see the detail.

I liked this exhibition because being female myself and being part of the art and design world, it was shocking to see how these women did not receive the recognition for their brilliant work even though the work was equal in standard to male pieces.

The thrills of pattern cutting!

Part of my course is to do pattern cutting. It is something that is time consuming, difficult and the most annoying thing in the world. There is nothing worse than having spent hours completing a pattern, cutting out the fabric and finally sewing up that last seam to realise that something has gone drastically wrong and you have to unpick the whole thing and start re-sewing the whole thing! On the other hand, when you have finished and it has totally worked, there's nothing to beat that sense of achievement. However, it is very rare that the entire process goes without one blip and well in my case, several. Here are a few photographs of the things I have made this year.

These are the finished patterns to make a fitted bodice. May look simple, but definitely not as simple as it seems.

After doing this, I pinned the patterns onto the fabric, cut them out and sewed the bodice together.

This is the finished bodice!

This is my finished jersey hood

October Trip to Paris!

For my friends 21st birthday we took a weekend trip to Paris and as we all study and are interested in art and design, we did a lot of sight seeing (and of course did hit the shops a little bit).

We went on a boat trip which was like a hop on hop off thing and through it we got to see the Notre Dame, the Eiffle Tower, the Louvre, the Town Hall and just other little bits of Paris. Unfortunately it rained but never mind.

The trip was absolutely amazing, we literally went everywhere that we could in 3 days, My favorite visit had to be the Opera House. Everything was so ornate and beautiful. We were lucky to have been able to go into the auditorium and see the decoration that was in there and as you can imagine, with the halls and other rooms being so amazing - the auditorium was breathtaking! Im afraid it took the shine from any other theatre that I have been to.

Something that most definitely did not have the same effect was this. After enjoying a sugar and lemon filled crepe, a cup of tea was obviously the next step and with my friend who is in my opinion the most fussiest person I know when it comes to tea (and should probably be a tea taster) I followed her advise to give one of Paris' famous "Salon de the" a go. All I can say is, not my cup of tea!

We visited "Galerie la Fayette" and it was amazing! The christmas decorations were up and were just fantastic, definitely got me the festive mood. We had a look round all the stores within wishing that we could purchase all the gorgeous things that Luis Vuiton, Gucci and Stella McCartney had to offer. However, for this trip anyway, looking would have to be enough.

What I loved the most were the mannequins! Each looked as it they had a personality, a style and gave the collections a real individual look.

After getting carried away here, we realised we hadn't left enough time to get to the airport but luckily after much rushing with heavy suitcases and turning against each other, we made the plane by under one minute but totally worth it.