Simonefisher's Blog

I have just got back from a short trip to London with college. Managed to go to the Saatchi, V & A, national portrait gallery and Tate Britain. My main reason for going on the trip was to get some photos and inspiration for my ‘Trend Book’ which is going to done using CAD, hopefully.

To begin my trend book I visited forcasting websites for the predictions on Autumn/Winter 2010 women’s wear. I also need to crate my own agancy name in order to present it professionally.

2009 Bridal Buyer Award

The concept of my design derived from the eccentricity of the 1700’s and the elaborate structures and silhouettes. My design reflects the shape and construction of the ‘Marie Antoinette’ dress but the details, fabrics and finishes are connected with the theme ‘Rock Chick’.

The fabrics I have used give the dress its own personality; I have given it a vintage look with a tight sleeve bodice is made from a pink satin layered over a pale pink cotton and is also boned, I have sewn on pastel coloured lace and covered in old buttons and charms. The sleeves are ¾ length with a green netting frill finished with a pastel pink lace, they also have a slight puff at the shoulder.

The skirt is formed up of five sections of material and has an asymmetrical formation. The top layer is a mid-heavy cream cotton which is covered in lace embroided roses, I embroided the roses myself and feel like it creates a busy atmosphere in contrast with the other fabrics. The second layers are frills of a baby pink cotton and an aubergine purple cotton, the frills are exposed under the top fabric and create an eye catching curve across the dress. The drapes of fabric that fall from the right side gives it a torn and unfinished look, the fabrics are a blue striped cotton and a turquoise green satin, the satin shows luxury and the cotton gives it a laid back feel.

The skirt’s shape will be supported by a wide underskirt so it keeps it shape.

To add more of a Rock Chick look I have added a belt that is in a ‘V’ shape and is covered in buttons, charms and beads to match the bodice.

The back of the bodice is laced up with black ribbon and belt is also laced up to keep it on securely and enables it to exenterate the waist for a flattering look.

My design oozes the appearance of an 18^th Century costume twisted with a Kitsch vintage undone style.

Designing a bridal gown was not really my sort of thing, I started off hating it and then broke through the usual bridal designs and created something that reflected me and I eventually came to enjoy the designing and concepts. The deadline for this competition is today and I had no last minute rushing, I feel as if I have managed my timing just right

Greatly inspired by origami, this small tokyo house shows an amazing sustainable structure

During the half term I have been trying to concentrate on exploring my sculpture brief more in depth and to produce some design ideas. I have my theme which is origami and have a slight idea of what level I wan t to take the dress to. I have been looking at recent collection from designers such as Issey Miyake, Chanel and Dior’s haute couture, and taking inspiration from their clever structures and pleats as well as their amazing fabrics. Following my origami theme I went into looking at architecture and how origami has inspired some designers, the above Photo shows a small  japanese house heavily influenced by origami.

Within my sketchbook I have been doing samples of pleats, dying, and moulding. I’m interested in doing pintucks but going in two different directions to give a 3-dimesnional curves. As well as having pintucks I want structures that stick out of the dress, going in graduated order. I experimented with moulding muslin to discover if when moulded it has a strong structure. I found it easy to mould but  it has a strong adhesive so once its moulded it was difficult to remove it from whatever it was moulded on to.

As part of this module I’m required to reflect on my most recent projects and identify my strengths and weaknesses.

Through exploring, identifying and reflecting my own competencies and skills, I will produce a progress file showing evidence, a reflective blogg, a presentation and a 1500 word reflective essay. I need to prioritise two or maybe more areas to work on within this module, the two areas I wish to imprive on through out this time would be:

1. CAD – Last year I don’t feel as if we got enough CAD skills within the one hour lessons we had and in order for me to produce my illustrations and flats by using CAD i really need to brush up on these skills. 
2. Advance sewing skills – I feel confident with my sewing skills to date but would like to become more advance and technical with these skills.

These skills will evolve from my current projects,  such as the ‘Sculpture’ projects which will further my sewing, and the ‘competition’ projects will entail using CAD quite alot for the presentaion of my flats and illustrations.

We had a competion brief set to us for the clothes show live to design a christmas party dress. The brief was set over a period of two weeks, and within them two weeks we had to produce a final design board with flats and fabric samples, a mood board and a design board also to accompany the project we muct produce a sketch book showing our inspirations and trends. Tomorrow is the deadline for the competition and  I produced my final design board, mood board and design ideas board with no problem but its the flats that I’m working on at the moment in illustrator. I have managed to do a couple of flats using illustrator before but found it too tedious and gave up, but today I gave it my all and stook it out to produce a front and back technical flat and even added some colour and detail. I’m really pleased with my outcome of today and felt like a little patience is all I needed and it also added a professional appearance to my presentation boards.