Alexandra Tourison
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Table of Contents
About Me/Resume
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Computer Aided Design
5-6
entrepreneur Collaboration
7-8
Study abroad in paris
9-14
The grace house project
15-18
fashion show production
19-20
The “struck� collection
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contact information
25-26
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About Alexandra
Taught from my mother, my sewing skills started with pillows and continued with tote bags, costumes, and my senior prom dress. I knew Dominican was the right college for me when I learned that the Apparel department has a demand for strong technical sewing skills. Throughout my years at Dominican University, I have had amazing opportunities to explore the world and perfect my sewing skills. I obtained hands-on tailoring skills by designing and creating business wear for a lovely woman living in the Chicago Grace House, which houses women who have been through the Chicago prison system. That experience trained me in business wear and tailoring, but also made me aware of how special something as simple as a blazer and pants can be. For these women, it was a second chance. Through the study abroad program, I spent a month in Paris, France where I learned couture draping techniques and worked at Paris Fashion Week. Networking through a professor, I interned for Pamela Penney, fiber artist, where I assisted sewing lessons for both children and adults and learned about how to run my own business. I am driven to continue to expand my knowledge of sewing by working either independantly or alongside a well rounded company, tailoring and creating clothing to give everyone the fit and look that they deserve.
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Alexandra Tourison 106 S. Kenilworth Ave. #2R Oak Park, IL, 60302 616-610-9187 alexandra.tourison@gmail.com OBJECTIVE To obtain a position as a seamstress or master tailor for a well-rounded company and to work diligently and enthusiastically to fit garments to every client’s demands. To use outstanding sewing skills alongside a team of professionals to provide perfectly fitted and sewn products.
EDUCATION Dominican University, River Forest, IL Major: Apparel Design Minor: Sculpture Dean’s List 2013, Merit Scholarship 2011 – Present
2011 – May 2015
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE The Grace House Project, Chicago, IL Participated in community service project at The Chicago Grace House Designed, fit, and created a custom three piece businesswear ensemble for resident Obtained exceptional tailoring and fit skills Professionally featured in The Chicago Tribune Internship: Pamela Penney Textile Arts, Oak Park, IL Gained entrepreneurial experience working alongside self-employed business owner Hired by dance studio to design and sew costumes for annual recital Assisted teaching weekly sewing classes for both children and adults Customer Service Position: Elite Images Salon, Holland, MI Scheduled customer appointments Assisted management in product orders
2014
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2010-2014
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE Study Abroad in Paris, France 2014 Attended Paris American Academy Underwent intensive summer workshop learning couture draping skills Worked backstage dressing models and hosting couture fashion shows during Paris Fashion Week Obtained skills in draping and millinery People to People Student Ambassador Traveled to Spain, France, and Italy 2008 Traveled to China 2009 Traveled to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands 2010 COMPUTER/SEWING SKILLS Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Power Point, and Outlook Adobe: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign PAD System: Computer Aided Patternmaking Sewing Tools: home sewing machine, home serger, industrial sewing machine, industrial serger
Computer Aided Design and Adobe Illustrator Using digital PAD system and Adobe Illustrator to patternmake and digitally print fabric The PAD system is a digital patternmaking program, opposed to patternmaking on paper. It’s influencial for large business to create patterns faster and easier. It creates patterns and adds notches and seam allowance all in one program. Using this program alongside Adobe Illustrator, a digitally created dress was designed and sewn. The inspiration behind the dress was the Japanese folk tale entitled “The Crane Wife”. It involves curiosity, adoration, and innocence of a poor man marrying a woman. When asked to never see her weave tapestries, the man’s curiosity gets ahold of him. While peeking, he sees that his wife is nothing but a wounded crane, weaving her own feathers into the fabric. The crane flies away, leaving the poor man alone. Using Pantone’s summer 2014 palette “Flux”, pastel greens and pinks create patterns of cherryblossoms and embracing cranes to capture the adoration between the man and his crane wife. Using a digital fabric printer, these patterns are able to be printed onto fabric and used for the dress.
Pattern swatches and flats for dress design, later to be printed over cotton fabric
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The dress itself includes a sweet-heart neckline and a flirty gathered skirt, to show the innocent relationship between the poor man and his wife in the story. The pink crane pattern called “Adoration” is used for the bodice of the dress, having the embracing cranes holding the model’s torso. The green and teal cherryblossoms called “Innocence” adorns the straps and skirt, having the petals dance in the wind. The result is a flirty and innocent sundress perfect for a picnic.
“Soft as fontanelle, the feathers in the thread. And all I ever meant to do was to keep you. My crane wife.”
-The Decemberists “The Crane Wife Pt. 2”
Flat created on Adobe Illustrator
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entrepreneur Collaboration Working Alongside a Fiber Artist
Pamela Penney Textile Arts is a teaching facility and indepentant art shop in the Arts District in Oak Park, Illinois. Run by Pamela Penney, she teaches classes, creates artwork , and does indepentant sewing jobs for clients. Almost all of her artwork is created by up-cycling old wool and cashmere sweaters into new and beautiful items including: sweaters, scarves, and hats. During the fall 2014 semester, I had the pleasure of interning and working alongside Pamela as we made art, taught students sewing, created her window display, and worked on dancewear costuming.
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(Left to Right) Creating felted vessels to be sold within the shop, finished fall display window, and felted vessels drying over bottles
Pamela Penney uses felting to create a lot of her jewelry and vessels. Felting is using raw wool fibers with agitation and water to create a thick and colorful felt. Working with her on these projects refined my skills in felting and sculptural fiber art. I have also gained a respect for upcycling used cashmere sweaters and turned them into scarves, hats and other wearable garments. Being a fall internship, I designed many upcycled hats and scarves to be worn with the cooler weather. Teaching students of all ages was also a huge part of the internship and an important skill I gained. Every Friday, I had a class of seven-year-old girls who yearned to learn to sew. I taught everything from sewing teddy bears, felting flowers, and even started pajamas and tote bags. We worked art camps and birthday parties, gaining teaching experience with younger children.
I made many recycled scarves and hats (pictured above)
Felted teddy bear made by a student. She wrote “made by Ami and Ali� on the birth certificate
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Madame Gres Pleats and Sisal Millinery Draping in Paris, France Given that Paris is one of the greatest fashion capitals in the world, it only makes sense that a prestigious fashion academy resides there. The Paris American Academy is a school unlike no other, offering expertise on fashion design, fashion merchandising, and interior design. During the school year, students learn sewing techniques and create stunning looks, but it is their intensive summer workshop that the real knowledge is learned. The Academy hires two coutoure seamstresses, Madame Martine Lenior and Madame Picot, to teach students the intiricate draping technique of Madame Gres. Having been Madame Gres’ assistant seamstress, Madame Picot is the leader of the instructors. This intensive workshop teaches timeless techniques to young and fresh minds.
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Pinned and basted pleats
Front right side draped
Pleating Process • • • • • • • •
Cut fabric into four equal rectangles Drape front RIGHT side onto the mannequin Pin ten pleats, each one centimeter wide Baste edge of pleats Take piece off mannequin and unpin pleats Trace baste lines onto other three rectanges Hand sew pleats onto all four rectangles Sew center front, back, side, and shoulder seams on industrial sewing machine • Sew ribbon on inside of dress for stability • Add closures (snaps and hook-and-eyes) • Hem finished dress
Madame Lenoir assisting alterations
Madame Lenoir and Madame Picot
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Millinery with Jean Pierre Tritz Being a freelance milliner for the famous designer Jean Paul Gaultier, Jean Pierre Tritz brings his hatmaking expertise to the Paris American Academy for the summer workshop. His lessons are jam packed into a two day workshop that include wool hatmaking, sisal headpieces, and fascinators. He takes his students to a local hat and trim shop to provide inspiration as well as trims for the wool hats. The wool hats are felted down onto a wood block and steamed to stretch over the head. The sisal headpieces are made with sisal. Jean Pierre Tritz starts off every student’s sisal by twisting it in a headband form to fit on the student. After that, the design liberty is completely left to the student. The sisal comes in a variety of colors and it is easily transformable to different shapes.
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Hosting a Couture Fashion Show
(Left to Right) The beautiful location of the Yanina Couture Fashion Show; Sample of one of Yanina’s exquisite garments
During the summer workshop, Paris Fashion Week takes place. Students of the summer workshop participate in the shows by dressing the models backstage or by hosting the show and bringing guests to their seats. Yulia Yanina, a Russian couture fashion designer, hosted her haute couture 2014-2014 fall and winter collection in an elegant Parisian banquet building. The crystal chandelier, centered in the middle of the runway, provided light and luxury for the black embellished garments. Hosting her fashion show by showing each guest to their seats was an honor.
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Amazing Grace at Grace House Professional attire for women in need Opening in 1994, Grace House, located in the South Side of Chicago, provides residence and counselling for women that underwent the Chicago prison system. Grace house provides second chances for these amazing women, and I was given the opportunity to provide that second chance to a woman there. While the residents at Grace House inhabit there, they search for jobs and schooling to help get their lives back on track. In order to help make their searches a bit easier, students designed and created business wear for potential work and job interviews.
Grace House, on Adams street in Chicago, houses women who have gone through the Chicago prison system
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Using a grant of $250 per student, I used black fine wool suiting for the blazer and the trousers. For the blouse, black and ivory bridal silk was used. Attilah, my client, wanted to pair her masculine style with professional silhouettes and hints of femininity. The pants and blazer, similar to a man’s suit pairs well with the flowying figure of an ivory blouse. The importance of this ensemble is that it provides the women with the confidence they need to get back on their feet and enter the job world. Local newspaper, The Chicago Tribune, picked up on this project and featured us in an article and video article.
Patterning the pleated trousers for Attilah, shown in The Chicago Tribune
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Fashion Show Production Music, Photography, and Videography
Music and proper documentation is a very important aspect to planning and putting on a fashion show. I was a co-chair in charge of finding music and photographers/videographers for Dominican University’s 2015 fashion show “IllumiNATION: A Flash of Fashiong, Illuminating the Runway”. My problem solving skills came into play when the hired videographer booked a different event on the same day of the fashion show, leaving me and my co-chair one week to hire another one. Within a few hours, a new videographer was hired and the problem was fixed. Throughout the experience of planning the show, I learned how to work as a team to hire and re-hire photographers and videographers as well as create a cohesive soundtrack to the fashion show.
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With the theme of the show being “Illumination” my co-chair and I put together a set list that used ambient electronic music that flows with the lights of the stage and was easy to walk to. We had full liberty to choose the songs in the show, with the exception of the senior collection songs. Those were left to the senior designers to choose what song their collection walked out to. My committee was also in charge of obtaining the legal rights to the songs we used within the show. Being in constant communication with the Dean of Students and professors, we searched through databases to see what songs we had the legal rights to use, as it’s important to now use copyrighted music. After combing through the databases and making three different rough draft playlist, we created a final set list for the fashion show.
Fabric Manipulation Fabric Dyeing and Printing In Black and White Couture Techniques Specialty Markets Draping
Hideaway - Kieza Comfortable - The Knocks ft. X Ambassadors (Oliver Nelson Remix) Defeated No More - Disclosure All You’re Waiting For - Classixx Good Things - Body Language Circle Down - Ayer (Keljet Remix)
“Struck” “Being” “Sterling Silver: Microaggressions” “Divuldge” “Hope on Mars” “Animal Pharm” “Maratus” “Radiance” “Mother of Dragons” “Ole El Matador”
Lofticries - Purity Ring Blood and Roses - The Smithereens Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday
Senior Collections
Tessellate - Ellie Goulding Rebel Rebel - David Bowie Mrs. Robinson - The Lemonheads Army of Me - Bjork Atlas - Coldplay Game of Thrones Theme Bamboleo - Gipsy Kings
Final music set list for Dominican University’s 2015 Fashion Show
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“Struck” Lightning, Beadwork, a Storm of Chiffon Crackle and boom into the dramatic and stunning liberation that is a lightning storm. The sky breaks and breathtaking bolts of lightning ignite the clouds and excite the viewer. To pair with the striking sense of liberation, silhouettes from the 1920’s are used in these garments. Each garment has a unique and dazzling hand beaded bodice, taking on the form of contemporary lightning shapes. Primarily using chiffon, each dress flows a different way, pairing with different parts of a lightning storm. Jagged edges and asymmetrical hems create a synergy from the classic silhouette to the uneven pattern of lightning. Each dress is unique with different formation of beaded strands, from loops to fringe, to represent the strength of every storm to go with each dress. All three of these dresses include a hand beaded or crystal headpiece to match the dress. Wearing these dresses, women are liberated in the rain of their own reign.
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“Bring, bring the thunder and the loud, loud rain” Purity Ring - Lofticries
Straying away from the cliche blue ambiance of the sky, stunning shades of purple, gray, and burgundy illuminate each dress in a spectacular storm. Each dress portrays a different rainstorm. “The Calm (befoere the storm)”, “Red Sky in Morning, Sailors take Warning”, and“Scattered Showers” are the names of each garment. Made in chiffon, charmeuse, and satin crepe, the rigid and flowing fabric imitate the fragility and strength of each storm. “The Calm” is primarily chiffon to demonstrate the delicacy of the sky before the storm arrives, paired with rounded bead strands to emphasize the softness. “Warning” combines charmeuse and chiffon with jagged hemlines and sharp fringe to exhibit an oncoming storm. Something to be wary of. The last dress, “Scattered Showers” is made with a satin crepe bodice to show the root of the lightning bolt, cascading down into a pieced chiffon skirt to show how the lightning branches down, striking everything in its presence.
Hand beaded bodices with contemporary lightning bolts
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Thank you for your time
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Contact information
Alexandra Tourison alexandra.tourison@gmail.com (616) 610 - 9187
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