CONTENTS THE BRIEF RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT TOILING FINAL GARMENTS EVALUATION
THE BRIEF The task was given to create a collection influenced from a global mashup. It was thought that the student had to choose two different cultures one of them personal and the other not. These cultures would be combined with elements from the current summer project carried out and other inspiration that the student may chose to use. After completing the research the student had to create toile ideas to possibly use in a final collection. Toiling would then develop design ideas further so that the student could create a desired collection. Once the collection was chosen the student had to pick one of the outfits to take forward and make. Afterwards a pattern would be created for all of the garments in the chosen outfits and a toile would then be created for each of them. The toile would be to ensure that any problems within the patterns and garments would be solved before making them in final fabrics that the student would choose. When the toiling stage would be completed and all issues were solved the student then had to start creating the final outfit.
The student chose to make her collection in Egyptian colours and patterns consisting of many panels to create the image of stain glass windows. The students design concept for the project was to use historical Egyptian images as inspiration to form shapes that she could create within a pattern. The pattern would consist of many panels with the idea of creating panes from the stained glass windows from her personal cultural research of her religion. The student would then create a sports luxe edge by using sporty fabrics and silhouettes inspired by her summer project designer ‘Hood by Air’. It was thought that the student could see her collection in a collaboration with a big sports company such as adidas and and a high fashion designer such as Alexander Wang. The price range of the collection would be in the margin of £70 to £200 depending on the garment.
RELIGION RESEARCH The student researched a personal and different culture to create a global mash up. The student Brodie Rolfe decided to use her hometown architecture as her personal culture. She began location scouting and taking images that could be use to develop ideas. It was then thought that the student’s idea wasn’t personal enough encouraging her to steer into a new direction. Wanting her love for architecture to still be present it was disgust that she was to choose a particular building that had a personal meaning. This then lead her to her religion choosing the church she received her Holy Communion in. The student went to the location and began taking images, the images that were most inspiring were the photographs of the stained glass windows. Rolfe then began to look at new buildings with stained glass windows, collecting secondary research from other sources as well. The student then found a beautiful church in Cumbernauld Glasgow called the The Sacred Heart Church. The student went to the location and and got photographs of the beautiful windows. After sourcing all of her research she then began to research collections previous designers had done using religion inspiration. The collection the student researched was Dolce and Gabbana Fall Winter 2013 the work of this duo consists of thrilling mosaic patterns embellished with rich colours of historical statues.
EYGPTIAN RESEARCH As well as Rolfe’s personal culture she was also researching another culture. The other culture she had chose was the Egyptian culture. The student chose this particular culture from a holiday she had previously been on which created an interest in Egyptian history and language. The student began collecting information and images about ancient Egypt. Rolfe also researched past collections from designers that had used Egyptian cultural inspiration. The collection the designer chose was Dries Van Noten Spring 2015 which consisted of very busy prints in an Egyptian colour palette best used on metallic fabrics.
SHAPE AND SILHOETTE After collecting all of her cultural information the student researched possible shape and silhouette taking on board her designer from the summer project, Rolfe wanted to take inspiration from Hood by Air which lead her to chose sportier inspired silhouettes. The student gathered images on sports luxe which consisted of fitted garments with very little design elements and colour. A lot of the garments contained mainly block colouring as a design element. When all of the research was carried out Rolfe made a variety of boards that would be taken into every workshop class to inspire her whilst toiling. The boards consisted of mood boards, fabric board, colour board and a shape board. This allowed the student to toile using her strongest inspiration to ensure she got the best final outcome.
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT In the workshop the student toiled ideas onto a mannequin to use as possible designs for her final collection. Using the research done previously the student began to pin fabric onto a mannequin quickly realising that she could not get the desired look from her research. It was then thought that cutting round simple pattern blocks to get a desired shape and then pinning onto the mannequin would create better possible design ideas. Although this process did not inspire the most creative designs it did inspire possible shapes of garments.
Once the student had created many design ideas she then began to develop them on paper. This allowed the student to create more contextual and exciting designs that could not be fulfilled at the toile stage. Rolfe began by using the simple pattern block shape and then adding design elements taken from her research. Rolfe added block colouring which she then contrasted with her church and Egyptian inspiration. Fulfilling the design ideas, the student then began creating a final line up. The line up the student had invisioned was to be Egyptian images crated with many panels that were designed to imitate stained glass windows. The student picked out cohesive designs to create a capsule collection and drew them layering up garments to create contextual outfits. Once the line up was complete the student scanned in her drawings to alter and colour them to create the final desired look. Once the line up was complete the student then picked out one of the outfits within the line up that she would then take forward to make.
TOILING After making the decision of which outfit the student was going to make she then began constructing a pattern plan to match her selected designs. Before tracing over it to create her pattern pieces, so that she could toile them. The student then began to toile her garments in similar fabrics to her final fabrics to ensure she would get the best over all outcome. The student firstly toiled the desired unitard she wished to make and instantly realised a problem, because the unitard was to be made in stretch fabric the student could not create the panels she had designed previously. This was because the initiated design consisted of sharp corners that are not possible in the four thread over locker machine that she needed to use due to stretch fabric. The student had to then go back and change her pattern disguarding of many panels it originally contained. The student had to then problem solve thinking of another way to create the shape she had wished for without using the panels previously designed. It was thought that the shapes could be created on a coversitch machine if the student could manage to figure out a way of turning her fabric whilst in the machine. Once Rolfe had perfected manovering her fabric in the machine she then continued on with the rest of the unitard which proceeded to work successfully. Having succeeded in her first toile Rolfe then progressed onto her second toile. She again began by creating the pattern plan and again tracing them to create her pattern pieces. She cut out her fabric and with out problem sewed them all together.
GARMENT ONE Happy with her toiling results the student then progressed to her final garments. Rolfe began by cutting out her pattern pieces in her chosen fabrics. She then used the cover stitch machine and carefully stitched the required shapes onto the gold metallic fabric to create the design she first originated. After successfully stitching the shapes ensuring that they match up she then began sewing the other remaining panels to create the basic shape of the garment. Once the unitard had started forming she then again cover stitched over seams that had connected panels. Once all of the decorative stitching was done the student added a zip at the back making it possible to get in and out, because of the stretch fabric this proved to be a lot harder then anticipated. After tackling the zip issue the student then over locked all of the pieces together creating a fully formed unitard. All that was left to do was the finishing’s. The student stretch bound the neck and arm holes before hemming the legs with the cover stitch machine.
GARMENT TWO Rolfe then moved straight onto her second garment, as her fabrics where stretchy she manipulated them by fusing them with two layers of soft fusing this took away the stretch element making it possible for the student to get her desired look that she had designed and toiled. As it was thought the student began trying to over lock her PVC fabric to her fused lycra. She soon realised that you can not over lock the PVC she wished to use. The student then tried lock stitching the PVC to the lycra, this also failed. After realising that there was no way of merging the fabrics together Rolfe opted to make two garments instead of the original one she had planned to. She began sewing the fused lycra panels together creating the shell of the garment. When the shell was formed Rolfe began adding a small zip at the back to make it functional. Progressing to the final stages the student then bound the neck and arm holes before cover stitching the seams of the panels, however the cover stitch machine did not agree with the bulk of the fabric going through the machine causing faults within the stitching lines that could not be prevented due to the fusible. Realising the faults were not fixable the student then cover stitched the hem of the top unhappy with the finishing’s of her garment.
GARMENT THREE Following the earlier issue, the student then went onto make a third garment. The garment was cut and sewn with the exact same pattern as the previous garment intending to replicate it except the second time the student made it in her PVC fabric instead of lycra. This idea was created so that this particular garment imitated panels of glass. The student would then pair the garment with her other boldly coloured garments so that the could be seen through creating the illusion of a stained glass window. The student added in a zip and then tried to bind the neckline of the PVC with the lycra which did not work well. The student tried three types of machines, the binding machine, a normal lockstitch and a needle feed machine and non of them agreed with the fabric. The final attempt was done using the needle feed but it wasn’t done to a professional standard. The student then made the decision not to bind the arm holes due to how bad the neck line had turned out after many attempts and also due to the fact that the material would not fray. After the final garments where made they were press correctly and hung in garment bags.
EVALUATION The student feels that within the global mash up project that she overcome problems that occurred throughout her process as best and as professional as possible. It is thought that the student is happy with the outcome of her research and what it developed into within her garment designs. The student believes that the unitard is made to the best possible standard and although it was not an easy garment to make it allowed the student to learn new machines and techniques. However the student realises that the two over garmets could have been created to a better standard. The student realises that the problem in her garments were created by the choice of fabric. In garment two this problem occurred due to having to change fabric type from toile to final and then having to fuse the final fabric. The fusing caused bulk in the garment causing machines to not run over the seams easily. If the student could do garment two again it is thought that she would change the fabric chossing one that would not need to be fused and she would also line the garment. In garment three the problem was that she did not toile due to having to create an alternative option of adding a third garment later in the project. The PVC originally bought too be included in garment two became its own garment and it didn’t work well with the machine. When the student finally got the shell of the garment it then began apparent that the garment could not be bound well, leaving her to make the decision to not bind the arm holes. The student said that due to these factors she would be reluctant to work with PVC again. The student feels that other than these faults she is happy with her overall outcome of the project and is happy that she stepped out of her comfort zone, enabling her to create the outcome she did. The student would change little about her project and feels she created good contextual garments using her cultures to the correct advantages. It is thought that the project has influenced the student to use culture as her inspiration in future projects as she has found it opens all kinds of creative outlooks and directions.
Brodie Dionne Rolfe
Fashion Theory into Practice E19 FT PAD