This collection is designed in collaboration with Comme des Garçons. I wanted to maintain the brand’s identity in this collection, but I made it my way and also, I made it a bit more wearable than their usual Ready-To-Wear collections. I was mainly inspired by Comme des Garçons’ crazy big silhouettes and the upcoming trend for SS21 “Full Form” which is presented on WGSN. For my concept I chose something that is very close to the brand as well. I called it Neon Vintage, where I got inspired by vintage-looking floral prints and gave them a modern neon twist. After researching Comme des Garçons and visiting Dover Street Market I believe this collection goes well with the Dover Street Market’s concept. As this collection is quite experimental, fun, unusual different than other High Street trends and wearable at the same time. The collection is targeted at young people aged around 20-35 as it is quite bold and fun. It is to be worn as occasion wear for parties or even Red Carpet, though some of the pieces from the collection can be worn as street wear as well.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P
Q
Measurement
Side Neck length Chest (armhole to armhole) Chest (at narrowest point) Hem width Additional panel width Across shoulders Shoulder length Waist width Nape to waist Hip (without panel) Hip (with panel) Arm hole length Underarm sleeve length Neck drop Zip length Front thigh below crotch (without panel) Front thigh below crotch (with panel)
Spec cms 5 42 7 1 5 41 19 15 41 50 60 20 50 4 90 25 30
A B C
D E F G
Measurement
Hem width Waist circumference (elastic shrunk) bottom circumference (elastic shrunk)
Spec cms 1.5 50 60
fullest hip circumference 250 Side seam length CB seam length skirt length
100 100 50
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When I first found out about this project, I was excited to produce a collection in collaboration with chosen brand to be sold in Dover Street Market and also develop my digital skills further. Out of the given brands I chose Comme des Garçons because I absolutely love Rei Kawakubo' designs, even though I think it was not really a safe choice. But I wanted to challenge myself. At first, I went to London to Dover Street Market to do my primary research. I researched all Comme des Garçons’ collections displayed there as well as the target market group. After this I made more thorough research of the brand, mainly looking at their previous Ready-To-Wear collections on Vogue as Comme des Garçons is not really active on their website or social media. After the research, I had to decide on trend and concept that would influence my designs. To decide on trend, I looked at WGSN and ultimately chose the trend Full Form because I think it really fits the brand. With the concept though, I had a bit of a problem. At first, I wanted my concept to be inspired by the film Clockwork Orange. However, I really struggled with communicating this concept visually as I think such concept is too complex for this specific task. At this point I was creating my research pages, but I was not really happy with them either. After long time of struggling, I decided to basically start all over again. I changed my concept to Neon Vintage, which I think is very suitable for Comme des Garçons. I also made all of the research pages again and I think I managed to make them on much higher level. Although I think both my final concept and the trend go well with the brand, visually on my research pages they do not look that cohesive. But I did not want to change either of them. Then, I created my croquis, heads and designs which took me very long time. Especially the heads as I drew them in Photoshop on my laptop, which was very clumsy way to do that. I drew the outlines of the designs by hand and finished them in Photoshop. I was inspired by illustrator Jacky Blue. Despite all that I feel like the final result turned out good though I feel like the designs could have been more refined. I have had some small complications until this point however, the biggest one was with creating the range plan. I have made a big mistake as I have saved my prints in huge sizes and opened those huge documents in Illustrator and filled my flats with them. It took ages to save such a huge file and I also had to start over at one point because the file did not save. Finally, I managed to save it, but the file has 13GB. Another problem was that it lost the neon colours. In the end I was able to add the colours again in Photoshop and it looks almost as I wanted it to look. A big thing that influenced this project was of course the coronavirus pandemic. The lockdown changed everyone’s plans. As the university shut down, we had to switch to working completely remotely. I would probably be able to solve my complications more easily if nothing like this happened, but in the end I appreciated that I had more time to work on this unit and that our deadlines were extended as I decided to start over in around the middle of the semester.
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