P.A.D Document Year 3 Capsule Collection

Trick Of The Light Process Analysis Document Capsule Collection 1&2 E19CA / E19CB Savanagh Louise Lowrie H00131599 Year 3 / Fashion

Contents

-Design Brief -Holland and Sherry Visit -Concept – Fruitmarket Gallery/Illusions -Concept – Geometric Shapes and Patterns -Holland and Sherry Input -1980’s Input -Garment Silhouettes -Colour Palette -Process Analysis -Design Development -Fabric Manipulation -Final Line-Up -Toile Process -Final Garments - Evaluation -Bibliography and References

Design Breif

The brief of this project was to create a capsule collection for high end, luxury market placement. And then to recreate luxury fabrics, with inspiration taken from Holland and Sherry, and an input of urban wear to create a collection that is new and forward thinking. From this starting point I started looking for initial inspiration from the Fruit market Gallery in Edinburgh, taking an immediate liking to the light and space exhibition that was on at the time. From this exhibition I took inspiration from the colour, shapes and idea of illusions that I initially took from some of the work shown. With the idea of illusions in mind I started looking into the moon, as one of the largest potential illusions and started to break the idea down into a contrast of light against dark, into finally a contrast of colours and fabric types. Once moving on from the idea of illusions I looked more into the side of geometric patterns and what kind of fabric manipulations these geometric shapes and patterns could influence. It was from here I primarily decided on using geometric, triangular shapes and patterns as fabric manipulations in my garments. Once deciding on this, I decided to look further into the Holland and Sherry input, from the trip what I mainly took from them was their fabric’s qualities and inspiration wise I had an interest in their Blue Sapphire packaging. It was from here that I got the main inspiration for my design’s colour palettes, using mainly white, grey, navy blue and black; all colours taken from Blue Sapphire. However, to add some more colour to the palette I decided to add a red, which was a colour taken from a piece of the Fruit Market Galleries’ light and space exhibit, which also had tones of navy blue, black and grey in it. Looking further into Holland and Sherry, I was interested by their interior side, mainly the patterns and prints they used. I decided to look online at some of their work and found some use of continuous geometric prints, which I thought could be interesting as a print. Henceforth, fabric manipulation wise, I decided to keep the theme as geometric triangular patterns, but done in ways of layering with bondaweb and also with printing patterns onto Holland and Sherry inspired fabrics such as cottons, wools ect. From here I looked into fashion trends for Spring/Summer 2017, on WGSN, I found the trend Pure Simplicity. This trend held a lot of boxy silhouettes and loose garments, with an input of tailored items, which was exactly the kind of shapes I had been looking for. I also felt this would work well, as for the 1980’s input I was interested in the ‘Powerdressing’ of this time, which I thought worked in well with the Holland and Sherry theme, as fabric wise, I am aware their popular fabrics are mainly suit fabrics. In keeping with this thought, I decided to design silhouettes with a boxy, loose feel, but also some garments with a tailored element. And finally, for the input of stretch, my fabrics mainly consist of neoprene and stretch faux leather to add to the urban influence, with oversized pockets added to some garments.

Holland and Sherry Visit

Near the start of the semester our class took a trip to the Holland and Sherry as we were told at the start of the new semester that Holland and Sherry were to be our clients for a collection we were to create. During the trip we were told some basic facts about the company, through their start up, to what they mainly manufacture and who for, and what kind of sheep they breed specially for their fabrics. We were then taken on a tour of their office and fabric stockrooms. Whilst there we were shown a lot of their fabrics and told about what they were made from, who they would be going to and how much some of them were. Then we were taken around their workshops and shown how some things were made, such as their fabric sample books and how some of their files and processes worked. Through the visit we were also to have taken some form of inspiration from it to use this as a starting point of how we would incorporate Holland and Sherry into our work. For myself, from the trip I had taken a liking to the company’s Blue Sapphire sample collection and decided to use the colours as a main base for my collections colour palette. As well as that, I took an interest in the company’s expanding interior side, I decided to look into some print which was used in some areas of their interior and push this forward to create a geometric design to incorporate into my designs.

Concept – Fruitmarket Gallery

My initial concept came from a visit to the fruit market gallery in Edinburgh to see the exhibit, Another Minimalism, Art after California Light and Space, that they had on at the time. The first thing I took from the exhibition was the use of light and shadows to create light and dark contrast on walls.

However, after starting to break down the exhibition and look more into the images I took shape from some of the work and started to adapt that into something else. Through taking two key images of work I had taken from the exhibition I started to work in my sketchbook and start trying to contextualise the work into something of my own.

Concept – Geometric Shapes and Patterns

From the first image I worked with various methods of recreating what the artist had done, but on paper. From there I noted how one way I had done it was through cutting half-moon shapes, from which I moved the idea forward into looking at the moon. I looked into the contrast of light on dark, and then into the idea of the moon being an illusion, which then brought me into looking into illusion ideas and some key shapes for it. While looking into illusions a lot of the images that I found online had quite a geometric look to them, so I decided to look further into the prospect of geometric shapes and patterns. While doing so, I felt I was straying a bit from the work at the fruit market gallery, however, looking back at the key images I had picked I noted that the second had a distinct shape of multiple multi-coloured triangles making up what could be described as geometric shapes. Therefore from there I decided to develop geometric patterns while in keeping with the triangular shapes I had found prior to development.

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Holland and Sherry Input

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6 7 The Holland and Sherry input for inspiration comes from quite a few places.

The first place the input comes from is in the colour palette, I took inspiration from their Blue Sapphire packaging with its dominating colours being black, white and blue and took these forward into my colour palette, only adding a few greys and red to add some more to the collection. I was also interested in the interior side of Holland and Sherry so I looked into this, and found inspiration from some of the print used in some of the interiors. Mainly as my theme has a geometric look to it and so did some of the prints I found in their designs. And some smaller inputs in the collection is through the fabrics used, some of which are cottons inspired by their own fabrics. And also through tailoring in the garments, as most of the fabric Holland and Sherry produce is for suits I thought it’d be a nice input to include some of these elements into my collection.

1980’s Input

For the 1980’s input the main trend I decided to work from was ‘Power dressing’ which was very popular for women in the 80’s. As I had previously stated in the Holland and Sherry section, a lot of their fabrics are used in suits, so I felt this was a somewhat fitting theme. So, in some of the garments in my collection I have added tailoring to them in the form of trousers and shirts ect.

Also, the 1980’s was quite a popular time for stretch sportswear garments, some of these elements are bit watered down in the sportswear element but through jackets it is still there. Quite a few of the main fabrics in my collection are also stretch, such as neoprene being a stretch fabric used quite a lot in my collection.

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Garment Silhouettes

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For the garment’s silhouettes in my collection a lot of the inspiration has come from the WGSN S/S 17 trend Pure Simplicity. It is a simple minimalistic trend which consists of loose, boxy silhouettes for a somewhat carefree and laid back look. It is through this that I decided on baggy/ loose fitting, boxy shaped garments with some cutwork, print and panelling manipulations added in.

Colour Palette

The colour palate in my collection has come from two different sources. The main inspiration, as previously stated, came from the Holland and Sherry packaging for their Blue Sapphire. From this I took mainly black, white and a few shades of blue. However, to add more to my collection I also looked to my inspiration that came from the fruit market gallery and took a dominant red colour from the exhibition to add into my colour palette, as well as a few shades of grey to balance out the tones.

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Process Analysis

From gathering research from all other aspects and making sure that I covered all specifications mentioned in the brief I then set out to put all research together and work in my sketchbook to work out a plan of where my design process was heading. I found piecing my ideas together to be an easy enough process as I already had an idea of what direction I wanted my collection to go in. My garment silhouettes were going to be baggy and boxy shapes, with a colour palette taken from the Blue Sapphire Holland and Sherry packaging. The concept of my collection held a contrasting geometric theme, of print and cutwork which came from the Holland and Sherry interior. Some features included inputs from the 1980’s input, like tailoring of some of the garments, which also tied in with the Holland and Sherry part as their fabrics are quite often used for making tailored suits. Another aspect I included was the inclusion of stretch from the brief and leather inputs for the urban feel to the brief. All of these aspects were thought out and included with precision and making sure what was put in was a reflection of the brief given.

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Design Development

In the design development process I very much kept in mind the Pure Simplicity WGSN trend for S/S 17. The garments I designed were very baggy and boxy in shape, and to keep the designs in a Spring/Summer theme I kept the designs with short or three quarter length sleeves, cropped hems on tops and jackets, and three quarter length hems on trousers, ect. In the Design Development stage I kept the designs quite similar and made small changes in things such as adding pockets, seams, panels and cutwork elements. Through this process I designed the key garments for my collection and used these for my final line up.

Fabric Manipulation

From the beginning, in the early stages of the research process, I decided to have different kinds of fabric manipulations in my garments. The first one I decided on was that I decided I definitely wanted to incorporate cutwork in my designs. I kept in with the geometric theme and made triangular cut out shapes and sewed other fabrics, such as tulle, over them so they were clean stitches and left no loose ends. Another manipulation I largely used was print, I took inspiration from Holland and Sherry’s interior business as print was an element found in some of their interior designs. As my theme was still geometric I kept my print as triangular shapes and patterns and used these in a repetitive pattern.

Final Line-Up

In my final line up I feel I have portrayed my idea of the brief well through my designs. A lot of my garments are stretch material, and are in keeping with my colour palette which was navy blue, black, white and inputs of red as a colour breaker. My garments are boxy in shape and lightweight in most aspects and hold quite a casual and carefree feel to them to stay within the S/S 17 Pure Simplicity trend. I feel they also hold a look from the 1980’s powerdressing trend from the tailored trousers, shirts and casual but boxy jackets. The line-up also holds fabric manipulations in the form of print and cutwork which was something I expressed doing in my garments throughout the design and research process.

Toile Process

The toile process was something I felt went quite well, however the raglan sleeve in my jackets were something I had done for the first time, I made two initial ones, however I felt that my second attempt was better than my first, therefore I changed the pattern to fit the better one. The dress I created for one of my outfits was something I had a bit of difficulty figuring out how to make, however I decided to tackle it through panels and a grown on sleeve on the front. I felt that the toile turned out well, however, I changed the length of the sleeve as I felt the original was a bit short. The other aspects of my outfits, such as my trousers and shirt, I felt toiled quite well, and as they turned out the way I wanted them to I didn’t feel that I had to change them.

And finally, the cape was something I had made a pattern of for the first time, however I felt that the end result was very much what I had intended, therefore I didn’t feel that I had to change the design too drastically, other than adding an extra pleat in the back to make the garment baggier in shape.

Final Garments

I found manufacturing my final garments to be something that was quite time consuming. I didn’t find the manufacturing process too difficult, it was the finishing’s I found that took most time. As I bound seams instead of overlocking, and lined most of my garments to keep within the high standard of luxury garments. However, with my fabric manipulations on some of the garments I feel these could have been presented at a higher quality, however, due to the type of manipulations the cut out sections were, they ended up sliding away from the fabric slightly.

Outfit - 1

Outfit - 2

Evaluation

In conclusion, throughout the semester I feel like I have been tested in all elements of this class. From the researching stage, of gathering a wide array of materials and making them all work together. And for making sure from the start that the brief was considered, and carried out to its fullest potential. From introducing the geometric theme from the start and then including the Holland and Sherry interior prints into this. Then from looking into the S/S 17 trends and finding one that I found sufficient and that would fit in well with the theme and concept I had decided for the collection.

From there it was incorporating other aspects such as the stretch, urban and 1980’s input that was also included in the brief. Then from looking into silhouettes and making sure that they still fit in with the theme and the look I was trying to portray. And then to move onto looking into the colour palette and selecting fabrics while keeping the Holland and Sherry fabrics and the S/S trend in mind, which I actually found to be very difficult, as I felt the incorporation of Holland and Sherry fabrics would have been fitted better to a A/W trend as their fabrics are quite thick and bulky and would have been suited better in heavyweight garments. However, while keeping the garment silhouettes baggy and ‘airy’ I felt that I pushed the S/S aspect forward as much as I could with the heavier weighted fabrics. And finally, with the end result of the garments manufactured, I feel that the finishing’s and details give the garments a high end luxury feel to them. However, as I mentioned previously, I feel that the manipulations didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped, although, I feel that I executed them to the best of my ability with the means I was given with them.

Bibliography and References

1&2 (Front Cover) - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/474426141976796943/ . https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/474426141977333090/ 3 - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/474426141976695750/ 4 - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/474426141976754251/ 5 - https://plus.google.com/112024015230655597193/posts/dAJgxgYUaXu 6 - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/489133209503954419/ 7&13 - http://www.styleforum.net/t/388672/a-17-000-suit-really 8 - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/474426141976876834/ 9 - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/474426141976876850/ 10 - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/474426141976876846/ 11&12 - WGSN Pure Simplicity, S/S 17 Trend 14 - https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/474426141977033295/