I began this project by researching significant figures from American black history as many of the major movements concerning black history happened in America. I then looked into the origins of Notting Hill carnival as an example of British black history; this, I found, was quite a contrast to the research that I had gathered … Continue reading Black History Month Project →

This week was an interesting one, after all the fashion projects we have just done, it was about getting us back in touch with just drawing. Including exercises such as drawing with a pen taped to three more pens, this brief allowed us to be more experimental and more free as the briefs prevented us … Continue reading The Big Draw →

Over the course of this project I have demonstrated a good understanding of the figure and how to draw onto the figure, as seen in my life drawings and fashion illustrations. From feedback, I gather that my drawing style and technique is a particular strength of mine, however, I need to use this more through-out … Continue reading State of play →

    For my final garment, I decided to use a pale blue organza and chose to go with an oversized style to go with my theme of storms/clouds, escape and getting lost in thoughts. I feel that the overall look of my final garment does evoke a sense of dreamy escape, particularly because of … Continue reading Final garment and another attempt at photoshop….. →

Artists rooms: Jenny Holzer The American artist Jenny Holzer makes use of a range of media including stone, paint, posters, lit up signs and plaques to to convey very powerful and provocative messages through her work. She often makes use of text in her works in the form of lit up signs; this aspect of … Continue reading The Tate Modern: Gallery review →

For my second week of workshops, I took part in the digital print workshop in which we learned how to use photoshop to generate our own repeating patterns using sections of our sketchbook work to create motifs, and overlay these onto images of garments.. Before this course, I did not have much experience with photoshop, … Continue reading Digital print: Learning how to use photoshop →

I elected to spend this week doing a knit workshop, during which we were taught how to set up and use a knitting machine. We then learned some basic techniques such as plain knitting, honeycomb knit, orange peel, lacing and how to change colours. We were first shown demonstrations of these techniques, which I found … Continue reading Knit workshop →

After exploring the various types and importance of darts, I went on to apply this knowledge to the construction of a bodice/toile using the original block patterns for a bodice with waist darts and mid shoulder darts. I used calico to create my toile and opted for a back opening, therefore the front of the … Continue reading Pattern cutting continued: Making a toile →

Darts are an essential part of making sure a garment fits the shape of the body. We started by copying a template bodice block that had a centre front waist dart and a mid shoulder dart marked on it, before creating a duplicate of this original block to manipulate further. I made several more cuts … Continue reading Playing with darts: Pattern cutting →

This week we had a series of workshops involving designing, draping and paper manipulation. We started with a designing workshop during which we observed details of our own clothes, watched catwalk videos and looked at specific parts of garments to inspire our designs. Working in short, six minute periods, we learned to quickly sketch out … Continue reading Drawing, draping and alot of pins… →