Unit X: Evaluation

Research

 

My initial research commenced by looking at past and present James Long collections as a secondary source. Having never heard of James Long before now, this enabled me to envision the type of menswear collection that was expected of me. I didn't want to stray too much from the style in which James Long works. Our original narrative 'RAF pilot crashes and parachutes into the rainforest', instantly helped me to select key garments such as flight suits, leather jackets, bomber jackets and durable jeans. This also linked us to climbing/ army and survival wear, which was a perfect start in visualising the theme of our/ my personal collection. I also took inspiration from the rainforest itself from a textiles point of view, where the colour palette originated from. The blue in the rivers and pattern of poisonous frogs, the green of the plants, orange in the tribes. As well as this, the tasselled textures for my denim samples originated from the textures. I took secondary sources from an article about the Amazon in the National Geographic.

 

Development

 

I struggled more with the development process. Having never tried fashion before and coming from a textile background, I found it hard to know what or how much was expected of me. I enjoyed the stand workshops which brought together all of our groups garments which were generic to our theme. The styling element of this interested me much more than designing and altering the garments myself. I realise that I could have been more experimental and could have used many different mediums to express my ideas, but this also came down to time management. I struggled to concentrate on the design element, and didn't necessarily enjoy it as much as I thought it would.

 

Reflection

 

This was my first project throughout the two years where I've worked in a group. Overall, I feel that we worked well together. This was also made evident when pitching to Tom Norcombe for James Long, and realising how closely we've worked together compared to other groups. There could have been more communication in terms of creating samples as it would have been beneficial to cross over specialisms ad bring the collection together. I feel that my time management wasn't as good as it could have been, and would have like to have taken my time more on the development processes, and to produce more samples (even though the samples I did produce were very time consuming). I have improved my Photoshop skills to a great extent and am now extremely confident in projecting my textile designs onto fashion garments.

 

I believe I've learnt a lot about myself during this project. I did this with the intentions of finding out if fashion was for me or not, and I've now realised that the way I work, and the work that I produce is much more suited to interiors. I'm glad I tried something new, and can finally cross it off the list.

 

Unit X: Final Collection

 

 My final collection came together reasonably easily. I enjoyed working in Photoshop in order to put the fabrics onto the garments, and feel like I've done justice for our theme. I'm happy with the final look of the model, and believe the garments are very self explanatory in the fabrics selected and the details upon them. I selected details from my research processes to enforce within them, for example, the patches on the jeans and shorts are representational of how the garments become worn in certain geographical conditions. The fabrics such as fur and leather represent the natural element of the rainforest and tribes we examined. Pockets for utility, camouflage elements within the knits for survival and flight suits for convenience and relatable to the original context and narrative. I personally worked on making my woven textiles a durable fabric for the conditions our muse faces.

 

This was my first ever fashion project, and I'm proud of the work I have achieved. 

 

 

Unit X: Group Final Collection

 

Our group final stand was very clever in expressing the concept of our designs. The climber (illustrated by Ashley) showcases the garments clearly and in context. I was happy with our final collection as a whole, but would have liked to have contributed more. Our last week before our Tom Norcombe presentation was terribly rushed, and we found ourselves making hasty decisions. I'm looking forward to making my own decisions on the selected garments and illustrating in my own style.

 

 

Unit X: Fabric Board

 

Our fabric board is a beautiful mixture of complimenting colours and textures, brought together by the fashion and textile students in my group (including myself). Whilst Anna focused on the print in her fabrics, Lucie also worked in some knits on the dubied machine that were essential to our designs (ribbing on bomber jackets and jumpers). I continued to look into denim woven fabrics, and create durable materials that also had a slight edge to them (such as my inlayed samples and the tassels).

 

The materials such as leather and fur originated from the natural materials that occur in the rainforest and tribes, and the colours certainly complimented and enhanced our collection.

 

If we'd have had more time, one aspect that Tom Norcombe mentioned in our presentation was that we could have crossed over our ideas more. I wouldn't necessarily say that we didn't work well as a group, but our ideas were very far apart from each other. This is an aspect of the industry that is incredibly important, so working on my communication skills is essential for me.

 

 

 

Unit X: Developing Designs

Developing designs did not come easy to me as this is my first time ever illustrating for a fashion project. I started my drawings by working from the first stand workshop that we did, which included key garments such as cargo shorts and climbing wear. This enabled me to start to get to grips with fashion illustration, and the style I wanted to achieve. The stand drawings helped me significantly as a starting point for my work.

 

 

 

Collaging on the other hand, did not work so well for me personally. I felt that this was way too abstract for my style of working (which is very neat and precise), and I definitely struggled to gain garment drawings out of them also. This helped me to move forward in realising the way in which I work best. Whilst collaging however, it did enable me to figure out key garments that I may want to use in my personal final collection.

 

 

 

 

As a small extra, I also started to explore the idea of using the climbing equipment as accessories or jewellery. This was unsuccessful in terms of development and felt it looked unnecessary and almost tacky.

 

 

 

 

If I'd have had more time, I'd have definitely taken my development to greater lengths. I'd have liked to do have done many more experimental drawings, collages and hopefully found my style of working. The easiest way I found to work efficiently, came from tracings I made of key garments I'd selected on 'Mr Porter'. From the tracing, I then managed to explore the shapes by tracing over then and adapting them to fit our theme more sufficiently. These also doubled s beautiful technical drawings, which will come in handy when putting together my portfolio and designs. 

 

 

 

 

Unit X: Other Samples

 

As part of five of us in the group, three of us were the main contributors towards the final samples. Myself (who specialises in weave), Anna (who does textiles and specialises in print) and Lucie (who does fashion and knit).

Anna focused on the wildlife of the rainforest, mainly the frogs, where the idea for this print came from. Anna experimented with different types of print including puff, flock and pigment onto different materials such as denim, waterproof, and various sheer fabrics. I believe that these prints will work well along side and compliment my samples.

 

 

Lucie's knit samples are a beautiful mix of (dubied) ribbing and silver reed knitting. The colours are much more vibrant than the weave or knit, which adds an energetic edge to what will be the designs. The ribbing will work perfectly for bomber jackets' cuffs and collars as well as jumpers and quirky pockets.

 

 

 

Unit X: My Samples

The weave samples for this project were a very important aspect for me coming from textiles. As shown in the previous post, I've taken inspiration from denim garments of Jen Kao and Boro with their hand finished edge. The idea of creating my own denim came from the second stand that we did in polaroids, where we chose relatable garments to our narrative. This contained a lot of denim, whether this was in jeans, dungarees or jacket form. This was far from my comfort zone, and the work that I would usually produce in other projects, which made it fun and exciting.

 

Working in colours from our refined palette, I started to produce some samples that depicted qualities similar to my embroidery samples, predominantly shown through the colours. These initial samples were very time consuming, inlaying separate yarns from the back on every change of shaft on the loom. I did these samples with coloured patches for jeans and jackets in mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My second set of samples replicate the textures of the rainforest, so the plants and the rivers. These samples were also very time consuming when adding separate strands into each section.  My favourite part of these samples was how I could turn them into two samples when examining the back of them. I could potentially use these for jeans, shorts, jackets, all in ones, as well as extracting details (such as the sample below) for jumpers and shirts. If I'd have had more time, I'd have liked to create a larger, more varied collection.