Final Evaluation

Originally I wanted to create a collection of some sort; I feel I achieved this as my final outcome was three garments, prints, final illustrations and a photograph of the garments being modelled. The garments were completely created from scratch and I designs and drew up each pattern for every garment. Although there were many trials and tribulations along the way, I was extremely happy with how everything turned out, I was satisfied with it. I initially planned to create more than three garments, but during the design process and also the making process I realised that this was very unrealistic so settled for three main pieces. I included many experimental techniques with my sampling and used extraordinary materials, I had hoped to include either 3D printing or Laser Cutting and sadly I couldn’t include either due to both lack of understanding and also time constraint. However, the final pieces reflected my design developments well and also kept in theme with my concept of Designer Babies, the subjective nature of what is and what isn’t desirable. As I love the illustrative element of fashion, I drew up some final illustrations for the exhibition to go alongside the garments. My photo shoot came out extremely well and showed my garment how I wanted it to be seen. The main difference from my original proposal was the influence the Aryan Child had on my project; I barely used it within my work only in the initial research. I am unsure it would have made much difference, perhaps in the agility of my garment but I didn’t want the referencing to be obvious so I am not disappointed by this change.

I feel my project was successful because I really took on board all the previous marking and constructive criticisms from the previous work throughout the year to improve this project and produce the best work I could. Through blogging thoroughly every part of the project to a high standard, both my writing and my critical analysis of my own work improved too. Constantly evaluating through blogging, group tutorials, tutor tutorials and peer’s, I could keep going back and improving or changing parts that needed it. Having so many different opinions as well as my own really helped this process; it meant I could back up reasoning behind changing or moving in a new direction. In particular, as I found the beginning research phase the hardest, the tutor feedback I got pushed me out of the block and into development. Being around other students also helped this, finding new ways of doing things and also bouncing ideas off each other. I made sure to leave myself ample time for toiling and garment making as I knew I was weaker at it, being quite unfamiliar with pattern cutting especially required guidance. Documenting each part of this through drawing in my sketchbook, making notes in my mini book and photographing each mistake benefitted me so much. Especially when it came to creating the final pieces, going back through my notes and mistakes meant I especially knew what not to do so that I could get it perfectly right. The development and redevelopment of each toile taught me the benefit of pushing each idea fully and slowly, taking it as far as possible but still being able to present it well in my sketchbook. I feel that this extra time I gave myself ensured I was completely happy with my outcome and that it was made to the best standard I could produce.

I knew at the beginning of the project that time management would be my biggest downfall, so I used my plan as best I could. I felt I kept on track to an extent; the research definitely went on longer than I had planned it to but I developed as I went along so it wasn’t a problem. I think my project plan wasn’t detailed enough as I didn’t really get into the project until development so I was unsure where I was going when I wrote the plan. I find it extremely difficult to write a plan like the one we had to write when I haven’t started the work as it is quite unrealistic to know how your ‘journey’ is going to path out. However, saying that, knowing how I work and how long it takes me to get into something I felt I kept to it quite well and I was happy with the work I produced. I planned to have about two weeks research, three for development and the last two for making. This was pretty much how it planned out, with some overlapping due to further research mid project and also development during the making weeks.

 In the end, I was able to meet my general targets I listed in my project plan successfully. My first development that contributed to the final outcome came from my initial research. When I first started researching, my Tutor felt I left one piece of research before fully developing it to move onto the next. So through going back and completely development each part of my research I created certain textiles and designs that I ended up using in the final garments. Especially within sampling and experimentation, the development of my initial gallery visits became very important for paths to follow within my concept. My main aim was for the overall concept to be subtle, and I felt through development of these gallery visits I create a much subtler and more detailed project. I think if I had used the Easter Break time better I could have included more textile development, but as I am a design not textile student I don’t think it affected the project too much. My second aim was to improve my time management, which at first I didn’t think I could do, but at the halfway mark I really got a hang of everything and started to stick to my own plans and goals for each week. Keeping on top of workload and also blogging throughout meant that I wasn’t really behind at many stages and I got to include the majority of things I wanted to include. Although I illustrated throughout the book, I left my final illustrations till after my photo shoot meaning they were a perfect representation of the final pieces, and also kept in theme and colour scheme too.  My final aim was to be more experimental with my material uses, and I felt I did that. Using plastics, wools and various new fabrics like trill and denim pushed me to manipulate the samples in ways I hadn’t thought to before. Overall, I took each part of the project as its own section which allowed me to completely develop each stage. Using the tutor’s feedback to fuel it, I went back on parts that they felt I hadn’t developed enough to ensure everything was used to its full capacity.

In the first stages of the project we had both one-to-one tutorials and group tutorials, but after the Easter break the group tutorials stopped. When researching, the group tutorials were extremely useful, everyone had to contribute with offering ideas and suggestions to each other and the group tutor responded to these and added their own. Especially in the research stage, having multiple ideas is crucial and doing so introduced me to new ideas in which to take my concept but also with Gallery suggestions. I hadn’t heard of The Hunterian Collection before a group tutorial, and it proved to be a very useful exhibition where I got a lot of images that helped me develop fabrication. As well as good ideas, I didn’t agree with all the ideas people threw at me. At the beginning, I was told that my concept was really interesting but I was quite difficult to understand. This didn’t bother me too much as I don’t like things to be obvious, and I definitely didn’t want to go down a scientific route with my concept, which was one of the suggestions. Later on in the project, the one-to-one tutorials really helped me get out of my mental block, simply by being offered an idea or new direction in which to take something or even to revisit something and take it further was incredible useful. Having one-to-ones with any available tutor meant I got more than one valuable opinion and sometimes when the opinions were conflicting I could analyse them better to decide which one to go with, or even explore both and see which I liked better.

Even though I felt I improved my time management skills, I still miscalculated the time required to do each stage, and sometimes felt a little overwhelmed by the amount I gave myself to do within the time. On one hand, by the end of the project I think I handled this much better. But if I had used the whole week to work instead of cramming the weeks work into three or four days throughout, I would have been much more relaxed and I think some of the work would have been less rushed. I think I needed to design much more throughout, even though they were well developed the physical amount of designs I did was not nearly enough for a whole project. I am definitely going to continue to improve these skills with my future projects, using the help from tutors and guidance from beginning to end, especially with tasks I find trickier like developing my research and construction. I feel I need to worry less about how everything looks; much of the reasoning behind why I designed less was because I wanted everything to look neat and fit within my books aesthetic. What I noticed some other students did was kept a smaller sketchbook for design ideas, this meant the messier work was in a separate place and it could be copied and reference within the larger sketchbook where it was needed. This is something I will do in my next self managed project as I think it will really help develop my ideas and create a garment to its full potential. 

Photoshoot

[Studio garment shoot]

My photoshoot time slot was from 12.30-13.30 so I left myself plenty of time to press my digital prints before the shoot. The only other thing I needed to complete was to attach the extra arm and leg with embroidery thread, but again that wouldn't take long. 

I hadn't sampled my prints on the white trill before as I had only bought it over the weekend so I was lucky that it came out so well. This was definitely down to my lack of fabric buying planning. For the top sleeve, I played around with various prints I had, but decided on using the blue print over the orange as it contrasted better with the orange body. In hindsight, I should have printed the digital print on the top sleeve of the jacket before I cut it out and sewed it together as it made it considerably harder to print. This also meant I printed onto some of the orange by mistake when heat pressing it, but luckily it was hardly noticeable. Using the same templates I had used to draw on the culottes with, I cut out various circles with my leftover prints. These looked great against the fabric paint, with the clean cut circles and the wavy abstract edges of the painted circles. 

Everything fitted Lena perfectly and she looked amazing, I was so pleased with how my garments turned out. As a last minute decision, I decided to cut the extra leg piece to help balance out the arm (Inspired by the video of the kids of Chernobyl and the extra long limbs and tumors), which I was glad about as it was a good contrast to the white and orange. I kept the styling ultra simple, using similar colours in the garments within her make up and other clothing like socks and shoes. 

As well as the photography student shooting my garments, I took quite a few pictures myself. This meant I had way more images than I needed so I had more choice for my final photographs. Additionally to this, Lena and I went outside the building to take some more 'editorial' style photos around North Greenwich Peninsular. The cold architectural feel of the 'square' worked well with my garments, contrasting the bright colours with the metal and dark blue walls. 

[My own garment shoot]

I was really satisfied with how the images came out and their reaction from my peers and tutors were extremely positive. Using Lena gave the pictures a much more professional look as she is a model, the clothes really complimented her too. Originally I wanted to shoot my garments on three ethnicities to play with the idea that beauty is subjective, and how different colours look on different people. but I felt the images of Lena were more than enough so scrapped that idea. 

[Favourite image from personal shoot]

The Weekend for Making

Saturday, Sunday and Mondays Work

[Fabrication and final designs]

After buying all my fabrics and getting my prints done I decided to start making. Combining the blanket type material with the orange mesh for the back and have the orange wool as the front. After making up the front panels and teh back panels and sewing them together I decided I wasn't happy with the materials; the orange was much too bright and where I had added in the pocket and hemmed the curved front panel, it no longer lay flat. However, even though the back flowed nicely, it didn't fit the image that I had in my head of what I wanted it to look like. So after careful consideration, seeing that I had much more fabric than I needed, I decided to start again.

This time, I used a muted multi-thread orange-brown wool and the navy denim for the back panels. I am extremely happy that I decided to start again as it looked so much better and I knew I wouldn't have been confident in my garments if I would have left them as they were. When altering my earlier jacket pattern I obviously forgot to make the sleeve hole larger because when I tried to sew it onto the jacket body it was much too large and my sewing looked really messy. To fix this (as I didn't want to re-cut any pieces) I measured the circumference of the sleeve hole and then the circumference of the top of the sleeve. I needed to remove a total of 9 inches from the sleeve, so to make sure it was neat and subtle I altered the seam to take out the unnecessary fabric. This worked really well and the sleeve fitted in completely flat.

[New and old fabrication, from sketchbook]

For future reference, the sleeves need to be better considered not only with circumference but with shape too. I always design an over-sized 'kimono-esque' style sleeve, but in future to push myself I should try new silhouettes and shapes. I took out the pattern magic series that was in the library and photocopied the most interesting patterns so I can reference them in the future if I desire. As I struggled so much with these sleeves, I also photocopied a few pattern books on sleeves and how to create various shapes with sleeves. Hopefully these will be useful for me with future projects and I won't make the same mistakes again. 

[Front and back of jacket garment]

Originally I designed the lumpy hole at the front to be 3Dimensional, and as you can see in the picture above I combined the mesh orange and blue organza to create this 3D shape. Although I liked the colour and movement of this combination, I felt the 3D aspect looked too comical, much like my first draft of the jacket. So knowing how much better I felt starting again with the jacket, I took out the mesh stuffing. As I did so, the hole went 'inside-out' and laid inside the panel (see middle picture above) as opposed to on the outside. I thought this looked much better and still gave this 'body deformity' look but in a more subtle, attractive way. Although it wasn't in my designs I decided to cut out holes into the back of the jacket to tie it in with the front. Using the same orange that I used in the front panels, I laid one circle perfectly flat and scrunched the other; a physical representation of the 'designer baby' and the juxtaposition of the 'undesigned deformed baby'. 

The crop top initially should have been the easiest piece to make of the three garments, but down to fabric choice and possible lack of concentration, it proved to be harder than I thought. After sewing it wrong side out, I re-cut and sewed another top the right sides out which was okay. Not as neat as I hoped it would be but the fabric was really uncooperative. 

The final garment; the culottes, I only had to make once *cheers*. Working with the white trill was very easy, it sewed well and draped with just the right amount of structure. After practicing about 10 times sewing a zip into trousers on my toile, I attached a zip neatly into the final pair which I was extremely proud of. 

[Fabric paint and digital print samples]

After spending a considerable amount of time on the other two garments I was quickly running out of time to finish these culottes. So collecting my fabric paint samples I decided to jump right in and being painting it. I knew the paint needed at least 12 hours to dry so I couldn't waste anymore time sampling. I was actually really please with how the three garments came out and although I was slightly pushed for time at the end I don't think I needed more than three days. Perhaps with better organisation with fabric buying and digital printing the making would have gone smoother, but I felt I've self taught a lot over the weekend and definitely learnt from my many mistakes.

Trial and Error Round 3

[Crop top toile 2]

After sewing the new culotte, crop top and jacket toiles, I decided that as I am a similar size to Lena I would try them on to see how well they fitted. Everything was slightly too long on me but as Lena is taller I didn't alter them. The top's neck hole however was much too small so I measured 5.5cm from the center front down and 3cm from the center back down and cut it evenly larger. I knew I was going to hem it so I didn't want to cut it too wide. 

As stated earlier, I wasn't entirely happy with the fabrics I had so far so I have planned to visit a large fabric warehouse in Hackney that a girl on the course told me about. This is to ensure I am completely pleased with everything. I don't want to settle on the fabrics I use as so much work will go into these garments. I picked my two favourite digital prints out [the cropped blue and orange prints] and have printed them both A2 ready for the fabric when I get it. I know the next week is going to be a little rushed so I am trying to save as much time as possible where I can. At the start of this project I mentioned how I wanted to improve my time management skills, and although I feel I have definitely improved, there is still much to learn. On one hand my book is almost up to date meaning I am within my plan but I don't want to rush any of the making so I would rather leave my book for the week and come back to it after Tuesdays shoot which will push me behind schedule. 

[pages from sketchbook]

My illustrations up to this point had been quite minimal and random so through toiling I expanded on these and started to add in detailing, in particular, the placing of each detail. For example, where the digital printing could go and what other fabrication detailing I could use. I started the project wanting to try the laser cutting machine but as I don't know how to use illustrator or work the machine I don't think I'll have time to test it. However, throughout my illustrations I have included this sort of paisley like pattern (the one I wanted to laser cut) It represented the skin textures and samples I made earlier in the project. I still want to include it within my garment as it relates back to disfigurement well, through brainstorming a few ideas and techniques on how to achieve this effect without the laser cutter, I came up with a good way to achieve this effect and also being able to place it exactly where I want it on the garment. My plan is to use fabric paints, When I buy my fabrics this weekend I will also buy fabric paint and such like to test out before using it on the final garment.

Toiling

After fitting my toiles on myself over the weekend, I found that creating my own pattern meant the darts I drew in and size of sleeves were quite out. However the measurements of the crop top minus sleeve were correct, so getting a basic bodice block from the pattern cutting lady who came in I started again. This toile was much more successful and I decided to fold over the lower hem and add in a string detail so it can be worn loose or fitted depending on the look. I made sure I kept notes throughout the toiling process to help me remember exactly what was wrong at each process so I could fix it.

[Toile notes]

[Culotte toile 1]

Much like my first crop top toile, my first culotte toile was a mess. Even through using a trouser block and altering it to make the leg wider, it was still extremely tight and the lack of darts at the top made it impossible to move in and take on and off meaning I had to leave the back piece unpinned. When drawing up the pattern I intended to include a zip at the back, but forgot to cut this out on one back panel so there wasn't nearly enough material to include this. Modelling them on Amy may have been a mistake too, she is much curvier than Lena and I felt this impacted how the culottes draped on her. However, saying this, it was helpful to have them on a person as it meant I could see how much bigger I wanted the legs, I decided to add 20 cm to each leg almost doubling the flare. Also due to wanting them high waisted, it really needed darts, something I didn't include in this toile. 

Making these culottes up in calico really helped my design process, I could visualise exactly how I wanted them simply through seeing this 'wrong' version. Trial and error is how I learn best, and through making possibly every mistake within this toile, I know exactly how not to make them. Although this process takes much longer, I made sure to leave myself enough time to be able to do this throughout this week in my planning. I aimed to create a collection of garments for my final piece so I needed to make sure each toile was correct before making it up in the final fabrics. Once each toile is perfected I can move onto fabric buying. This will definitely be done by thursday so that I can buy everything I need this weekend. 

First Calico Toile

[Toile pinned on the stand]

[Pinned onto Meeka]

After finalising the paper toiles to a stage I was content with I decided to move onto calico, as material has a much different structure to paper I wanted to get a better feel for how it would fit the body as well as seeing how it could be made. I only made half the back as I still was undecided on how long and what shape I wanted it. After lightly pinning it together I got meeka to model it to see how it fitted the body, and where I needed to shorten or lengthen any parts. I was happy with the sleeve, without sewing it properly together I could only get a rough idea of how it might look. The shape kept flopping, so I think to keep the sleeves segregated I might need to interface the bottom of the top sleeve, and the top of the lower sleeve.

[Photoshoping prints on toile]

Transfering these images onto photoshop along with a scan of all the successful digital prints I played around placing them along the sleeves and into the sample holes. I love the blue print especially and will continue to develop this idea through illustration. 

When I cut out the front piece of the jacket, I used my paper toile for inspiration and therefore cut it in two separate sections. When I sew this toile it will be easier to see whether it will look better to transfer these two into one piece. I want to incorporate a pocket somewhere in the jacket so the two pieces could come in handy for creating a pocket hole in between them. Also it could be interesting to have contrasting colours for these pieces. 

Over this weekend I will sew these together, and also create a pattern for both the culottes and crop top, this means by next weeks studio time I can fit them onto Lena [my model] and it will give me ample time to alter and redraw up any patterns that don't work before cutting and sewing a final toile. Although I have been fabric shopping, I don't feel I've found the final materials yet but I now want to wait until I have finished toiling so I know what texture and structure of the fabrics I want to go with. 

Textiles Development

[Successful prints]

[Failed prints]

A mistake I made through printing was only printing out each digital version once, meaning I only had four 'prints' to work with. This definitely started to show in the prints I made later on as the colours were very faded and some parts didn't come out at all. As I predicted in my earlier post, the prints I was most happy with were the zoomed in versions. However I felt some of the full face images came out very well even though they were a little 'obvious'. 

My favourite prints can be seen in the top sets of images, The best prints came out onto a foam material, alongside a chiffon and an organza. The two images [second from the left, and very right] I achieved through laying the print flat on a scrunched piece of fabric. I was satisfied with these two as I think they represented the skin textures I was portraying earlier on in my project, connecting the burns with the facial disfigurement. The blue print in the middle was my favourite,  it was printed onto a chiffon and the colours came out extremely well, it was really beautiful. 

Using the knit sample I made earlier I took to the stand to see how it could be used, in my book I have drawings of it being used on a sleeve but it was much too flimsy to try so I could only pin it where the mannequin was. Pinning it first then stuffing it worked well as it meant I create the shapes where I wanted them and change them around. I was trying to create the crop top with the Frida Kahlo style pregnancy hole in the top set of stand work but I don't really like how it came out. This was mainly because it was so difficult to adjust so it wouldn't stay central and this just made it look like a random hole as opposed to representing the womb. The most successful part of using it in this way was how I could stuff it completely. Due to it being flat, the tissue was really malleable and easy to pull through. 

On the other hand, the second set of mannequin work I was much more content with. Incorporating where a sleeve could be or even a hood through layering the knit around itself created some really interesting shapes. The white was quite distracting as it looked like bandages. but after dying both the knit and the stuffing, it will be preferable.