Today was our final presentation to the Coast team members, including the Creative Director. We were all very scared and also exited to present what we had created over the course of the 9 weeks. I found it amazing to finally see our vision come to life and for us to finally see it all come together, was just an incredible experience.
As I was the only menswear designer, I was quit nervous to hear what the Creative Director, Neil, and the other two Designers, Kate and Faye, thought of my final outfit. To my delight they loved it! The creative director loved my bomber jacket and the use of the print. Kate and Faye commented on how the last time they saw me they mentioned about making my trousers into shorts, and how they loved the turn out of them. I was over the moon with their feedback and I'm so glad I was able to represent a menswear point of view to the brand.
Overall I was so proud of my group for coming together at the end, as we did have quite a few disagreements over the course of the project. The live project as a whole, was an amazing experience as I got to work with my fellow class but to also learn a lot about the industry and how it is to work for a well-established brand.

I took the role of making all the specifications sheets and working sheets for our group, as I really enjoy the technical side of the garment manufacturing.Today everyone was really busy with their own garments and the presentation, so to help my team out, I went round all my members and measured their toiles for them. There was altogether, 14 toiles, which I decided on the 6 important measurements for each one. I then put all the data into the specification sheet template I had already made and added the technical flats Katie had re-drawn for the group. 

Katie's technical flat style of drawing is amazing! The detail she put in each technical blew me away and this has made me want to practise my technical skills over the course of the summer. It took her 7 hours to draw Maria's garment, front and back, so for her to draw all of our garments, was an amazing task for her to take on. 

I also took on board the working sheets for everyone, as I had already created the template, so I was more than happy to create these as well. Referring back to the spec sheets, It was planned that I was going to have help from my fellow team members, but there was a problem with miss communication, so I put aside my bomber jacket making, as I had already made the other 2 garments, to create everyone's spec sheets.

 

I'm really happy on how my final toiles turned out and the way they all sat together. I had quite a few problems with the development of my T-shirt, as the sizing was not right and the collar was too big in a certain area. In the end, I managed to fix all the problems with my toiles, which I was very happy about.

This t-shirt is what I had the most problems with. The shoulders were too big and I had to bring the sleeve crown back up towards the neck point, quite a bit, in order for the garment too work. If I were to make this again, I'll defiantly use a different block other than the loose-fit t-shirt block to create this shirt, as it was too big. But overall, I was very happy with how the t-shirt turned out.

Katie and Myself made the trip today to London on behalf of our group, to purchase the remaining fabrics for our collection. We went to cloth house to collect the majority of the fabric for our group, collecting Georgia and Lilla's Heavy cotton for their garments and my cotton Linen for my T-shirt and lightweight rib for my bomber jacket.

We bought around 14 meters of fabric and bought 12 or so buttons for garments that were 80p each. After collecting this fabric, we then made our way to Shepherds bush to but Katie and Maria's fabric that was needed for their dresses and lining for Maria's bag.

Throughout the rest of the presentation, Kate and Faye gave their feedback to the other members of my group and then went on to discuss our bag designs.

Over all the presentation went really well and it was great to present and discuss our concept with Faye and Kate.

After changing our designs and colour palette slightly, from our review last Wednesday with our tutors. Maria created another illustrated line-up, sitting with us all individually to see exactly how we picture our designs.

Following from my group review with our Tutors on Wednesday, I changed my design. I prefer the new design to the old, as the jacket on the previous seemed too feminine for the male market. After discussing about having a bomber jacket with my tutors, I created the technical flats of the garments I wish to produce. I will be making these into toiles, to present to Faye and Kate from COAST next Tuesday. I'm very excited to show them what we could offer to their potential male costumers.  

To get a feel and idea of the collection, Maria created our illustrated line-up. It was great to see how our collection will sit next to one another and with having this illustrated line-up, we could get a better picture in our minds.