Thursday 8th March 2018

During the first week of this project, we went to Bicester Village to have a look at all the designer stores. Over the course of the day, we made our way into Givenchy, Fendi, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Burberry, Valentino, Armini, Dolce and Gabbana, Alexander McQueen, Dior, Kenzo, Acne Studios and a few more. As we made our way in and out of all these stores, I kept in mind all the details these top designers add to their garments to make them individual.

It was a memorable experience to see such amazing quality fabrics and garments! This will give us inspiration for our designs and how we can make our garments with the best finishing and outcome. We spent a lot of time in Fendi, looking at the print, use of colour and different fabrics. At that time, the store had very light and bright blues, pinks and reds. I really loved the garment in the image below. The use of the bold, block print on the light chiffon fabric, created a holiday like feel.




As I continued to make my way around the store, I really loved the dress, in the image above. The use of washed light blues and purples, with the lightweight fabric, created a dream like feel to the garment. The print at the bottom of the dress reminded me of a scene you would find in the Victorian or Edwardian era, the grand house and mass amount of land surrounding the property.



Fendi had a lot of different textures running throughout their selection of garments in the store. The use of fur, silks, chiffon and leather created an intriguing combination. I also really liked the use of embroidery in the very colourful flowers in the image below. 

Wednesday 7th March 2018

To start our COAST live brief, we gathered research for our colour in art work, designers, movies etc.
Key imagery that came to our minds as a group, were images from the impressionism selection of art work.We began by putting images that sat well together to create some kind of a mood board for the beginning of the brief. Using colour and print to group these images together.

As a group, we found the occurring colours of  purple and orange. We thought that these colours would sit very nice together, especially in a resort collection. Vibrant colour and print is needed in a resort collection, as it's the outfit that someone will be wearing on their escape to an exotic destination or just an escape from their day-to-day lives.


Once we grouped our key imagery together, we then presented these to the COAST members, as they came to have a chat with our group.

They really liked our concept of using impressionism to develop our colour palette and to create some prints from our own inspired pieces of work. Another idea we had, was the possible idea of illustrative floral. I did a quick research into print trends for Spring Summer 2019 and unfinished floral is one of the trends. We mentioned this idea to the team members of COAST and they very liked it. But as we thought about it, we wanted to offer something other than floral to COAST, as they already create such beautiful print.

That's when we began to look into what Escape could mean to us individually and on a more majority scale.

Turtle Neck Lay Plan:



Fabric = Black Jersey
Width = 144cm
Length = 2 meters
I used 1.5 meters to create my jersey















Trousers:





 Fabric = Woven
Width = 150cm
Length = 2 meters

I used the majority of this fabric to make the trousers. Leaving about a quarter of a meter left.










Coat:




Fabric = 100 percent wool with polyester
Width = 152cm
Length = 7 meters

For this coat, I did end up using the majority of the fabric. I had about a quarter of a meter left after I had cut all my pieces out and made my pleat panels.

 With the development of my Jacket, I did have a few issues that took a few attempts to fix.

The making of my own collar and rever went very well. I was so happy with the first draft of the collar and rever, I decided to take that forward.

As I used the mens loose fit t-shirt block to create my Jacket from, because I didn't want a tight fitted jacket, I wanted quite an oversized big coat.
This resulted in the second toile being way to big!

My first toile, I dropped the shoulder, but forgot to add the 5cm to the side seams, to even out my dropped shoulder. Which resulted in the under arm being very bunched up.
 I also marked on my front pannels, which would help place in my kilt part of the coat.

As you can see from the image, the underarm does look very bunched up. So for my second toile, I then went forward and made my corrections.

I created the long front panel by separating the front block piece into two. The first front panel (A) would be the one that would reach to the hem, matching up with the kilt part of my coat.

I then added 5cm to the second front panel (B), from the end of Front panel A to the side seam, to even out my dropped shoulder.


 The second toile was created with the altered pattern pieces. I realised a few things again that needed fixing.

Where the kilt part of my garment started, was too low on the body, as it sat below the hips.

I moved these pleated sections up by 10cm to fix this problem. From my toile review, my teacher thought that the front panel A was slightly too small in width. So I then made this panel half the size of the original block size, doing the same to the front panel B. Making both front panels the same width.












As for the dropped shoulder, by adding those 5cm, it then made my coat very very big in width!

To keep the dropped shoulder, but the bring the coat in, I curved the side seams and brought them in by 2cm, on each front pieces B and both my back pieces. Bringing the whole garment in by 8cm.

My pleats were also a bit too small, as I discussed this with my teacher. As I picked the coat fabric with the pin stripes running down at 3cm apart, we came to the conclusion of making my pleats 3cm in width instead of 2cm.

I was happy with everything else on the garment.


                                                                                                                       

I was very happy with the outcome of my final toile.

The making of this coat was a very long process, as I was dealing with very long and heavy pieces of fabric, especially sewing in the pleats.

Creating the pleats in calico took the longest, as I would go along the whole width of the piece of calico, and measure out every 3cm, then do the same to the other side, and draw a long matching each 3cm, directly opposite, together.
I then used this as my guide to create my pleats. Making sure they were all even and completely straight.

I'm very happy with the way this coat turned out, even if creating the pleats was a very long process. 
 I spoke to my teacher just before I began to cut out my final fabric, and she decided that for the design to work better, I needed to put fake vents in both my sleeves.
I then had to change my pattern pieces on my sleeves quickly, to the go forward and cut out my fabric.

The reason behind this is due to the fact that my lining is loose lining, due to the pleats. So I couldn't have my vents in my kilt section anymore.