Messy Sketchbooks

I got to talk to our tutor about my design manual for the drapery project. Due to the fact I've never produced anything like this on computer before, I was a little nervous, but very relieved when she said she liked it.
I am trying to keep a minmalist theme for a mazimum impact. I've used a font which I found on www.wordle.net which gives a conteporary feel to my manual.
My tutor also showed me a sketchbook by one of the current first years which uses a minimalist theme too. She's done an amazing job - it doesn't look messy or cluttered. It's the style I wish to achieve myself, so this is what I am going to do in this project.

I want to use this as an aim for this year. By the end of Level 5, I intend to have a 'shit hot' sketchbook.

MoDiP Presentation

The day finally came for us to present our company.
We received a bit of critisism, which was to be expected, but I think otherwise it went really well.
The boards all linked well with each other and we didn't repeat what each other was saying.
After all the work we've put into it, I'm really glad it's finished. I think that although we didn't work well initially, by the end, we managed to help each other and produce a brand which could work if we were to try it.

Blog: http://1950steamproject.blogspot.com/

More drapery. A bit of Peclers. A student protest.

The fit of my dress is almost spot on now... It's coming together nicely! Not long until the deadline. I've been working on the manual, it seems to be coming together well.
We had a presentation by Peclers, a trend forcasting company based in Paris. I didn't attend the first half as I wanted to concentrate on my drapery, but I went to the second half and found it really interesting. At the end there were a load of trend boards that we had a chance to look at. Some of them were really beautifully put together. I took photos of my favorite ones:




Also, I want to point out that we are currently going through a phase of student protesting. All over the country students are rioting over the fact that tuition fees are trebling. There was a protest set up from our uni, into town to the Bournemouth Town Hall. This is what I could see from our studios:

Drapery Pattern

I took apart my dress and layed each piece flat on the table. Each one I traced around and created a paper pattern piece. The shapes that I have for each piece look very strange. Last lesson I made sure I marked in every direction, notch and what each piece was. I understand now how important it was to do that. I have already put the garment back together and had to alter the patterns because the shape was wrong. I'm finding this part of the project very stressful at the moment, but I'm sure when I've finished the garment it'll all be worth it.

Muse

Anya taught us all to know about muses today. In groups we had to choose a muse for a potential range and create a board to show who she is. Then we created a board of what our range is actually for. I really enjoyed this as it's something I don't usually get to do and it really got me thinking. Here are the ones from my group:

Draping on the stand.

Started off with the intention to reproduce a dress by Vivienne Westwood, ending up jumping forward a few stages by creating my own dress sooner than needed! It's been a bit of a pain, but I'm really enjoying draping on the stand. Will definately keep it as an option for the future.

A session with Anya

Finally! My Promoter housemate is always talking about how good those sessions are and finally we have one.
She's brilliant. I really like how she has a completely look on fashion to what I've heard before. She knows what's hot and whats not, what we should be thinking about now, where we should be heading for... she's worked for about a billion companies... I really think I'm going to learn a lot in her sessions.
This first session was on who we are and what we want to do with ourselves. We've got sessions lined up on the fashion tree, muses and moreeee.

Group Project

Had another team meeting today, decided on who is doing which boards, what name we are going to use for the company, what should be on the target market and what should be on the brand. I am going to be mainly focusing on the colour board, with some help toward the design board.
Am feeling a bit better about this project now that we've actually started putting some work together. It seems to start off slow and pick up as we go along.