What have i been up to... AMFI (September 1st- December 20th)

Mens shirt we made at the start of the year, was nice to repeat a part of my previous course to refresh my memory 

Specification drawings using adobe illustrator:

The very start of designing for my own collection 'Burberry clash' for the current project. However these 3 designs did not make the cut 200+ designs later...

The final chosen design to make!

 These were the 3 submitted designs to make, however just the one on the left will make my final collection.

The very beginning for toiling..

My final collection!- some adjustments need to be made in order to make it come together as a collection. As well as varying a few lengths in the skirts and shorts.

First and only fitting- The collar turned out nicely in calico however I'm having a bit of trouble making it work in my final fabric :( I WILL MAKE IT WORK.

The whole outfit on my model for the catwalk:

The start of making my final design-

Very pleased with how it's turning out though it's proving very difficult to work at home!- just need to make the jeans at school, and finish my shirt though. 

More to come for Burberry Clash SS14!

Balmain spring summer 14

Balalalalalalamain

So I'm looking at interns.. since my motivation for work is failing me once again. How do i manage to do it so well when I'm in Amsterdam.. I'm slightly worried that this is now my 21 year old brain which refuses to do work. Since when i asked my friend what 21 felt like she said "I woke up so different Evie, I felt so much more mature..." Of course I knew this was not true, if you knew the girl (Blair anderson) who i was in conversation with, you would know that this girl will never mature. BUT what if this is my 21 year old brain.. lets hope not!

I have a feeling it has something to do with being allergic to nearly everything in my home environment.. And the internet mays well be non existent.. I suppose thats what you get for living at the bottom of a village, at the bottom of the hill, at the bottom of the lane... (At the bottom of the mud...) I could carry on but I 'shan't' <-- I'm sure my Amsterdammers will tell me that is a very english abbreviation/word hence why I put it in quotations.

Speaking of which.. I GOT THE PLACE. You might be wondering why it has taken me until now to tell you.. well.. let me tell you. Damn they work hard. I have not a minute to myself.. I even dream about work! hehe
But I'm to be in Amsterdam, and the Fashion Institute is very good, they can be confusing at times, and we all have our fair share of complaining to do but I really love it there. I have met some amazing people and made some amazing friends, i wouldn't change for the world.. blah blah blah... lets not.. (anyone that knows me, knows full well i don't do soppy.. even that word is weird. haha)

Shall we actually talk about what the title includes now? yehhhhh.... why not.
So basically i'm looking at fashion interns as i'd like to do mine in semester 6. (I'm currently in semester 3- coming to the end) And I thought I really wanted to do a placement at Hussein Chalayan, well i do, this is my goal, but come on, things dont always work out, you have to have fall backs, so Ive been looking at places I wouldnt have really looked at and a few i havent even heard of.

One place which i'm really interested in is BALMAIN. They have only come to light in my world very recently.. little embarrassing since I've been studying fashion for a while now.. but anyway I have been researching a little in to the company and i really like that they have just got a new designer- Mr Rousteing, who completed his studies in 2003.

There is one thing I'm worried about, and that is that i don't speak french, though i'm not entirely sure how much french they require you to speak.
Here is some Balmain work spring summer 14:

And the website

AMFI- AMSTERDAM FASHION INSTITUTE

Okay so I went to Amsterdam the other week to attend an interview for the university, I went with confidence as I have nearly completed my first year of Fashion design at Notttingham Trent university, and I was going for an interview for their first year of fashion, so basically I would be one year ahead.

The flight was very short, THANK GOD as I had been travelling ALL DAY. Nottingham to London to amsterdam to Mauritskade... 12 hours of travelling just for a 15 minute interview really was not ideal, but I wanted it so badly.

I'll cut to the chase.. the interview did not go well at all.. I went in was pretty confident.. and then it was like they were trying to find faults in me and my work. But since then I have been trying to just get on with my work and not think about it too much, If I get in.. great, if I dont then it wasnt meant to be, atleast I tried.

I'm currently doing my final project, which is all about colour. I'm basing it on tribal aspects such as clothing, forridging for food and just the general idea of creating everything from scratch such as harvesting their own food and using rags for clothing.

The main idea within this is that our first world country is trying their absolute best to try and go back to that because we have used so many fuels in order to get to where we are now that we have damaged our environment. So the best way for us would be to grow our own crops, use eco fabrics etc and I was looking at how we are basically turning to the ways that tribes use. Obviously their are certain aspects that we will keep such as clean water and santitation, but we are mainly looking to find things ourselves and grow our own crops from home.

Within my final collection I'd like to look at the juxtoposition between now and where we'd like to be so I'd like to create a non symmetric garment that shows this as well as using colour for attention to deatail, so the garment made be made of navy blue and I'd have say red pockets, something small that will really stand out.

The other thing I'd like to do is use eco fabrics, however after talking to a 2nd year teacher this may not be po0ssible for my actual collection as these sorts of fabrics are very expensive, but perhaps this could be my USP in the future, and the idea behind can still be portrayed throughout my project.

So these are just the general intitial ideas and you can kind of grasp the ideas that I will be using..

Will be posting more again soon!- when I can find the time!! AHHHH

Ri Ri's collaboration with River Island

So whilst I am on the topic of collaborations, as this is my chosen essay idea for my Design culture and context module....

 I thought I'd take a look at Rhianna's current collaboration with River Island.

This is Rhianna for River Island at London Fashion Week.

NEW PROJECTS AND THINKING ABOUT TREND REPORTS

So we've been given our new groups and our new briefs.

1. Co-oproduct
2. Colour
3. Trend Report
(4. Breaking into the fashion world)- technically this isnt a project, but we've started to write our CV's and also look at where abouts we would like to be and who we'd like to have work experience with etc.

Co-oproduct, is an online organisation where they create objects for example, lamps, coat hooks, tables, chairs etc out of waste materials and we've been doing a sort of collaboration with their team to create our own 'objects' or in our case, garments and accessories with our own collected waste materials. However the only problem I have with this, is that all the examples theyve given us to look at have been of recyclable materials, and I dont really understand the point exactly in creating things out of waste materials when this doesnt or shouldnt end up on landfill anyway. So.. what I'm going to do and what I've discussed with my group is that we're going to use materials which are non-recyclable, for example, CD's, foil, plastic bags and more.

Our colour project has only just got started and I'm not overly sure what will be my outcome of this, but I have thought of a few ideas, for example linking it to the co-oproduct idea and creating a quite floaty garment with something large and industrial over the top like a shoulder piece for example, I think this will be exciting to do especially as I'd like to do fashion artifact for my MA. (Well that is the idea, I guess its still a while away yet).

The Trend Report is what we are working on at the moment, this link with the two projects, we must come up with a trend report within our groups judging by the images that we brought to our tutorials, we haven't got a set colour scheme but I think we are looking at something quite industrial, which is where I got my idea for the colour project from as that will follow on from this. Possibly we could take inspiration from the print and dye inductions we have done recently. And laser cutting is a very industrial way of working, so maybe if we could look into this. Lots of ideas at the moment, just need to get together and see what we can do with these ideas.

Also, we found lots of industrial inspiration within the current market, so this will be good to bring within our trend report as they follow on from eachother.

Especially as what we want to create is a lot more experimental, very large shoulder pieces, which could easily come after what you can find in the current market, with all the big necklaces and tribal earings.

This is topshops new accessory range. Very Industrial.

DCC- Design Culture and Context- Modernism

As I have to begin writing an essay soon based on modernism, one the ideas raised in class was "Is it okay for men to wear skirts?" Personally I dont think the image of a train of male models strolling down the catwalk in black and white leather skirts is particularly attractive. However different people have different views, and I totally respect that.
I do think that men and women should be equal, but should we know when to draw the line? Should there be a line? As well with Gay marriage recently being approved I thought that this was the perfect time to look into this a bit more, so I began researching designers who had designed male outfits which were very influenced by womens clothing.

I came across a Topman collection which includes a modern version of the Catholic school girl uniform, the only difference is, is that its all in red. And for men.

Do you think that we should be mocking certain religions by using their style/ religious objects such as the cross as a means of fashion?
 I mention the cross because you can find this in pretty much any highstreet shop, and I recently found out that the cross upside down is actually 'antichrist' and I maybe think that we shouldnt be allowed to wear these, just because it's 'fashion'.

These were just a few thoughts to start me off on essay ideas.

first term of Uni over- Nottingham Trent University

So my first term is over and my first project is out of the way. I have learnt so many new skills is just the first 3 months. For one, I have learnt how to pattern cut. I've used an over-locker.. pattern layed.. worked pricing out and so so much more!

Essentially we had 2 projects running along side eachother.. one theory and one practical. The theory based one is to help us research and present our work, sometimes working in groups and sometimes working independently. Anyway we chose to research about hip hop.. after a lot of research into various different genres. It was pretty interesting as I lot of new things for example branding.. and how it can come across as one thing on someone yet gave off a totally different vibe on someone else.
So anyway.. that was that project, and we presented all our ideas at the end and had a discussion about what we thought.

The other project was a lot more practical "White project" and i chose to do mine on habitats. I looked into the natural and man made habitats and how the structure was actually fairly similar.
I decided that i wanted my model to feel sheltered as this tied invery well. So I decided to create some ideas with hoods attached.. I wanted a relatively large hood but realised in order to make the wearer feel "snug" and "comfortated the hood inside would need to be touching them. Sure enough I created a lining which was small enough to fit like a swimming hat and an outer hood which would stand away from the body.
The sleeves were a bit of a last minute thing, I knew I wanted sleeves but what i wanted them to look like was a totally different story, I tried out different shapes until I found one that I liked, and actually it worked very well, as it was in a leaf shape, and this tied in very well with my research because i visited Wollaton Hall and this was all about bugs and wildlife.

The finishing product was tweaked a few times and I had a couple of dissagreements with my teacher, but she did help me a lot and in the end i was very pleased with my final piece. I actually never thought i'd be creating something using pattern cutting and different types of designing.

The finished piece:

 (please email if you'd like to know anymore information on this project or anything about my work- eviecowan2@hotmail.co.uk)