Primarily, we decided that I shouldn’t continue with Collection- the project I’ve been working on for the majority of this semester. This also means I won’t be doing the big school fashion show at the end of next semester.  While some people would be crushed at this news, I’m actually very excited.

For the last four weeks, I’ve not been super excited about continuing work on the collection I developed and had approved. The instructors wanted too many things to change. They were taking parts of the collection out that I was really excited about and making changes that were interesting but not really in line with my style and what I’m passionate about.  Mind you, this wasn’t out of malice, but because the collection as it was wasn’t totally coherent and had about 3 different directions it could go rather than just one. As a collection, it’d be totally successful if I had 30 looks, not just 6.   As a result, I’ve spent many restless nights struggling with an absence  of self confidence– something that’s super uncharacteristic of me.

Now that I’m not having to make 2 solid looks in muslin each week, I can focus more on building out a really kickass portfolio and making clothing that I’m more excited about rather than trying to please my school.  Look forward to more posts regarding new fun projects I’m working on and not so much foot dragging struggle. Currently in the cooker:  alternative active wear, denim and leather, brocades, silks, and linen….

more to come!

I work for a week patterning and sewing together toilles, I take it into my design class on Wednesday afternoon. And with the help of my design and construction instructor, we pin, mark, cut apart, and otherwise modify each garment to fit into what is desired by them for my collection.

So we start with this:

(week 1)

Which turned into this wider, baggier version:

(Week 2)

And most recently into this:

(week 3)

Mind you, my instructor is notorious for changing his mind, wanting something different every time… so it’s hard to say what the next step will be. For now, I’m taking our latest fitting and turning the ugly baggy pants into more tailored, controlled baggy pants. We’ll see what happens.

The most difficult part of this is finding the happy medium between my ideas and style and their ideas and style. After this particular fitting, there was talk about many things: scraping my collection all together, re-designing garments to be more modern or more traditional, changing all color/fabric for something different, more interesting fabric stories.

I’ve been torn all week between continuing with this collection or dropping it entirely. Re-designing everything to be extra baggy and oversized like my design instructor wants.  Or starting completely over with a whole different collection and direction. We’re still working on it. Nothing is set in stone yet. But the likelihood of what you see in my pre-collection and what I have by the end of this semester being even vaugely the same is very slim.

Needless to say, all of the actions against #Occupy this week have made it really difficult to stay focused on my work. I spend many an hour reading, catching up and staying tuned to the events happening in SF, NY, OO, and the UC campuses. It’s something I care passionately about, and though I can’t be there in person, my thoughts are with this movement much of the time.

Stay tuned….

For those of you scratching your heads, this is how it works:

On September 1, we begin designing our collection from scratch. We have 7 weeks to have research, 6 approved looks, full technical flats, and two sets of garments- one set in final fabric, one set in muslin- made for presentation. This breakdown is essentially what you’ll see in the photos I’m loading with this entry.

Upon approval, We continue to make two full looks every two weeks, which we then fit to a model for adjustments. I’m going to post photos shortly of our Test-fit session and talk a little about the patterning process and garment building. At the end of the Semester, there’s another approval process (Collection Approval) where they give us the green light to make all garments in final fabrics…

But for now… Yay!!

*Check out my flickr page on the right side of the screen to see my process books.

**Pre-Collection is essentially the collection the heads of my department approve for the final runway show… the count down begins!

We just finished the first part of a three piece suit in my construction class.

This is a suit jacket that’s largely hand sewn. In any instance where mass-produced market would use fuse-able interfacing(glue), we sewed layers together by hand.  In the photos below, you’ll see my sewing needle sitting next to the stitches that hold the horsehair canvas to the backside of the lapel as well as the stitching on the collar.  I think the shoulder has 5 or 6 layers sewn in, one after another.

We start completely from scratch, drafting the pattern, cutting, then sewing. The full project took 7 weeks to complete. Materials include: 100% wool suiting material, Rayon Lining and Sleeve lining, cotton pocketing, Irish lenin collar, horsehair canvas front panel, collar felt, cotton shoulder padding and sleeve cap, and bias tape.

Sewing this together was a joy. I really loved all the hand stitching and the challenges associated with lining material.

We’re already on to the vest and the pants portion of this project. Photos soon!

This is v.1.0 of this project. I’m already working on what will be v.2… something that I’m more confident about binding. This version didn’t print well– the colors were all off and the hair on the croquis is pretty awful. I’ll probably post v.2 once I’ve finished it.

Upon completing my fall semester, I was immediately handed a project for a scholarship competition which I was to do with no instruction.  In this way I embarked on what I was calling the Beautiful Boy project.

Pardon my frankness, but I worked my balls off for a solid 3 weeks. A week before the deadline for the scholarship, the project was turned in to a comity of instructors from my school. After one round of recommended revisions, which I lost a full night of sleep for (since I only had one day to do it) my school returned the project, declining my submission for the scholarship. I was crushed- primarily because my school refused to even offer the project up to the competition. They wouldn’t even give it a chance… and I quote: “The heads of our department know what it takes to win a competition. If they said it wouldn’t float, it won’t.”

The feelings of rejection and defeat have dissipated and burned the feelings I have regarding the larger fashion world deeper into my being. Now I’m more determined to work harder at what I’m doing and solidly confident that I will not slave in this industry for some big fashion conglomerate. I’ll continue to put my heart and creativity into my work and submit to all the competitions, the runway shows, and scholarships. And if they don’t want me, I don’t want them either.

At the same time, I’m grateful to know that I have more to improve upon. As it turns out, I’m still a student; I still have things to learn. It’s taken three solid meetings with my design instructor to suss out what I need to improve on, but I finally have a solid idea. This semester is proving to be the most challenging yet.

It’s been three weeks now, and I have another scholarship submission due in two weeks.

Wish me luck.

Denim is tricky for many reasons. First: you can’t really use screen printing ink on denim. It doesn’t come out well because denim is usually dark. We used burn-out alot– a nasty chemical(smelling of dried apricots) that will essentially disintegrate fabric if it’s used heavily enough, and will create a worn look when used properly.  We also used adherent foil, a process where you apply glue through a screen, let it dry, then put it in a big heat press with the foil film on top of it. After it cools, you pull away the film and the foil will have stuck wherever there was glue.

I wound up using my sewing machine for a majority of my collection. I created 3-d forms for a few swatches and stylized applique for other swatches. Many of them I used darker or opaque screen printing and even glued on fibers instead of foil.  My instructor liked them so much she suggested I enter a re-constructed denim competition, which I’ll post photos of later.

This is one of the textiles collections from my summer courses. The challenge we were given was to mix and use only one color. We could add extender base to it to make it lighter, but the darkest color could only be the color we mixed. The challenging part was mixing the color to match a color swatch we were given… often using multiple different colors to achieve matching the swatch- I think my green involved yellows, blues, purples, oranges and a little green.

This collection was inspired by urban cyclists. I used the Mission Workshop Vandal backpack and Bern’s most recent collection of helmets as props.  The main things that don’t translate through the flats are as follows:

• antimicrobial, hi-tech wicking fabrics for under layers, stain/water resistant fabrics for pants, and breathable waterproof fabrics for jackets.
• all darker prints on the flats are tone-on-tone reflective prints.
• backs of all the shirts are longer in the back to compensate for bicyclists leaning over their handle bars.
• quick pull straps on all pant legs to keep them out of the chains.

Having finished this collection, there are a few basic things that I’d change about it– I’d probably work to develop the patterns a little bit more and to carry them over onto the bags and helmets in my croquis. Luckily I’ll be given the chance to do so in my portfolio class next year.