The Final Journey, My Third Year

I am now on the last leg of my degree after two years of developing and growing I have only 2 months to go until I have completed my degree. As I am in my final year I have decided to push myself and create a 14 piece six outfit designer collection. My Target market is Mulberry a quintessentially English brand that suits the theme and design of my collection. I am creating a English heritage inspired collection with texture and print being key aspects. This is a moodboard I created to get a feel for the Mulberry brand.

 

Final Garments

I have now finished all 3 outfits and I'm really pleased with the outcome I think the dandelion print works really well and creates the vibe I was aiming for. It also works well along side the drape dress. The outfit that brings the two together is the insert seam top and skirt, which combines both these components together.

 This is my playsuit with the dandelion print on a silk habotai fabric using a grey trim with pearl and iridescent beads down the front and on the cap sleeves. The back has a keyhole detail which is finished with a pearl button and rouleau loop as well as grey satin binding.

 This is the drape dress with the embroidery panel finished of with satin binding . The dandelions have iridescent and pearl beading creating the stem which links in with the playsuit. The image on the right is when the drape dress was displayed in drake circus shopping centre as part of a promotional campaign for the art college and fashion show.

This is the final outfit which uses the silk printed fabric with the polyester crushed taffeta middle panel trapping embroidery inserts into the panels. The skirt also uses the two fabrics as well as the trim with beading.

Overall I feel very happy with my collection and I'm looking forward to seeing them on models at the fashion show.

Toile's

After deciding on my final designs I then started developing the patterns and once these were complete I made my toiles.

 These are my toiles for the insert seam top and pocket skirt 

 This is my completed playsuit toile

After some tweaking and experimentation I managed to get my drape dress toile made

All of my toile's need some kind of tweaking or changing but once this was done I was ready to make.

Final Designs

As well as the dandelion print I also developed other samples one of which being an embroidery sample using scraps of fabric and threads, this is a sample  I would like to use on my final collection. I also created a sample with beading on a trim, which I think is quite effective and will work well with the print and embroidery. 

These are a few concept designs I created using magazines to find different shapes that work with the silhouette.

After much experimentation and designs I came up with my final designs using the three samples.

The first design is a drape dress using the embroidery sample for a panel and dandelion shapes on the dress. The second design is an insert seam top in the dandelion print using embroidery pieces inserted into the middle panel of 

the top. This is paired with a pocket skirt using the dandelion print on the pockets with the beaded trim. The final design is a dandelion playsuit with the beaded trim down the front.

Dandelion Print

I then decided to develop a dandelion print as I felt this would work well with the brief and would create a fun playful vibe. I drew two different dandelions one in its structured form with all its seeds and one with the seeds blowing away and after experimenting with various different colours from the brief I settled on a  dusky pink/purple colour.

This is the print I created which could be repeated . Using this print I experimented with screen prints and digital Mimaki printing and after looking at the samples I decided to use the digital Mimaki as it gave a shaper look to the print showing up the detail of the dandelion.

Moodboard

From the brief I then created my own mood board using the words and images on the brief as inspiration and finding images and objects that inspired me.

One object which I felt particularly interested and inspired by was the dandelion, I felt this represented the brief well with its two different forms. Its first form being structured with all its seeds attached and its second form free flowing when the seeds are released in the wind.

My Final Project In Year 2 of my Fashion Degree

My Final Project for my Second year is to design and make 3 outfits for the end of year fashion show in May. I was given a selection of different briefs to choose from with various different colourways and trends. The brief I chose was called Visualise, this is a very soft and subtle brief using pastel colours and free flowing fabrics, this appealed to me as I could really visualise a feminine collection using these colours and the overall mood of the brief.