MY DRESS IS DONE!!! :D

This is my final garment fully finished :D

wooooohoooo!!!! 

Please excuse the TV in the background, there was a program on about people that eat burgers, it made me hungry.

After a tough start to the project I am very happy with how it all turned out in the end.

I found it very difficult to get started and get inspiration as I was very unsure which direction to go down. After visiting the Castle Museum archives and the Thakary medical museum I knew that I wanted to incorporate the medical/injury element in to my work some how. 

After looking in-depth at the details and information on the war, how people were treated and the things people were exposed to I knew that I wanted to to some how represent this pain and hidden messages in my final garment.

I did some work manipulating the fabrics using staining and wearing techniques which looked really good but when I experimented with water soluble fabric I realised that would be my main technique.

I wanted to do a full length dress, very simple with a good curvy silhouette. 

I created an overlay fabric using 6 different materials shredded in to tiny pieces. I then sandwiched the pieces in to the dissolvable material. I had to sew over them over and over to make sure when the material was dissolved all the little scraps would remain in tact in a strong enough form to use and a new fabric in itself.

I did this 20 times to create enough to cover the majority of the garment. 

I also found an image while at the Thakary Medical museum of a surgeon saving a venerable young woman from a skeleton (death). The shapes in the image were very eye catching so I decided to hand bead a spine to put down the back of the dress. 

My finished garment is supposed to represent all the tiny pieces of the war, and how on their own they are very fragile but together they form a strong bond. Each piece of its on is normal but each is as important as the next. 

After my ideas started to flow and I got my theory down on paper, this was when I started to feel a lot more comfortable with the project as a whole.

I think in the bringing i was looking to much at the historical side of the War and not the way it made me feel or the inspiration I could get from images and stories. 

If I was to do this project again I think I would try not to worry to much about getting everything in to my sketch book and organically follow a path instead of trying to get as much down as possible.

I think that I handled my time really efficiently in this project, I kept to my timeline I laid out in my statement of intent and got everything finished to a standard I was really happy with. 

I feel that given more time there isn’t anything extra I could of done to improve my work.

As I took Textiles a GCSE and A Level and then went on to study Buying and Merchandising I think i missed the practical side of design more than I knew I did. 

There is a lot of texture and depth in my final piece which I am really happy with. 

This is something I hope to be able to explore further in my career.

As I want to go in to bridal wear I feel I managed this project to my advantage using bridal fabrics, shapes and new ideas, keeping the concept fresh. 

I feel that my foundation degree in Buying and Merchandising really helped my in the paper work side of the project as I have done similar things the past two years for other tasks, although getting to grips with photoshop again was a quite difficult but I got there in the end.

All in all I am very happy with how everything turned out and feel that I have worked to the best of my ability.

I have been updating my blog along side this project which can be found at;

http://ellasimpsonblog.blogspot.co.uk

Making the most time consuming fabric in the world.

So after deciding to use water soluble fabric to create a new sheet of fabric.

I shredded 6 different fabrics in to tiny pieces and then stitching them on to the dissolvable fabric it creates a layer.

You have to sew over it over and over and over again which sent me in to some kind of weird fabric trance D: 

I think in the end I had about 20 panels which took about half an hour each to make. Writing this down now has just made me realise i spent 10 BLOODY HOURS!!!! making it. 

At least it looks cool!! haha 

Heres a picture Nat took of me hard at work in my fabric trance.

Not one of my finest moments :/ haha

After cutting all the fabric and sandwiching it in to the dissolvable fabric and sewing over it (50 billion times) you run it under water and it dissolves away just leaving the same scraps sewn together .

I scanned in a small sample i made back when i thought this was a really good idea.

Here are some images of the bigger panels and the finished product. I also stitched my beaded spine from my previous post on to some of the panels to go down the centre back of my dress.

So many little things on top of other little things D:

Will do another post tomorrow with my final images :) 

luv u beh!

Beading a Spine :D

I haven't really had time to keep posting as this dress is taking a hell of a lot longer than I ever thought it would!

I ordered about £30-£40 worth of beads so that I had a good variation to use

I only wanted to use glass and bought some crystals as well.

I got some individual types and some good mixed bags from eBay, all in all I was pretty happy with the variation I ended up with :)

I then drew a spine on to chiffon laid over satin. I stitched the larger beads on to make sure they definitely wouldn't fall off. It took me ages to decide on the right glue to get so ended up looking of some American dance forums for mental 'Dance moms'  with tables of which glue to use on which crystals on which fabrics. Pretty bloody good really haha.

After glueing on the rest of my beads I realised I had realllyyyyy over estimated how many I needed HA!! so now I pretty much have a kg box or beads, pearls and crystals! good job I want to go in to bridal :) some how i think they may come in to use :D

So yea, after the glue had set I peeled the chiffon off the satin backing to leave just the beads on the chiffon. I have cut this out now so it is just waiting to be put on my dress! :D

Next post will be a quick run down of how I've put together the over lay fabric for my dress!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!! 

<3

WW1 Project Update

Well, its been a good few weeks since we started this project now and its safe to say it has been a bit more difficult that i originally thought. I has been tricky to get back in to things after two years of spreadsheets!

The ND course was completely different compared to this BA, the lay out of the project is totally different, how you are to produce your sketchbook and just generally how much freedom you are give to carry out your work.

I have visited a few places now and feel like I really have a good understanding of the War and as much of an idea as I can about what these men went through. 

I have tried to focus on the front like, what kind of materials and colours would have been present etc.

I have taken these and produced some different samples that could be used for surface detailing.

Scraps of chosen fabric sewn on to dissolvable material

Hessian fabric gives a really good volume that would look good as a coat/cape

Layered chosen fabrics sewn and scored down to different layers make good patches but is very thick and heavy weight.

Here i tried to replicate injury with a cut and dripping blood

using different sizes red beads works really well to give depth and texture

I am starting to look at doing these techniques in different colours and fabrics focusing on my theme of ordinary men doing doing extraordinary things. Lending its inspiration to simple silhouettes and simple garments finished in beautiful intricate ways. 

I am going to start doing some sketches and looking at design developments this week, still got to think of a name for my collection too....

Making changes and new starts.

It has been a long time since I last posted, and with moving out of the Reading flat with Adam and Liv,a moving everything we own 200 miles north back to York and starting a new course I have been thinking it is high time I started up again.

I haven't really had the time to make any lookbook posts and being on my own a lot I don't have the equipment to take my pictures. 

I have so many new things starting at the moment and one of the most important is my new course. I finished my foundation degree at the London college of fashion in buying and merchandising and have gone back to York college where I did my design ND to do my third year in design also. It was quite a last minute decision but something I am very happy I did. Being so excited about doing design again I guess I feel a bit like I have been thrown back in at the deep end with it! 

Our first project is being done along side the castle museum in york. They are launching a new exhibition in June next year, on world war 1. We have to create a garment to go along side the exhibit. 

By looking in to the history of the war and investigating certain elements we are supposed to be able to go on a journey with our destination being our final piece.

I have had a few ideas floating around but nothing I am complete besotted with. I want to perhaps look at injuries sustained in the Great War, wether it be caused by gas attacks, bombs or artillery fire, looking in to the horrors that these men had to endure. 

It got me thinking about how as a country, we have been brought up to make the best of every situation, a sort of get up and get on with it kind of attitude. When I think about the war I think of how great our country is and how we all pulled together to fight for what we believed in. Then I look at the images from these times, and can't help but feel nothing less than devastated at the pure unimaginable horror these poor men had to endure. The fact is millions of men from all sides were sent marching straight to their deaths. The front line was nothing more than cannon fodder and the horrific terror these men must of had to endure is so so sad. I came across this picture of a whole group of men blinded by mustard gas,

 

I can't help but feel this could not sum up the war (war in general) enough. Being led blind to their possible deaths based on nothing but propaganda and pride. It is clear that images like these stir up a lot of emotion but I just don't know how to inject this in to my work and convert these images and thoughts in to a garment fit for a museum exhibition. 

I am trying very hard to think outside the box and look at how I can develop ideas and put them down in to a sketch book, but I still feel like I can't think of anything that isn't ridiculously obvious! 

I want to do the subject justice and I am determined to investigate every avenue I can as thoroughly as possible to do as well as i used too. 

In other news I have had a pretty exciting offer from a stylist on twitter looking for a custom made flower crown, just in conversation about it at the moment but if something comes of it I will be doing a post on it soon as the deadline is to be delivered to them on the 12th October, wish me luck!

I like the way you work it, no diggity!

This is my latest lookbook post, I posted it yesterday originally but lookbook must have been broken or something becuase it didnt do very well at all, either that or its shit! haha you'll have to let me know what you think :)

I really liked this outfit, originally I want to base it around my purple coat but then I prefured it with out haha. 

This coat is from OhMyLoveLondon.com and it really has done me proud this winter haha.

The fur can get a bit annoying becuase it is attached on to the coat with buttons, but they just get caught in my hair and all tangled up ha.

I bought this necklace off eBay for a couple of quid shipped from hongkong :) It works with so many outfits!

 

Finally this is my OhMyLoveLondon.com skirt, I got it in the sale for about £7. Its a really good fit and i love the fabric, its all most like a canvas type material.

Hope you like this one :) thankssss!

NEW LOOKBOOK POST 14/04/2013

New lookbook.nu post :)

New Lookbook post 

I did this look a couple of months ago but then I became poorly so havebeen out of action for quite a while :( To make things even worse I was only two days in to my work experience at house of Fraser head office before I had to go to hospital D:

I bought this dress for Olivia for her birthday but then she bought it before I could give it to her so ohhh noooo I had to keep it ;D haha 

This was also one of the only looks taken that day in which I didn't fall over stood still (what a douche!!)

Hope you like :)

MOTEL ROCKS S/S COLLECTION PREVIEW

MOTEL ROCKS COLLECTION PREVIEW

This week me and Liv went to the Motel Rocks new collection preview at their show room on Great Portland street.

It was 90's themed and so so cool! We had slushies and sweets and they haqd all sorts of cool stuff going on.

They are not that good but I took some pictures :)

 We got to have a look through their up coming S/S collections, The first half was made up with darker colours and more heavy weight fabrics.

And the summer collection had a lot more colours! There were a lot of prints, tye dye and design tees :)

This dress was by far my favorite! I love the print so much and this it needs to be mine ASAP!

 

They had a Henna station!! :0

In the corner! 90's muchhhh??

Good bag items to come in my next post :)