Final Collection - The Final Frontier

My intent with this project is to draw together everything that I am passionate about and topics and subject matter in which I am interested in.

Working gothic themes through beautiful cathedral-esk architecture. 

Looking at Stain glass windows and using the colour through a mainly black collection.

Looking at different ways of printing the stain glass images on to fabrics. Channeling my love of lace and threading it through each garment to connect them in to one collection. Using velvets, chiffons and lace as main fabrics.

Making surface techniques very prominent throughout to follow through from my previous projects.

Looking at Auguste Rodin's sculptures which I have always loved and Romanticism artists with similar themes.

Finally not forgetting my love for all things bridal. Channeling the bridal theme throughout my collection with out being too literal. 

Large extravagant couture pieces but just not in the typical bridal colours. 

Every part of this collection is a part of something I love. Through style, colours, theme, shapes and subjects, this is me.

I will keep my blog up too date throughout this project the same as with Precious Cargo as to keep track of my progress.

I will be looking into creating garments that are NOT dresses, thats right NOT DRESSES. Well I will be making a few ;) but I am determined to make at least a pair of shorts, trousers and a jacket/cape.

My first port of call is to scan, photocopy and print off all the images I find inspirational for this project, get them all together and go through them to get a better idea of direction. This week I will also be going to visit Cathedrals and churches to take pictures so that I can start to look at shapes and silhouettes. 

I feel that this will be a good start and will give me a good sense of direction.

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

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