Home for the Holidays (Posted by Laura)

As planned, Adrienne and I started as many of the garments as we could before the holidays so we knew what was required for them. For the holidays, we have split the work, each taking garments home to work on that we are confident working with and that play to our own strengths and skills (which is important as we are now working separately for the first time this project).

Over the holidays, we intend to keep in regular contact, sending photos via email, facebook and texts. Three days into the holidays this has already proved successful. We hope that this blog can be a way for us to communicate as well, posting photos and information individually. As with practical work and decision making in the studio, we have done all previous blog entries together, so it will be interesting to see if using the blog separately will give it another dimension - perhaps showing our communication and decision making in more detail, therefore enhancing other people's understanding of the project?

I will upload photos of what I have been working on so far as soon as I can.

The Last Week

As this is the last week of term it is important that we try to get all the garments underway so that over the holidays we both have a clear idea of what we need to do. It is also important that we make use of the facilities we have at college (such as the heatpress) before we break up for Easter.

We began by plucking the feather boa (which our tutor Gemma has imformed us she thinks is made of chicken feathers - very glamorous) and sewing them one by one onto the tan body and the shoulders of the black dress.

The blue bodice is the only thing we're making any structural alterations to, so we wanted to get it started as soon as possible. After unpicking the lining and two side panels, we cut new smaller panels from the off cuts of the rose print dress. However, after starting work on the embellishment of the chest, we're rethinking our choice of fabric for this.

We used the studs we ordered from rhinestonesonline.co.uk, laying them inplace and putting the whole garment in the heatpress. This is much quicker than using the purpose made HotFix Applicator and makes them much more secure as well. We intent to combine the studs with sequins and beads sewn on with invisible thread.

Flock, Foil and Florals

Today we started work on the rose print dress- soon to be a cropped jacket. After chopping off the excess fabric we decided on a placement print for the chest area, inspired by our research.

Because we only have one of each garment there is no room for error and so we sampled various techniques, colour options and printing methods before going ahead with the final print.


We played around with different colours of flock, foil and various binders before deciding on navy flock for the main print, with an olive gold foil highlight.



We've discovered ourselves continually adjusting our plans as we see the final garment developing; as important as it's been to make plans for the garments it's been just as important to be willing to make changes along the way according to what is going to look best/ what is possible.

Try Hard Tuesday

We spent the day dyeing up fabric and garments as the first stage of reworking. We dip dyed the pink silk top as seem in Louis Vuitton's spring summer 2010 collection, but with our own colour palette of pink, orange and navy blue. Our colour palette has evolved through working with the garments we have collected and fashion research including Miu Miu.

After presenting our project to designer Donna Wilson yesterday, she gave us some feedback and somethings to think about in terms of describing the project to our audience (high school pupils).

http://www.donnawilson.com/

We intend to take our finished work to high schools and talk to the senior pupils about the techniques used in the project as well as giving them an insight into Textiles at Edinburgh College of Art and ECA in general. We have found that a lot of people don't fully understand what studying Textiles involves, and so this collaboration gives us a chance to illustrate to pupils what is possible through studying Textiles and hopefully promote the department.

Sequins and Sparkles

After the longest walk around Edinburgh ever searching for beads and sequins, we decided to order online as there was a better selection for a better price. Here are some of our favourite sites....

http://www.josyrose.com/

http://www.rhinestonesonline.co.uk/

The "Before" Shoot

The morning went well and gave us a chance to see what is involved in setting up a shoot.

Thank you very much to photographer Hannah Byers-Brown and our model Megan Craggs. The photos look like they'll be great.

Here's some "behind the scenes" photos of our day....

Tuesday Shopping

After reviewing what we bought yesterday (Monday) and relating that back to our fashion research we were able to go shopping today with a much clearer idea of what we were looking for. In some ways, this made searching for garments much more dificult as we didn't have the freedom to simply pick up things that grabbed our attention like we did on Monday.

We now have all the garments we need ready for the "before" shots we're taking with Napier photography student Hannah Byers-Brown and model Megan Craggs tomorrow morning.

After that, we get to shop for sequins and beads.....

Trend Research

Miu Miu - spring/summer 2010
Sequin and beading work on the chest and round the waist was important for Miu Miu this season. We hope to take the pale pink and orange they have used forward into our own work.

Balmain - spring/summer 2010

Gold embellishment with buttons and chains was prominent in the Balmain collection. Placement around the neckline and shoulders was key as well.

Alexander McQueen - spring/summer 2010

Again, we like the heavy embellishment round the neck line and heavy beading on the chest area mixed with bold print. Placement round the neckline and chest featured heavily in all our fashion research and will be a key feature in our own collection.

Some of our favourites from Monday Shopping...

Monday Shopping

Yesterday we started our search for our garments in Charity shops. We began in Stockbridge as it is an affluent area of Edinburgh and we thought this could lead to some good finds.

As it was the first day of shopping we were only looking for things that caught our eye, striking prints or dyeable fabrics to give us a base to build on, on our next shopping trip.

Reworking Not Recycling - What Makes us Different?

We are aware that there have been previous projects using old garments and up-cycling them, however the main focus has always seemed to be sustainability and the environment. For example, for Rebecca Earley's Top 100 - Collecting and Remaking 100 Shirts project (done for Textile Environment Design) she sourced polyester blouses from charity shops and reworked them with print. (See images above).

Our main goal with our mini collection is to create pieces that are visually appealing and relate to current and future fashion trends straight from the catwalk. We hope the our collection will not be overshadowed by the recycling element involved and will instead stand in its own right as something beautiful and well made, but with a history.