Progress...

Photos (Finally!)

The Holidays So Far (posted by Laura)

What I've been working on so far in the holidays...

I've added more sequins to the cream dress, taking Miu Miu's spring summer collection for placement reference. There are still more to go on, perhaps some in a brighter colour or at a different scale to give some variation.

I've sewn the dyed pink Georgette fabric that Adrienne pleated onto the front of the floral bra top, and then covered the stitching with a line on sequins to tie in with the print. I hope to add more sequins on to further enhance the female shapes the top already provides.

Finally, the fringe dress has required a lot of work, and there is still a lot more to do. Rather than cutting the fringed with scissors, I've ripped them to give them a more organic feel, similar to the Talbot Runhof dress we looked our for inspiration. Originally, I sewed each strip on to the dress with a double needle, thinking that this would ensure the fringes were strongly attached. Unfortunately this has affected the stretch of the dress; it probably wouldn't fit the model. I now need to unpick that stitching and instead tack the fringes, leaving gaps so that hopefully, there will still be some stretch in the fabric. We have talked a lot about this project being a big learning experience, and about how although we carefully planned out each garment before we started, we have had to continually adapt our plans as we learn more about the limitations of fabrics and techniques. The progress with the fringed dress is a perfect example of this.

Both Adrienne and I are trying to upload photos to go with out posts, but although we've followed the same steps as every other time we've uploaded photos, it is not working. We'll both keep trying and hopefully we will be able to upload some more soon.

Home for the Holidays (Posted by Adrienne)

As Laura said, it is now the Easter Holiday and we have both taken work home to work on separately. Although we have plans for all the garments we are working on, there are of course still decisions to be made as we go along. This makes for an exciting process where our ideas are very much technique- led and constantly developing. This gives us a chance to really exploit our individual skills, as well as maintaing a real collaborative partnership through emailing eachother photographs and discussing ideas we have through email and text. We're also finding blogging useful tool to keep track of eachothers progress as well as sharing our collaboration process.

This week, I've been working on completing the Feathered Body that Laura had began before the holidays. The feathers are now continued round to the back of body and it looks really good!
I am now beading the black dress with feathered shoulders and consulting with Laura where how to finish this off...

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.