PPD1

As part of the PPD1 brief we are to research a few jobs in the fashion industry and see what interests us. I am actually going to start on the jobs that i know little about to broaden my knowledge and then look further into the jobs i know a bit more about and think i will be more suited to.

LAY PLANNER: This persons job would be to decide how patterns are laid on fabric trying to minimize waste and save money on fabrics. This used to be done by hand and measured by eye before the development of CAD. Using a computer to work this out saves on a lot of space in a factory, but doesn't require as skilled person to do the job.

COOL HUNTER: This is someone who constantly looks for something new, and will daily upload ideas, products, pieces of art, design, culture and technology. an example of this is coolhunting.com. They investigate cutting edge trends, fashions and ideas and then sells them on as market research to companies who will then generate ideas from them.

SAMPLE MACHINIST: this is someone who will work alongside a designer and techs to make up the first sample of a garment. after that production sequences can be finalized and garments can be adjusted if needs be. They require fantastic sewing skills, both on machine and by hand, and need to be fast and precise. They need good fabric knowledge and must know different sewing techniques. 

GARMENT TECHNOLOGISTS: The garment technologist would be involved in choosing an appropriate fabric and design, which will be in budget. They would then work with the pattern graders to oversee the sizing, fitting and testing of the pre-production garments. A garment technologist would also analyse product returns and faults.

FASHION DESIGNER: Fashion designers need to be able to not only draw their designs but produce samples using technical skills.

 

Fashion designers can design items of clothing for a wide range of stores, from everyday high-street chains to exclusive design houses. They may specialise in designing men’s, women’s or children’s wear.

 

A fashion designer may spend their time doing the following:

 

·      collecting ideas and looking for trends

·      sketching ideas or using a computer programme to draw designs

·      developing ideas into patterns and making samples

Hours are really long and designers may find it really hard to switch off as they are constantly looking for ideas and inspiration. a starting salary is sometimes as low as £12000 but an experienced designer usually earns over £22000 and that can increase to endless amounts if you become famous!

After researching different Jobs in the fashion industry i think i will be more suited to a fashion designer, although i'm sure everyone will think that at this stage! i know i have a lot more to learn and i may find that i'm really good at a skill that will lead me to a different career within fashion. And i know there is so many more jobs in the fashion industry than i have looked at here, but it definitely has given me an insight. 

Last day with my third year.

It was the last day with my third year on thursday, and my goodness it was a hectic one! with their final hand in the same day, they had so much to do! Finish alllllll the paper work, paper patterns, technical files etc. and on top of that they had to put up their exhibitions too! Every one was a little bit frantic, and i would say that i learnt the most from today. PREPARE PREPARE PREPARE!!! and don't leave it all to the last day, and don't relay on your first year to show up. i think out of 60 of us, about 15 turned up for the last day. i think this is really inconsiderate and unprofessional as the third years were relaying on us to finish things off, support and give advice in a very stressful situation. i felt really sorry for the third years that were really struggling and were without a first year, i even ended up staying extra and helping another third year finish her flat patterns. I was so tired by the end of it, i can't even imagine how Jenny felt! Her final exhibition looked fantastic though... as you can see.

ahh the end of a project, always a fun time.

So this morning i handed in my interdisciplinary project, and its such a relief and weight off my shoulders! i feel like i have put in so much work, but i think thats because i have enjoyed it so much. I am hoping for a fairly good grade for this, although i don't think i've put in as much work as when i got a 73 for container culture. 

I am really pleased with my final pieces too, the top and cardigan. I think my making skills could be a lot better, and i have a lot to work on with my pattern cutting, but i am really willing to put in the effort, i really hope see some improvement by the end of second year on these things, because i think thats what i would loose most marks on if my work wasn't up to scratch. 

Yesterday we all had to choose what pathway we want to do in second year, pathway A has innovative cut, and a lot of media style things involved, websites, animation, and promotion. Pathway B is more retail based, and involves a technical file on tailoring focusing on traditional ways of making a garment, and hand sewing. 

AFTER A LOOOONG TIME DECIDING.......... I CHOSE B!!!!!! 

It was a very hard decision, i thought that i would choose A to begin with, as one day i would love to self promote my work, and i felt like if i chose B i would always be working for somebody else. Although when it came down to it, i signed up for a fashion course, not a half media half fashion course. and i think if i chose B i would get more opportunity to work on traditional skills, and skills that are transferrable and that would be more useful. I will also learn more skills on trend prediction, colour etc. AND I CAN'T WAIT!

I got my FAC back!

so i got my Fashion Art and Culture back today.... remember... this is the one i REALLY didn't enjoy! and i got a 64! I am really really pleased i didn't think i was going to get a 2:1 at all, i thought it was more a high 2:2. so i am really impressed. I also got my CD with the final photo on it so i will post it up on here now! At last! 

The feedback i got was really fair in my opinion, they said my idea was a little confusing to begin with (which it was...i didn't have a clue what i wanted to do!) and that the text on my image wasn't the best, style wise. It didn't really put my opinions across properly. but at least i have a lot to work on! 

3rd year...4th week

so its been the fourth week working for my third year, Jenny. This week i was helping make her swing tags, i had to be very careful not to make a mistake, and i was so scared to ruin some of her work! i think the tags look really good though, its given me a lot of ideas for when i come to do things like this. she had printed onto acetate and wanted me to layer them onto card of exactly the same size, punch a hole through and thread ribbon in them. We had to brainstorm a little bit though on how they would then be attached to the labels in the garments, and we decided a button would be nice, and unique, so i trotted off into town to source some buttons that suited the style of her work. i came back with some really cool black ones and they were perfect! 

To say she had her garment hand it deadline the following morning, she was really calm and focused. I can only hope i'm like that when i'm in third year! Next week she has all over her paper work hand in, and she has to set up her exhibition so im sure i will have my work cut out next week too!

oh so much work!

Ive been working pretty solidly this week on finishing my Interdisciplinary project, i've been focusing on the making of my garments. I am making a cardigan that represents growing old and grey, (oh i'm using GREY WOOL to make the knitwear on the knitting machine, you see the connection...) i think its going really well, they are looking really good! I've really enjoyed this project so far, its the only one we have done this year that involves research, design and making. It's been hard work but really enjoyable!

I have taken inspiration from the above images, designs by Belenciaga. i think the garments look like stretched skin over the shoulders. and i'm hoping my garment turns out looking like its too uncomfortable to wear, like lop sided limbs and weird skin.

oh i forgot..

...to say in my last post that i was a model for my third year in her crit with two tutors on thursday. the tutors weren't too heavy on her, which I'm glad of, and they said they could see her collection in top shop which is pretty good. I also modeled for quite a few other students and some of their garments were amazing, very eccentric and you can really tell how much work has gone into them. I know i am really going to have to step up from now on if I'm going to make a career for myself in the fashion industry, there are so many people who could make it, and deserve it too. Looking at the third years collections has also given me a lot of inspiration and made me want to work so much harder.

more photos from my sketch book...

...it won't let me upload too many at once so yet again I'm going to have to do this in two separate posts.

you can see here the sleeve experiments and the top image of the sleeve is my final sleeve for my final piece, i chose the colour after looking at WGSN and looking at colours that will be in fashion in winter 2009/10. the theme on WGSN is also a mystical, morphing, abnormal theme, so i thought it fit in well. its also a sort of skin colour which i have looked at and i think there is something just that little bit freaky about fleshy things. skin can change so much, flake, burn, decay, i just thought it was appropriate. 

In another one day workshop e had to make a half scale garment out of calico, or half a full size garment. i chose the half scale one, and at the top is a photo (the one thats drawn on) of the garment i made, i used the same pattern cutting techniques as i did on the sleeve, it didn't work out as well as i thought but it did help me more forward, it inspired me in my moulage workshop at least. 

Updtae

thought i would upload a few photos from my sketch book for interdisciplinary and keep this blog up to date. as you can see i have been looking at shapes from the morphing process of a butterfly, and i have also looked at the process of death and passing on to another life, and the decay of bodies. I will also look at growing old, and focus of the texture of skin.

Moulage

We have been having moulage workshops with Angie whilst working on the interdisciplinary project. Its a skill that i think will come in useful over the next couple of years, and its a way i have never worked before. 

Working with calico, you drape it over a dress makers mannequin pinning in pleats, darts, folds etc. until it fits exactly how you want it to. then with a pen or pencil you mark on all these darts and folds, then take it off the mannequin and cut along all the lines that were drawn on as seams, add notches, and neaten dart lines. his is then laid on pattern paper and drawn around, seam allowances added, notches, piece numbers etc. until the pattern is complete, then the garment can be re-made using the paper pattern and the right fabric. Its a brilliant skill to have, i found it hard to understand to begin with but now i really have my head around it. I will definitely use this skill in the future.

Even though we didn't have to use this way of working in this project, i decided to use an idea from my sketch book to test it out, and i really like the geometric effect, i also think if i added the sleeves to it that i experimented with earlier it will make a great piece, so i think i will use this in my final piece.  

Third year

Ah yes, i forgot to write about working for my third year. she is really nice, she is called Jenny Smith and i really like her work. she is using a lot of floral fabrics and orange and black. the colours and patterns really sit well together. I'll have to see if i can get some photos of her garments to upload next time i see her. Last thursday (the first day of working for her) i re-drew some of her patterns for her, so they were neat enough to hand in, it was really hard work actually, i think it was because its not the most fun job in the world, and its really tedious and i had to be exact. i was so scared i was going to mess it up, and she actually has to hand in the copies that i made, so i didn't want to jeopardize her mark! this week she asked me to go to the market for her first thing in the morning to get her some lining fabric so she could finish one of her jackets. It really makes me aware of how much work you have to put in so close to the end, she is pretty much making a garment a day. After i go back i copied out some more of her patterns for her adding seam allowance etc.  Next week she said she has her crit with two tutors and wanted me to model one of her garments, i think i'm doing it for a few other students too. I think it will be fun, and it would be good to see how the tutors see the collections and how critical they are.

ok....

...So it wouldn't let me upload all the images i wanted in my last post, so heres a few more. This is how i worked out how to make the triangular areas stand up. i tried it in paper first then tried it out in fabric, making a paper pattern first. ^

Interdisciplinary

I've been working on my interdisciplinary project quite hard to the past couple of weeks now, I've mainly been focusing on the butterfly process of metamorphosis, which i know is very basic, but I'm getting lots of good silhouette shapes from them, and a lot of ideas on how to incorporate different disciplines into my work. yesterday we were given a whole day task to make 5 different fabric samples that will inspire us to move further in the project. actually, there was a choice of two tasks, this is the one i chose, the other one was to produce five idea sheets for a certain market level from the research already done. i think this task was to get us thinking about what pathway choice we will choose to second year, which we have to chose at the end of this project.

Anyway, i really enjoyed the task, and i felt it really did move me forward a lot, although i only managed to finish three fabric samples as i concentrated on the pattern cutting aspect of design which is really time consuming. If i am going to focus on this aspect i will really have to step up and focus and make more time o work on the project out of uni hours.

I made a sleeve pattern which i am really proud of, after looking at the shapes and textures of cocoons. it has raised areas in the shapes of triangles and angular pieces coming off of them. I think i will use this idea in my final piece, i really like it.