J'adore Paris

Last month I went on a trip to Paris with my course. I was so excited, because I have always wanted to go to Paris, and we were going to Premier Vision, which is a world fabric and trend show. Just walking around the city, I was amazed and above all, inspired by everything I saw. Even little things like the carving on an old door, or an elaborately detailed lampost at the side of the road. Looking around all the designer shops gave me so much inspiration and the art is incredible. 4 days was definately not enough time to see everything... I want to go back now!

'Dance Expose' show

Back in February I was asked to design and make the costumes for Leeds uni dance group called 'Dance Expose'. It sounded really interesting as well as being a challenge!

The theme for the annual dance show was 'London Underground', with each dance being inspired by different aspects of the capital. There were around 20 different dances, each with their own genre and theme. My task was to design, source the fabric, and make the costumes for the dancers.

I had roughly 7 days to make the costumes- as this coincided with my course trip to Paris, so I had to work very hard to meet the deadline.

Each dance consisted of between 6-16 dancers, so it was very confusing keeping on top of the different dances and who were in them! I devoted a whole notepad full of lists and lists of each dance, it never left my side the whole time!

The choreographer of each dance gave me an idea of what kind of costume they wanted, some of the themes were 'London Zoo', with a samba theme. Others included a robotic theme for 'London Science Musem'.

I also had to source the fabric, as cheaply as possible due to the show being on a limited budget. I visisted Leeds market for this, as they have fabric at low prices. I was forever scribbling down noted and calculations, as I had to buy so much fabric and work out precisely how much I needed, without creating waste.

I had to think of ways to make the garments, as quickly and precisely as possible. I made wrap skirts for some of the dances as they were easy for the dancers to take on and off in the quick costume changes. I also made circle skirts, net tops, and many, many shoulder pads (at least 50!) to attach to the outside of tops.

For one of the dances, the influence was 'Lady Gaga'. From this idea, I constructed a paper pattern for a hood to work from, and managed to create 14 hooded open front tops with silver trim in one night. I also worked hard to make 16 samba influenced dresses in one night as well!

It was hard work, but it was definately worth it in the end when I went to see the show. The costumes looked good, and the dancers invited me on stage at the end to thank me. I even got a big thankyou in the programme that was available at the show!

Coco before Chanel

I have recently just watched the film Coco before Chanel and thought it was absolutely brilliant. The visuals and costumes of the film were stunning and it showed how Gabrielle Chanel was an extemely ambitious woman who fought for her rights and her career. Audrey Tautou played the role very well, resembling the ambition and love for fashion. A highly recommended film!

Garment tech boards

Every week for garment tech we are required to produce an A3 board of a certain subject- such as hoods, interesting sleeves, rever collars, and so on.... We have to collect primary and secondary images as well as analysing them. This sometimes proves difficult to collect primary images, as I find myself taking photos of garments in changing rooms...much to the dislike of the shop staff...

Illustrations...

To go with my technical flats in the previous post, here are the illustrations of the collection. I initially drew them by hand, scanned them into the computer and coloured them in on photoshop, to give a neat finish. I plan to work into them further by hand, to show more of the details...

Flats...

For my Research and Design Development module, I am required to create a collection on 10 outfits for the designer Yohji Yamamoto. Here are the technical flat drawings of each of the garments- I used Kaledo style and photoshop software.

What's this? A giant tinsel robin of course...

Here are a few snaps I took when I went to London at the weekend! I absolutely love looking around Harrods ( even if i can't even afford anything in there) as well as Liberty's. There were some really cute shops along Carnaby street and the biggest reindeer I've ever seen in Covent garden!

I must say the most impressive window displays had to be Selfridges, there were crowds of people flocking around them, so I only got to take a few pictures. The theme was fairy tales and fantasy, which included Little Red Riding Hood and puss in boots! The windows were never ending and amazing!