Completing my first year of fashion

My first year studying fashion disappeared so fast! It seems such a blur. I experienced the making of; shoes, handbags, shirts, dresses, printed textiles, embellishment skills, trend forecasting, shop reports, trip to New york, various London visits, working at the Birmingham Clothes Show and so much more.
    To be able to fulfil your passion and vision everyday is like a dream come true, although it can be challenging at times, the outcome is always worth it! 


                                                    
The dress in this photo was the first dress I made when working on my project, which was on- fashion inspired by culture and jewellery. My main inspiration was from the Asian culture and Grace Kelly, who power dressed through the use of extravagant statement jewellery and couture.


This dress was made out of a blue chiffon material from a sari, where I cut all the embellishment off the edging and made the embellishment into a matching statement necklace.


 
I loved using my theme of culture- Asian and statement jewellery, so I decide to incorporate this into my footwear workshop!




Birmingham Clothes Show
Just when my course started to get more hectic I applied to work for the Birmingham Clothes Show, the fact I had my end of term deadline the next day after the week of work experience didn’t stop me. This was too much of a big opportunity to waste!  4:30 am starts all week, consisting a mixture of missing the train, running for the train and sleeping in. I worked back stage of the main fashion show as a dresser. Working back stage for a fashion show starts off very organised for the first hour, but becomes absolute madness once the show starts! Clothes, boobs, makeup and shoes flying everywhere!
 
 

Me and the girls from my class who took part!

NEW YORK was the next stop on my first year fashion journey! This was probably the most breath taking city I have ever visited. I fell in love with the place. We crammed the trip with museums, art, history and fashion exhibitions, shopping, eating ridiculous amounts of pretzel M&Ms and we practically cleared the MAC make-up stores stock (we went in their store everyday)!  


We stayed in the Manhattan hotel in Times Square- Perfect location!



Messing about with Becka’s hair extensions- probably after the mass consumption of pretzel M&Ms!

Stunning window dressing all over New York!



Our Favourite shop and the scary statue from the film- The Black Swan.
New York has inspired me to carry on with my studies after university there. I feel the City is full of opportunities which I do not want to miss out on- I want to be part of the “buzz”, experience more of the culture and contribute to their fashion industry.
Final Project of my first year:
My last term at university was the most busiest times of all! The project brief for everyone was to create a shop report on the brand All Saints and incorporate your own theme with All Saints to produce garments which would possibly be accepted into the All Saints store. Our three workshops- fashion, print/textiles and footwear/accessories had to also incorporate All Saints and your personal theme.
The theme I choose to combine with All Saints was Native Americans. Reason for why I chose this theme was because on my visit to New york many of the art exhibitions were about the Native Americans. I also wanted to combine my love for jewellery into the garments as All Saints as a brand and the Native Americans have a lot of embellishment/beading and detail in their clothing. The Following are photos from my sketch book which lead me to my final two garments for my personal development project;













The following are my final outcomes of my personal development project;

This dress was made out of coffee stained cotton, cream lace, beading, feathers, wooden beads and recycled jewellery.




The second dress was also made out of recycled jewellery, coffee stained calico, leather, lace and pistachio nut shells.



Thank you to Rosie Ashley for helping me shoot these designs!
The written brand report for All Saints had to be printed on a word document, however I decided to get all creative and also have a visual diary to explain my findings and history research on the brand. The following are a few photos from my visual All Saints diary;




For print/textiles workshop we experimented with different dye and print processes, then we had to embellish our samples in a style of our theme and then incorporate this into a dyed/ embellished shirt. This was the least enjoyable workshop, however I produced some print samples that really linked to my theme!
The following show some examples;
 


My favourite workshop out of the three was footwear/accessories, previously I made my first shoe which was Asian/statement jewellery inspired – photo near start of post. This Project we had to make a handbag, again that incorporated your theme with All Saints. It also had to consist some leather in the design.
The following photos show my final design, made from coffee stained canvas, horse hair, brown leather fringing, leopard skin lining and a beaded embellished button;



The last workshop which was fashion, was the most challenging. This was purely because we had four days to make three shirt patterns and make the three shirts. One had to be a standard ladies shirt so we could learn how to make one and the second was a mock shirt for your design that combines All Saints and Native Americans- then the third was the final shirt- no errors! This was tough, but after all my hard work I managed to get them finished on time… JUST!
The Following photos show my three shirts;
Standard woman's shirt:


Mock shirt for final design:

Final shirt:

DEADLINE!
So finally the day had come for me and my fellow fashion students to hand in all our work for assessment! I had never seen so much panic from the girls (and the few boys) to get all their work finished and presented in their work stations. Luckily the most of us managed and left early for a well deserved shopping trip to celebrate!
The following photos are of my workstation, ready for assessment!



Although first year was challenging- I would do it all over again!
Bring on year two!