Future Plans

Through working at Christopher Raeburn I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of the fashion industry and the areas I want to be involved in. On my placement I was mainly working in the office and on Illustrator doing the role of a 'product developer'. This role is not one that I wish to go into as my career. One of the positives of working in a small company was that I got to witness the whole design process. The area I can see myself most in is design, the men's designer at Christopher Raeburn did the whole men's collection and was also an in-house seamstress. She made the patterns and professional standard samples of the collections. This job really appeals to me as I love designing but I also love pattern making and garment construction. This is the direction I see my career going.

Strengths and Weakness'

I feel that through the modules set this year I have a much clearer understanding of my personal strengths and weakness' and the areas that I need to improve.

I feel that tailoring was a strong project for me, I felt I really understood the construction methods and enjoyed the technicality of it. I really enjoy pattern making and garment construction. I also think this year I have largely improved my CAD skills and this has had a positive effect on my flat drawings and helped projects where a professional folder has been required.

I am aware that my main weakness is my research, this is always the area that lets me down as far as marks go. This is an area that in any future projects I will have to work much harder on, especially in my third year as the research is hugely important. I think my figure illustration needs attention too, alot of my figures are out of proportion and this is something that I need to work out a way around.

Work Placement

I managed to get a work placement at Christophe Raeburn. His fairly small office is set up in East London and has under 10 permanent employees. Christopher Raeburn is very concerned with recycling and ethical fashion, he works with old clothing such as fire suits and parachute fabric to create his collections. I worked in the office and helped with the day to day running. For the most part of my two week placement I was transferring flat sketches that the designer's had given me into CAD drawings on Illustrator.
I found out a lot about the production process while at Christopher Raeburn and have a clear understanding of how designs are developed from ideas to full production lines.
I really enjoyed the time I spent on Placement, it has taught me about the fashion industry and has given me a much clearer idea of what I want from my career.

Marc Jacobs

For this module we were put into groups and as a group had to choose a high fashion designer, our group decided to design for Marc Jacobs. The group was split into menswear and womenswear and I chose to design 'men's soft casuals'.
We each indivdually researched the trend and came together to create this mood board.

As I was focussed on soft casuals I decided to go to a knitting mill in Holmfirth to source knits. I found this trip really exciting as it gave me a chance to source my fabrics from a huge variety of specialised, high quality fabrics.

My research led to me to looking at bones and layered structures.

These are pages from my portfolio.

These two are design pages with colour palettes and fabric swatches.

This is my final design page.


I really enjoyed this project, I feel like my research folder let my overall project down however as it wasn't very strong. I found putting the portfolio together exciting.

Business Enterprise

We were set the brief of a '£10 Business' in which we had to start a business of our choice that we felt there was a gap in the market for. I paired up with a class member and together we created the brand 'Patchwork.'

'Patchwork.' is a business which sells personalised stationary. We decided to make this business as we felt there was a gap in the market for this and this would be something that primary school children would be interested in.
We approached a primary school with the idea and they were interested in providing the stationary to the juniors.

These were the products we made and the business was a success, making a turn over of £172. We both really enjoyed this project as it was a challenge and we had to learn new skills in order to have a professional business. We worked well as a team, playing to our individual strengths and I think this is evident in the success of our small business.

Drawing Elective

As part of the course we are required to participate in a one week elective. This year I chose to do 'Drawing Practices' I felt this elective would be beneficial to me as I am trying to develop my fashion illustration style. We spent the week drawing live models which is something I have never done before, I found this really helpful because it encouraged me to focus on proportion in figures which is something I need to improve on in my design and illustration work.
These are some of my artist influenced drawings and developments focusing on mixed media.

I really enjoyed this module, I like focusing on my drawing style as I don't usually get much time to do this.

Reiss

For our third module of the year we started by doing market level research as this project was not based on a concept or theme, but on cool hunting and inspirational images.
I chose to design for Reiss as a top high street market level.

I made this jumpsuit with a side zip, I really enjoyed making a garment in this project as it was a chance to make a full garment which we hadn't done in second year so far.
I really enjoyed this project as I enjoyed designing and getting inspiration from cool hunting as concept based research is often where I struggle.

Tailoring

The second module of the year was 'Tailoring Practices', this has been my most enjoyed module as I feel I was really challenged by the technical work and I have learned a huge amount about tailoring and garment construction.
Our brief instructed us to make half a tailored jacket.

This is my tailored half jacket. I have brought the back collar down and elongated the lapel. The length of the jacket was elongated it has a dipped hem at the back.

This is the double pocket detail on the front, there is also a flat felt inside pocket.

I was very happy with this project because I feel I thoroughly understood the techniques we learned and I think this will be hugely important in my future design work and beneficial for my FMP in third year.

Trend Book

The first module of my second year studying Fashion Design was a project in which we were out into a group and created a group trend book.
As a group we were given a trend to research, we created a moodboard which we all felt summed up our personal take on the trend. From this we were split into pairs to look at different areas, I was allocated 'Men's Outerwear'
My research led me to armor and the construction of garments. I visited Leed's Royal Armories and this gave me a huge source of inspiration.

These are two of my pages from my sketch book, the top image was part of my original research and the bottom is my own personal moodboard that I used to design from.


These are some of my designs that were part of my design development.

As a group we decided that we wanted to make a Constantina book with an embossed cover.

I really enjoyed this module as it was really interesting to take part in a project that was unlike any we had done before. I also thought it was interesting to create a trend book, as these are used in industry and I felt we were creating work for a different aspect of the design process.
Working in a group, I feel, has been extremely beneficial as I think it is important to practice how we will work in industry, in a design team. I feel as a group we learned a lot about compromising in order to create a successful group end result.