Week 8

This week and over the weekend in preparation for the assessment on Thursday I needed to finish off my sketchbook, create my garment and do a photo shoot. So over the weekend I finished off my concept board, I then started designing, I came up with 5 designs that I felt represented my four key words. I then edited them in different ways on Photoshop, to see the variety of colours and styles I could have them in, I did this until I decided on my favourite one. So ready for Monday I began to finalise my final design so I could start creating the prototype. I made the prototype fairly easily as I just used the fitted dress block pattern which I did not need to adjust very much, only to lengthen the skirt in order for it to be below the knee. Also I did not need to create a prototype for my body piece as it was to be constructed in a similar way to my accessory. After this I then spent the next couple of days creating my garment. I chose to make the dress out of a silk organza because I looked at other fabrics and found that they did not have the same texture and aesthetic I wanted to create. The organza was coloured cream but as I wanted to make a dusty pink colour I soaked in wine, I did this after speaking to my tutor as she told me about the use of soaking the fabric in wine or herbal tea. I tried both techniques but found the wine worked better as the colour was stronger. SO when I had sewn the dress together I soaked it in wine for about 5 minutes then hung it up and let it to dry. I found the colour came out really well and it looked like my final design. I then started creating the body piece I found this to be the most time consuming part to the garment only because I needed to cut out 80 shapes and then fold them. For this I made my print which was similar to the print I used in accessory week which was taken from my photo shoot in week one, however I changed it by taking out the blue parts of it and having less green, as I wanted the main colour to be pink. First I printed this onto 3 A1 acetate sheets, but after cutting out the shapes and Realising that each sheet would give me around 12 shapes, I went and printed a further 3 sheets and found that I had enough for my garment. I ended up cutting out around 80 shapes all the same size apart from four which were smaller. After having all of the shapes I folded them into the right shape, stapling them to keep in place and then I started layering them up and attaching them together with staples as this was the most efficient method.

After finishing the body piece and having the dress soaked and dried I was ready for my photo shoot on Wednesday morning. I did the shoot at Ravensbourne as I just used a plain white background, I chose to keep the setting simple as the dress had different layers and textures in it. After doing my photo shoot which was straight forward to do, I started editing them. The editing phase lead down a way I didn't expect my photos to come out like as similar to my garment I added different layers on top of the photos, such as I overlaid a black and white layer and then a layer which was of the pattern I used for the body piece. I changed the opacity and colour burned the layers so the photos were visible but had a pink hue to them. I liked this effect as I felt it portrayed the theme of the project and gave them an interesting mood. However after this photo shoot I still had some ideas that I wanted to explore so I had organised to do another one on Friday morning, which although was after my assessment I may still use as they show the garment in a different way. However on Thursday in time for the assessment in the afternoon all of my work was complete, all I did was print off my photo shoot images, first onto glossy paper and then onto acetate to see what they came out like. I liked both copies even though they showed the photos in a different way.

In the afternoon I felt that the critiques went well and I got positive comments, however felt like I would've liked more constructive comments in order to allow me to prepare my work to the highest level for the final assessment, which I will prepare for next week.

Overall looking at the past couple of weeks I feel that I could have planned my time and used it more efficiently, as although I finished all of my work I would've liked it to be in a better quality for the assessment.