So my final design looks something like this....easy enough, yeah could probably make this!..

And a few weeks on, here is my (sort of) working drawing to the right..this is NOT easy, but I will make it no matter what!!

The outcome of my toile review was slightly discouraging and a little nerve racking as my toile did not end up fitting my chosen model even though she was the right measurements they were looking for, however it was quite hard finding someone as we are not necessarily all friends with tall and very slim people, not because of that reason lol, so basically I had to quickly find someone within a few seconds that could fit it better. I was told the overall toile had to be lengthened and a quite a few other adjustments needed to be made. I did however find it beneficial and was able to gain the correct measurements I needed.

no fabric!

At the moment I'm just trying to find some fabric for my dress!This is causing to be a bit of challenge as my dress is pieced together with around 8 different pieces I need a strong fabric which needs to be vibrant and bright in blue, green and orange. So far, I've found loads of lining in the right colours but that is no good!so I will carry on looking on the internet and local small fabric shops and maybe take another trip to fabric land! However, I want to incorporate something which can be linked in with the original idea of the project being eco-friendly. As described in my Manifesto I want to use recycled material and clothing within my final piece, so what I'm thinking of doing is cutting up an old bright blue dress I have, which is in the sort of fabric I need, and using this for a few of the cicle pieces within the dress.

To give more of an idea of the colour palette I intend on using, above is a photo of my mood board. As you can see the colours are very bold with brigh greens, turquoise, blues and oranges. My inspiration for the theme was Avatar which undoubtedly sends an eco-friendly message, making a strong statement against the wastefullness of our society and promotes sustainability of our natural environment.
Within my research I've found other designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Valentino and Alexander Mcqueen have also used inspiration from the film within their Spring and Summer 2010 collections.

Manifesto..

So I'm currently working on my pattern at the moment to make my toile for the review in the next few weeks for the Manifesto project. It's going quite well as I've managed to have quite a lot of help, and feel I'm gradually understanding more and thinking more logically, from the help of one-one guidance and also using the basic skills learnt last term to then adapt. From looking around the room, my design seems quite simple at the moment, however i think this is better to start off with and really think about the garment technically for now rather than adding too much detail and it getting a bit messy.
I really feel my sewing has improved from last term, and later on once the basic shape of the dress has been made, I will then sew in circular shapes within the dress, which I think will especially help more with my sewing as this will have to be done very accurately to make sure the dress is not pulled in a certain way, and it will also help me to think more logically adding more notches than usual and making sure they all match as I think this is what I have struggled with so far.

Here is a few images from my sketchbook which is coming along quite well which I think I'm near to completing. I quite enjoyed researching into sustainability and eco-fashion as its not something I knew a great deal on. I researched on a whole variation of sustainability, from interior design to eco-friendly material and designers which have an promoted eco-friendly message through their fashion.

London Fashion Week!

I'm really pleased I had the opportunity to go to London Fashion Week and is something I feel I have benefited from and can add to my CV. It was really amazing to be able actually watch some of the shows and to see all the designers exhibitions and I found it really interesting just watching everyone at the show and especially what they were wearing and how different they all seemed from normal everyday people! I found dressing backstage the most beneficial as it gave us all a bit of pressure, using our own initiative and being under a strict deadline. We were each given one model per person, and most of the shows had 3 dress changes, and as were under a huge amount of pressure to change each outfit within a few seconds, but I found this really fun.
The majority of the time we spent there was a lot of setting up, moving manikin's and general lifting of boxes and taking rubbish back to the loading bay. As we were there most days from half 9am till 10 pm and somedays 12 with 1-2 hours backstage and the rest setting up, I think next year more information about how long you would be there each day and the fact you weren't really able to have set breaks to go out and each something a bit more substantial other than snacks, I felt this should have been mentioned so were fully aware. The image above is from Ramon Gurillo's collection. Most of the garments were knitted and very delicate so we had to be really careful which made us all a lot more under pressure as it was also the first show we dressed for!

Buying and Merchandising...+ Lectra!

I've found learning about buying and merchandising really interesting, and kind of refreshing learning about something new and different. I've started to think maybe this is an area I would like to think about working in, and can maybe find more work within this area in Bournemouth than for example London. I would like to learn more about the buying aspect more than merchandising maybe, but its early days. I would definately be interested in looking for work placements for the summer to see if this is in area i would like to work in.

Lectra I've found fairly easy to pick up, I think it will come in very handy later on if I deside to go down the design root. I found I was able to put into practice the knowledge gained from pattern cutting with Jodie and Alana in first term to understand that in more depth seeing the different functions you are able to do and was able to logically think more on expanding on certain processes. I really would like to learn more on Lectra, and found as we only had a few lessons on this, we were only really able to follow Pat's instructions to then adapt slightly at the end of the lesson. However, I think if I chose to go down the design root there will be more lessons on Lectra and the other design programmes. I'm quite curuios on the illustrations up on the wall in the Lectra room and would ideally at some point would like to be shown how exactly those were done.

Illustrator~

Below is my finished logo from Illustrator, I'm quite pleased with the final logo and enjoyed using our own creativness to come up with our own indivitdual designs. I found it fairly diffilcult overall, but with the help from Steve it made it easier. I was finding I wasn't sure what everything does and was using alot of trial and error, which can get it a bit frustating but I think I'm getting the hang of it and could something similar again now Steve made it clearer.

Melting Pot...

Over the last week or so we've been starting to research into our new project 'Melting Pot'. I really like the idea of the project and that we are able to explore into different cultures and places and feel it is a theme that you can have an endless amount of ideas from. I've chosen to use 'The Amazon' as my theme and have started researching using books relating the amazon from the libary and looking through the Peclers fashion forcasting books for relevant links to my chosen theme. I want to explore all the aspects of the amazon, from shapes and textures of the greenery, plants and nature, and the colours involved. I also want to look into traditional style of the amazon tribes and think about how to incorporate the ethnicity into current catwalk fashion. I'm really looking forward to experimenting with my research using drawing and different mediums to then think about garment shapes. I hope to not get stuck for ideas with this, as with the Black and White project it was quite a short and not as broad but I hope to keep having lots of ideas!