Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

I apologize for my absence, I've been crazy busy for 20 days, apparently. I'll just give a rundown of what I've been spending all of my time doing. After draping a creative dolman in Soft Silhouettes, our next project was a creative pant. For the creative dolman, I really let the fabric lead me and it turned out very interesting. This time there were so many directions I could have gone, so instead of taking a lot of time to play, I decided to see if I could execute a pant that I had sketched previously. I wanted a drop-crotch pant that was skinny under the knee. Voila, pretty simple. Next time, I'll take the time to play.

Our next project in that class was the creative cowl. My work in progress.

My final cowl garment. The black style tape above the bust is not intended for this design. Other students often leave their tape on the forms and it is out of courtesy that I did not remove it. I think my design looks kind of vintage, yet modern. I picture it with a black pencil skirt, long black gloves, fingerwaves and a small hat with netting over the face.

I'm about to make myself look bad since my design was much more simple than most of my classmates' designs, but I simply love the variety and creativity, so I have to share.

Brianna

Marianne

Christine

Patricia

Audrey

Katherin

Senna

Eunhye

Isn't the variety striking? I always thought it would be hard to be different from other fashion designers but being in this program has actually strengthened my sense of individuality. I also love the creative process and the way we all ask each other's opinion, so often there's a little bit of each other in our designs. For Fashion Illustration, I spent more time on this simple 3/4 turn assignment than I should have but, I'm happy with the way it turned out and it was fun to design lingerie.

The class that takes the most brain power for me, and for most of my classmates, is Flat Pattern. The teacher gives us a basic lesson and then she emphasizes that our projects need to be "extremely creative." Our assignment was to draft a pattern and sew a front and back bodice using dart manipulation and combine it with a creative dirndle (gathered skirt) to make a cohesive dress. To explain dart manipulation, a flat piece of fabric needs darts (or gathers, pleats, tucks) in order to fit the curves of the body so dart manipulation means we take the normal darts that are usually at the waistline and bust and we move them around on the flat pattern and create a unique look. To reiterate, this took a huge amount of my brain power to pull off so I'm pretty proud of it even though its kind of odd... I don't know if you can tell from the photo but the white triangles are actually the darts turned inside out with a closed dart underneath, the flap on the yoke and white under the lace both reflect the peak-a-boo effect. I got an A minus because my pattern pieces had no notches...

I'm really loving learning the ins and outs of Photoshop. Continuing with our Marc Jacobs project, our assignment was to fill in the styled figures that we drew using the fabric prints that we created. I like her, but we probably wouldn't be friends. =)

It seems I never quite recovered after a side project that I did a few weeks ago, I've been really busy and tired ever since. However, I am glad I challenged myself. The side project I am speaking of is the application for the Fusion Fashion Show. Fusion is a competition between rival schools Parsons and FIT. Fifteen students from each school are chosen to complete a 5 look collection for the fashion show in the Spring. My inspiration was androgyny, and I designed a collection that combined masculinity and femininity. Out of 250 applications, I made the top twenty for my school. However, I didn't make it to the final 15, but I am the second alternate in case two people drop out. In the off chance that I do end up doing the show, I am opting not to post my renderings. However, I thought I'd share my mood page. I created the pattern that showcases the title, "ANDRO." I thought it was interesting that A's and O's are bi-directional so the word can be spelled forward and backward and still stay connected. This duality is analogous to the androgyny concept. My second inspiration was the Fall season, I am loving the brick and olive colors right now.

Side note: I am considering studying Knitwear in Milan next year. What are your thoughts?