Monday - London Fabric Sourcing
Our trip to London was in order to research particular fabrics by gaining swatches and info on its composition, price, etc, so that we become aware of what is available on the London fabric scene. At first I did think travelling all the way to London simply to gather swatches seemed a little pointless, but admittedly it made me realise that there are so many more luxurious and exciting fabrics in London, incomparable to that found in the fabric shops around Bournemouth - which at that are few and far between! But these gorgeous fabrics do come with a hefty pricetag! (many costing as much as £80/metre!!) My group's task was to research shirting fabrics, which linked conveniently to the current Folk Shirt project, so aswell as gathering typical shirting fabric swatches we were able to think about the kind of fabrics we might like to use for our designs too. I found the assisstants in most of the shops weren't overly friendly during busy periods, but during quieter times some were really happy to help. I did sense from the atmosphere in some of the shops and from the vibe given off by the shop assisstants that there is an underlying sense of snobery towards students and perhaps the younger customer, as at one point I felt we were being spoken down to, which was really patronising. But I guess that is just something you have to brush off your shoulder, as the fashion industry undoubtedly can be quite pretentious at times. But a positive lesson learned from the trip was that I now realise there are some amazing fabrics out there, you just have to be prepared to go that extra mile if it's what you really want.
I took some photos whilsts walking past Harrods of the window displays, which were promoting the new Bond film. There were some gorgeous dresses on show and also some really Christmasy set ups, which I quite liked for possible inspiration on future projects.
Today we made two types of skirt pattern, for an A line skirt and a Circular skirt. The circular skirt is a really easy and simple method, by which you would literally a circular piece of fabric (either a semi-circle for a front or quarter-circle for back) and peice together at the sides. I like this pattern as its so simple yet it hangs really nicely creating a subtle frill to the hem. The A line skirt is slightly more complicated as for this we closed the darts from the original block pattern and extended the flare, which took some time and some working out. I also really like this pattern too as it has a really crisp and linear finish.
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