I spoke to Sarina again today. Unfortunately she'd left her design drawings at home, but was happy for me to take her initial thoughts and have a good play with them and my own ideas too.
We're not sure yet whether my dress will appear in Sarina's collection at Brighton Fashion Week, or on its own in an exhibition of local designers' work at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. Basically, the fashion collection is all going to be based around a vintage silk dress that she picked up at a fair. It has a v-necked sleeveless bodice with a zigzag cut waistline, and bias-hung square panels making up the skirt. I shall have to get some photos when she next brings it in.
It was the zigzag waistline that's the starting point for my design. Sarina wants me to make a below-the-knee wedding dress out of some silk she's already bought. This week I'm going to have a bit of an experiment with a few shapes. Square panels will be my starting point, but I'll also take a look at petal shapes, among others.
Sarina's original dress had the bodice cut on the straight grain (with the zig zag waist seams on the bias), but I shall probably cut it on the bias, so that the zig zags are straight-grained, and so won't become warped by the fabric panels hung from them (as we don't have time to stretch out the fabric properly first). I will, however, look into both ways this week, so I'll come back to that later with my conclusions.
The reason Sarina wants a wedding dress made is due to a photoshoot she has planned for mid may, to build up her wedding dress portfolio for future commissions. She's having trouble fitting it in with the rest of the fashion show, however, which is why it is possible that it'll be made with the exhibition in mind instead. In either case, Brighton Fashion Week is running the 31st May-5th June, and the exhibition would also be from the end of May, and running through the month of June. Both would be a fabulous chance for me to get my work into the public eye, and a great addition to my CV. I'm also really pleased that Sarina's letting me have so much input into the actual design process, as designing is something I definately don't want to let go of, despite having specialised in making for my degree. I have a little bit of an Orson Welles complex in me so this project is hitting all the right spots!
The general timeline I'm looking at is getting all my experimentation done this week, going away for my Les Mis work placement next week, then getting straight on with the actual dress the week after. I really need to be completely focused with this project, as that week will be the only time I'll really have help from my tutors. After that I'll need to spend the Easter Holidays getting my dress pretty much finished. I might look into some sort of surface decoration. Sarina mentioned art deco sunbursts last week, so they're a possibility. We do want to keep the silhouette quite simple and elegant though, so I need to be careful about putting too much flounce into it. The important part will be getting the cut absolutely perfect. This needs to be a (potentially) exhibition-quality piece!
We're not sure yet whether my dress will appear in Sarina's collection at Brighton Fashion Week, or on its own in an exhibition of local designers' work at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. Basically, the fashion collection is all going to be based around a vintage silk dress that she picked up at a fair. It has a v-necked sleeveless bodice with a zigzag cut waistline, and bias-hung square panels making up the skirt. I shall have to get some photos when she next brings it in.
It was the zigzag waistline that's the starting point for my design. Sarina wants me to make a below-the-knee wedding dress out of some silk she's already bought. This week I'm going to have a bit of an experiment with a few shapes. Square panels will be my starting point, but I'll also take a look at petal shapes, among others.
Sarina's original dress had the bodice cut on the straight grain (with the zig zag waist seams on the bias), but I shall probably cut it on the bias, so that the zig zags are straight-grained, and so won't become warped by the fabric panels hung from them (as we don't have time to stretch out the fabric properly first). I will, however, look into both ways this week, so I'll come back to that later with my conclusions.
The reason Sarina wants a wedding dress made is due to a photoshoot she has planned for mid may, to build up her wedding dress portfolio for future commissions. She's having trouble fitting it in with the rest of the fashion show, however, which is why it is possible that it'll be made with the exhibition in mind instead. In either case, Brighton Fashion Week is running the 31st May-5th June, and the exhibition would also be from the end of May, and running through the month of June. Both would be a fabulous chance for me to get my work into the public eye, and a great addition to my CV. I'm also really pleased that Sarina's letting me have so much input into the actual design process, as designing is something I definately don't want to let go of, despite having specialised in making for my degree. I have a little bit of an Orson Welles complex in me so this project is hitting all the right spots!
The general timeline I'm looking at is getting all my experimentation done this week, going away for my Les Mis work placement next week, then getting straight on with the actual dress the week after. I really need to be completely focused with this project, as that week will be the only time I'll really have help from my tutors. After that I'll need to spend the Easter Holidays getting my dress pretty much finished. I might look into some sort of surface decoration. Sarina mentioned art deco sunbursts last week, so they're a possibility. We do want to keep the silhouette quite simple and elegant though, so I need to be careful about putting too much flounce into it. The important part will be getting the cut absolutely perfect. This needs to be a (potentially) exhibition-quality piece!
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