Presenting..

…Just a teaser for tomorrow’s presentation…

STATUS REPORT

Ok, not really.. I still have a bit of handsewing left to do… 

Anyway, some dot-point reflections on the process and final outcome:

• I really enjoyed patterning and making the dress.
• Twee was IMMENSELY helpful during my patternmaking process. I cannot thank her enough!
• Never done a lining before and successfully did it for this so I feel a high sense of accomplishment!
• I still wish I had enough fabric to incorporate the cowls into the skirt.. 😦
• I really like how the mix of fabrics work together! ♥
• Looking at other classmate’s designs, I kinda wish I had the brain power to come up with something half as amazing as their stuff..
• But it’s okay, because designing like this is just HOW I ROLL!! 🙂
• And lastly, SEWING IS REALLY FUN! I never actually found it this awesome till the past few days… ♥
• ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

COME TOGETHER. RIGHT NOW. OVER ME.

After many MANY tedious hours of sewing and/or unpicking because of my silly mistakes, here is the dress nearing completion! :’) Here is the top and skirt separately.. I’m seriously liking this mix of fabrics.. *sigh*

Lining a dress..

Ah. This part was actually pretty fun for me! I’ve never done any lining before, whatsoever, being the n00b at sewing that I am.. I managed to find myself a lovely tutorial that had pictures as well! It was so easy after I did it. 😀 FUN TIMES!

Here is the product of my efforts!!! 🙂 Pretty happy, I must say~

Tra-la-la.. Patternmaking..

SO… I spent 12hrs.. 12 frickin’ HOURS! pattern-making and cutting them out.. SO TIRED, but SO WORTH IT.. Coz having all the pieces ready to just be sewn together is the best..

Also, Twee(sp?) was the most helpful in helping me with my skirt pattern! I ran into a little problem with my design.. I had initially wanted cowls in my skirt, but due to insufficient fabric, I had to change my design to just incorporate darts into the skirt.. Ah well, win some, lose some!

Also, cutting out the patterns on the dinner table at home was pretty entertaining.. I had an audience with the people I live with.. Haha! It was hilarious! And cutting out the skirt was less stressful when I had another mind to help me with how to place the pattern on the limited amount of fabric… THANK YOU, 师姐!!!!

there is a plan!

So, I have decided to work with these 3 garments and turn it into the dress below! Gonna be fun, since I’ve never done a dress before.. And a LINED dress at that… :O

The idea behind this design was to create my own fRuiTs girl from the clothes I had to work with. She has to take interesting fabrics from second-hand clothing and mix them together to make something entirely new and random! I tried to incorporate as much bright colours into it as I could and this is what I came up with!

Now if only I had a model I could dress up to look like my drawing… Hahaha!!

LET THE FUN BEGIN!!!

sketching..

This is just me.. drawing.. 😀 This has been a post.

See all that fabric around me? I was trying to think of ways to put them together.. Thanks for letting me go over for dinner that night, Danni!!! I probably wouldn’t have gotten any designs out if I hadn’t… :’)

design philosophy

• What is my view on design/ what do I think of as good design/ what do I aim to produce?

I believe that good design is subjective, just like beauty. It is all in the eye of the beholder. To me, good design is akin to beautiful design. Something I find visually appealing.. This tends to range from patterns and mixes of fabrics to clothing silhouettes to tiny details that take awhile to notice to interesting ways fabric is manipulated and played with.. My favourite designers include John Galliano and Alexander McQueen for those reasons I stated above..

As for what I aim to produce in my designs, I just want to create something that would be visually appealing to me. While that might sound narcississtic, I don’t know how else to put it. I am my own person and only I will know what I like, visually. With every design I churn out, there will be some that not everyone will like and so be it. I cannot KNOW for sure what someone else is thinking, even  if that person is my bestest friend in the whole wide world.. So, to be safe, I’ll just design for myself and if someone comes along and really enjoys my designs, then I will be happy for being able to share my vision with someone else! 🙂

And I guess there should be another aspect to this.. The sustainability aspect. If it were possible that beautiful designs could be created without harming and/or exploiting fellow beings and with less detrimental effects towards the environment we live in, that would just take the ultimate cake in GOOD DESIGNING.

• What methods do I use- how do I approach design?

Hmmm.. This is a tough one. I actually think I work better with a pencil and paper. I really enjoy the sketching process if I am able to see it in my mind’s eye and translate it onto a page before I do anything else, that would be ideal.

For example, if you asked me to just grab an old skirt and turn it into something else by draping it on a mannequin and playing around, I’d probably die of a heart attack.. Haha! My brain just doesn’t work that way, I guess. 🙂

That was probably why I was slightly stressed out over this current project and how we were encouraged to just go with the flow of things… My going with the flow is leaving my mind blank, putting that pencil to the paper and just drawing whatever flows out of me, but I guess that’s just a different way of interpreting it!

• What materials do I like to work with?

Materials.. I tend to make sure I choose materials that first and foremost, do NOT harm any sentient beings in the process of making it available. As you might’ve read in my previous entries, I’m against any animal products used in my designs and I make it a point to check every fabric and/or garment I buy for animal content in it.. And even if I really LOVE that silk fabric because of the gorgeous print, I will not buy it, because my physical beauty or someone else’s(if they were to wear my designs) is NOWHERE NEAR as important as the number of beings that died to produce it.

Another factor about materials would be whether they are fairtrade fabrics and whether they are organic and environmentally friendly or not. While I am still a Uni student and do not have the income at my disposal, this part is probably a bit more tricky, since such certified fabrics are probably quite a bit more expensive than their counterparts. But I guess if I can splurge and buy myself fairtrade chocolate, I can buy fabrics.. Hahaha! 😀

• What do my designs look like?

Oh wow.. How do I describe that? I feel like my designs are pretty all over the place! Haha~ Here’re a heap of them.. You tell me! 🙂

• Who is the target customer for my designs?

I made this awhile ago, but it’s still relevant to this question. 🙂

So I’ve been wondering recently..

What inspires me?

Looking at my past designs,  I draw inspirations from anything and everything! But it’s usually what I’m really interested in at the moment..

Let’s have some examples from past assignments..

Bayonetta & my hair-inspired swimsuit designs.

Steampunk-inspired pants in First Year.

I realize through these and looking at old visual diaries, that I tend to take a lot of inspiration from really niche subcultures(Steampunk, fRuiTs, Lolita, etc) to video games to comic books to movies to TV shows. I’m probably the BIGGEST geek imaginable, so that’s probably no surprise.. Hehe..

At the moment, my brain has been swirling with military-themed designs because I’ve been obsessing over a few HBO miniseries.. They are Band of Brothers, The Pacific and Generation Kill, all of which have to do with military exploits in human history. And when Dior’s 2010 Pre-Fall WW2-inspired collection came out, I nearly died with love.. Here it is.

HRRGGG.. THE BEAUTY!! ♥

And that is probably why John Galliano is one of my favourite designers of all time. I can see what inspires him and sometimes I feel like we’re inspired by and enjoy romanticising similar things, though he’s probably 12287361273682173times better than I am… :’)

That being said, this subject, on WHAT INSPIRES ME, is actually way too broad for me to pinpoint. I take inspiration from what I’m interested in at the moment and work from there, and seeing as that constantly changes, I can’t really say, can I? 🙂

Sustainable Fabrics: Wearing SOY… ♥ ♥ ♥

This could possibly be my new FAVOURITE plant. SOYBEANS! Being vegan, I can’t live without soy products, and what do I find out when researching Soy Bean fabric?

♥ It is made from the leftovers of tofu and soy milk products. ♥

Soybean fabric is akin to recycled paper, if you think about it in those terms, since it uses the waste products from the above mentioned foodstuffs. So, basically, soybean is THE BEST. Not only is  it nutritious to eat, it makes for one of the most environmentally friendly fabrics, even in the production stages.

“Soybean fibre is a kind of reproducible plant protein fibre, which uses the residual cake after oil is extracted from the soybean, abstracts high polymer from soybean cake and prepares a protein spinning solution of a certain concentration. After obtaining the spinning solution, a filament bundle of a single fibre 0.9-3.0 dtex is spun with the use of the wet-method spinning process. Next, the fibre performance is stabilised through hydroformylation, and then it undergoes winding, heat setting and cutting. In this way, soybean fibre of various lengths and specifications for spinning can be manufactured.

 Because the auxiliary and additional agents and materials used in production of soybean fibre are not poisonous, the semi-finished fibres can be recovered of most additional agents and used again, and the residue remained after purification of protein can be used as foodstuff. Therefore, its production course will not cause pollution to the environment, and complies completely with environmental protection requirements.”
– Fibre & Textiles in Eastern Europe

Apart from being environmentally amazing, the fabric provides many benefits for the wearer as well:
– It produces a super soft, silky and light fabric that feels like cashmere but is smoother.
– It has the appearance and lustre of silk, giving people a sense of elegance.
– It has anti-bacterial and UV radiation prevention properties.

UGH. In short, Soybean is PERFECT. ♥