Patience is halfway to happiness

'Better late than never', 'Be patient and understanding', 'Patience is halfway to happiness'; all credible excuses, right? So I'm little delayed with my 'weekly' post but this time I have an excuse- promise. The past few weeks have consisted mainly of three main things; sewing, wrapping willow (?) and excessive coffee drinking. Sleepless nights aside (apparently I work more efficiently at 4:30 am) I've finally managed to finish my Textiles AS Level final piece. From our initial provided title of 'tailoring and haberdashery' I decided to focus on the concept of using things generally concerned with the construction of a garment e.g. dressmaking patterns, dressmaking logos, the use of lining fabric, as mere embellishment. In addition to this I've also looked heavily into Elizabethan Clothing, the emancipation of women (with the role of war) and the decline of the British Textiles industry; looking at designers including the theatrical elements of Alexander McQueen and Issey Miyake. For my piece I created a rope wrapped willow cage skirt (unintentional tongue twister...) and a dress decorated with dressmaking symbol screen prints, hand-stitched symbols and embroidered/painted logos. To create a distressed look symbolic of the decline in British Industry I burnt my fabric and used 3D texture paste to recreate the look of mould. Above are a few snaps from schools fashion show where I, and fellow textiles students, modelled their pieces. After a multitude of textiles stresses and realted incidents, the most memorable being setting off the fire alarm and thus causing the mass evacuation of my school (during exam week...), I feel like it's time to hibernate-literally.

Till, next time 

 

Unfinished

Art GCSE Exam Piece

If you didn't know already, I suppose I did complain enough, I had my 10 hour art exam at the end of April in which I constructed a dress, developed from my initial word 'canine.' From this I looked into fox hunting and my exam piece was a combination of satire imagery, screen printing and general dressmaking. I used Barbour and Vivienne Westwood as my main inspirations for the shape and style of its garment itself; I wanted to create a dress that would be worn by the woman of the manor.
Here are some photos of my piece:

Hope you're all having a great bank holiday weekend!

With thanks to my lovely model, Catherine!

Design Bundle

I was originally going to post a trio of vintage designs but after playing with the paint I decided these three would have to do.  The three designs are loosely vintage inspired; I also tried to create pieces which were slightly similar and sophisticated.

Design 1- Vintage Fur Collar Suit

For this design, I was loosely inspired by the 1920's and 30's. I wanted to try designing office wear and thought attempting to paint fur would benefit and develop my design skills. The bottom of the two piece's jacket has an alternative hem, which is slightly raised above the rest of the design.

Design 2- Houndstooth Dress

My second design was inspired by both the 1950's and 1960's; I also tried to incorporate Audrey Hepburn's style into this piece with the addition of the black satin gloves. I was interested to see how easy the houndstooth pattern would be to achieve using a paint brush (not very as it turns out!) I also chose to make the dress knee length to emphasise the classic style I was working towards.

Design 3- Fur Collar Dress

This design wasn't based on any time period in particular but vintage styles in general. Initially when painting this I was meant to be designing a coat, I found it difficult to look like outerwear and quite liked how it skimmed over the figure.






























I'll be posting another post tomorrow (hopefully) to make up for last week.
Enjoy your Saturday!

Recent Buys

Jumper: Zara, Dress: Zara, Jeans: Topshop

Spider Necklace: Asos

Managed to spend my birthday money! Today I bought a leatherette mini dress and jumper from Zara and some black Topshop Leigh jeans.  I bought the leather dress to go with my Asos spider necklace, which I apologise has been posted around every social networking site I have! Initially I was going to buy some Zara jeans as I find that the Topshop Leigh jeans don't wash very well; I ended up however buying a pair of Leigh's, which I'm really pleased with. The Zara jumper has buttons down the back, so I'm not quite sure if it counts as a cardigan.

Also at the beginning of this week I purchased real leather skirt from eBay for £7; it's maxi so it will need to be altered and made into a midi but I think it's a great alternative to the £90 Asos one I've been hopelessly searching for!

 This week I found my 'Fashion Scrapbook' from when I was younger. Inside I found a few questionable designs, multiple of which were Avril Lavigne Skater girl inspired (thank God I'm over that!)

A few of the only designs not Avril inspired (pardon the names!)

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