Paul Iribe

I looked into a illustrator called Paul Iribe, I found his work interesting as a lot of it was to do with the world war. I found a piece of his work which stood out most to me and it was an image of Hitler. I then looked into the media that Paul used so that I could try and re-create this piece, I found that he made stencils and rubbed iron and copper shavings over the top of the stencil.


I then tried to create my own stencil using this image of Hitler that Paul used.


As I have never made a stencil before I wasn't sure what way to go about it so I created some samples to see which one would work best for the recreation.  I then got a scalpel knife and cutting board and got my drawing and cut the outlines out.

This is the stencil that I created using Paul Iribs method. I think that I gave it a good attempt but there is a lot of improvements that I could make so if I make a stencil again I will need to create a lot more samples to get the best outcome.

NOIR

Noir is an echo friendly fashion brand. Noir works with illuminati 2 using organic fabrics. The illuminati fabrics origin from a project in Uganda, which aims at expanding organic cotton farming they also help to educate the local community and the 4000 farmers employed in the project. The farmers employed in the project receive tools and education in organic farming and health care.
 Noir's work gives women the chance to express their feminine power through their fashion, not only does it express power but it's also very sexy with the cut out's in the garments and casual feel. I like the fact Noir can incorporate the sexy, powerful and casual feel to their garments and create such a dominant mood.

Golden Ratio

So over the past few weeks I have been learning about the golden ratio and how you use it, as part of my college brief. I couldn't really get my head around the mathematics and how they are used within the golden ratio.

To me the golden ratio means maths and numbers. The golden ratio helps proportion when drawing, i.e. the Moan Lisa was drawn using golden ratio. If things are in proportion and fit into the golden ratio then it's thought to be more pleasing to the eye even the human figure. Before I had received this brief I had never heard of the golden ratio but as I learnt more about it I thought it was interesting but also quite confusing. I think with a little more understanding of the golden ratio I will try and use it in some of my own work to see if it could help me.

 

Princess Of The Ball

Well I am one very excited young lady as I have been invited to a party in a castle. Not any old castle but pekforton castle

 How lucky am I, it's such a beautiful place. The only dilemma I am faced with is WHAT DO I WEAR ! I didn't realise how hard it would be to find the perfect cocktail dress which say's WOW ! So I found a very old purple body con maxi dress, which I have decided I will sew crystals on to. I am not going to put the crystals on the dress so they cover it and look over the top I am going to graduate them so they are in bulk around the hem and reduce to less and less as they travel up the dress. Hopefully I can get this done before November.

Image to be uploaded.

SHOES SHOES SHOES...

COME TO TASHA !!! Well the only way I could possibly describe these shoes is OUT OF THIS WORLD. Love at first sight not only are they my favourite colour but they are perfect to wear with most outfits and would just make a little black dress. I would die and go to heaven if I could afford these shoes pay-day could not come sooner as they have just been put on sale, reduced from £140.00 to £39.00 could this sale be any more perfect ! Well yes if Kurt sent them to me for free a girl can only dream.
http://www.kurtgeiger.com/women/hot-20.html

The One's Who Inspire

Lily Melrose
http://www.llymlrs.com/

Lily's blog is the one I go to for fashion inspiration she's posting endless blog's about her fashion purchases and how to wear them. Most of the time I want everything that she wears she has a very grungy yet vintage fashion style and she wears them to make fashion statements but doesn't look outrages. Lily always lets you know where she has bought her outfits from and the accessories.
 As she is a professional fashion blogger she gets invited to lots of very exciting events her most recent being to London fashion week, I guess it's like getting the first look on the cat walk as she posts photo's throughout her day.


Ring My Bell
http://ashley-ringmybell.blogspot.co.uk/

Ashley Madekwe is an actress from London now living in LA. She has recently started in the tv series revenge. Ashley blogs are based around her own everyday fashion that her and her stylist puts together she always in LA with the beautiful sun shining. She wears a lot of high street fashion but adds little snip its of designer gear LUCKY GIRL ! Ashley always say's were her outfits our from and if sold out or one of a kind she finds similar designs, colour pallets and as identical as you can get outfits and lets people know where they can get them from so they don't miss out. You can also contact her assistants and management or her blog direct if you would like to some how get hold of her. Also Ashley  allows her followers to apply into competitions to win prizes. This blog is the blog I look at most of them all purely because I Ja'dore Ashley as an actress but I always want to know what she is wearing and were I can go to get it well if I had me some pennies that would be. 

Topcoat
http://topcoatfashionblog.blogspot.co.uk/p/about.html

Arden Rubens is a fashion blogger, her home town is in Miami and Israel as her residence. Her blogs mainly consist of catwalks that she takes an interest in and fashion editorials and fashion stories from vogue. Also she takes lots of photographs of street style which is quite inspiring for putting together you're own high street wardrobe. She tries to add some interior home inspirations this could help with ideas for designing a new home or even to take designs shapes and styles away to put into a fashion collection.

Imperial War Museum North.

I took a trip down to Manchester as my dad told me about the Imperial War Museum and thought I could take alot of inspiration from the visit. He wasn't wrong I was blown away by the museum it was incredible they had something from every war starting from the first world war to the war in Iraq today. As I walked into the museum the first thing I came across was a sculpture called The Crusader a spectacular seven meter high sculpture by artist Gerry Judah. His sculpture was his own summery of what he thought of the war and how he took it. My first take on the sculpture before reading what it was meant to represent was that it looked like a million spider legs all stuck to plaster of paris only to discover it had nothing to do with spiders.


I also came across what looked like a pile of burnt metal which was actually once a car. The car was destroyed by a bomb in a market centre in Baghdad on the 5th March 2007.


There was so much to this museum I could have spent all day there but I couldn't.

Crosby Beach !

Possibly one of the best days out iv'e had. Over the summer holidays I was dragging my dad here there and everywhere, which he wasn't to excited about due to the price of diesel but I managed to get him to a few places. Crosby beach has always been on my to do list of things I need to see ! Iv'e always seen images of it and thought how wonderful it looked and I finally got to go see it for myself. I was so impressed by the statues and they way they were eroding gracefully. All the statues are placed around the beach at different heights some of them are at waist hight and some of them our raised and about 6ft. As I wasn't sure how many statues there were I attempted to count them but there really was to many and there was new ones appearing further out in the distance. Here is a little on the artist who created there magnificent sculptures of himself. 

Another Place consists of 100 cast-iron, life-size figures spread out along three kilometers of the foreshore, stretching almost one kilometre out to sea. Contractors spent three weeks lifting the figures into place and driving them into the beach on the-metre-high foundation piles.
The Another Place figures - each one weighing 650 kilos - are made from casts of the artist's own body and are shown at different stages of rising out of the sand, all of them looking out to sea, staring at the horizon in silent expectation.

   

I am really lucky I got to go see the statues and will most definitely be visiting there again apart from the chips were RUBBISH so I will be taking a picnic this time !

Creating My FMP Toile

I pinned all of my pattern pieces on to the calico and cut them out. I also colour coded these pieces to avoid getting them mixed up and so I knew what piece went where. Once they were all cut out I started to sew them all together. Before I could sew the entire dress together I had to sample curved seams to make sure I knew what I was doing. This went well and I felt confident to stitch my toile together.

I started with the two centre back pieces first because it would mean that the shape of the skirt would form properly. I decided to sew the skirt first and then the bodice afterwards. The neck piece of the bodice had to have two pieces as I was planning on stuffing it. I had already sampled using the wadding for the stuffing of the neck piece. I wanted to stuff the neck piece of my toile but unfortunately we sewed the bias binding on to the neck piece before we remembered it needed stuffing. This is not too much of a problem because I am quite confident it will work first time on my final dress. I had to make my binding for this toile because I didn't have any but I'm going to try and buy some for my final dress as this will be much easier and will take less time.

My next step was to sample the tentacles of my dress. I did this by ripping chiffon. I then pinned together the waist bands of the skirt and bodice and wedged in my sample tentacles to see if it looked better on the outside of the skirt or sewed on to the hem of the skirt which i also experimented with. Another experiment was stitching the end of the tentacles to the waistband and hem but the best experiment was when I stitched the tentacles to the inside waistband of the skirt. This allowed the tentacles to hang lose on the inside of the skirt before dangling out from under the hem at the bottom. This fit in with my original design idea better.

My next stage was to put the zip into my toile. I used a concealed zip, placed the zip foot on the sewing machine and placed the zip along the section I'd left on the bodice. The zip was too long and so I had to alter it first and make it shorter I found when I had sewed the zip in that I had sewed it in too low. For my final dress I will have to make sure I measure exactly where the zip needs to go and be more accurate to stop this happening again.

I then sewed the waist of the skirt and the bodice together. Unfortunately the seams on the panels didn't quite match up and so I need to make sure that on my final dress I am more accurate with my sewing. Another issue I had was that the bodice was too big around the top part which meant it gaped slightly. I will have to reduce all of the front bodice panels by 1/2 cm so that it fits better for my final dress.

Patterning For My FMP Dress

To start with I had to change the design of my dress as it was to similar to another students and I wanted it to e more unique. I changed the shape of the skirt into a bubble.

This was my original design.

To start with I measured the bodice measurements on the mannequin with help from my tutor. I had to figure out how I wanted the bodice to fit. I wanted it to be a strong structure and fitted to the waist.

My next step was to take the patterning paper and draw free hand around the mannequins neck to get the correct shape and size. This went well and I had no problems.

I traced a bodice block and from this I started to draw out my bodice pieces. To do this I got pattern paper, took my measurements and drew the shapes I wanted. From discussing techniques with my tutor it was decided that due to the shape of the bodice I would need to panel the front top part of the dress. I needed to panel the bodice to make sure that it fitted around the bust of the female form. I had to ensure that the two outside panels were wider than the two inside panels.

I then went on to make my back pattern piece. I did this by measuring around the back of the mannequin to get the correct measurements. I decided on just producing one panel piece for the part of the bodice rather than different panels like with the front because I felt it fit better with my design and looked more feminine.

My next step was to work out where I wanted the zip on the dress and how high it would go up the body. The fit of the dress would be tighter with the zip so I had to bear that in min. I allowed a 1cm seam allowance all the way around my dress. I decided to put the zip on the left of the dress because I felt there was already enough going on, on the right side of the dress with the neck piece. It also made getting in and out of the dress a lot easier as you weren't having to negotiate the neck piece.

I know started work on my skirt piece. I wanted my skirt to be longer at the back and shorter at the front. I measure a student who was roughly the same height as the models we would be using in the show and decided that the back of my skirt would measure 80cm and the front should measure 50cm.

To create the pattern pieces for my skirt I trace a skirt block and then adapted it to fit with my design. Again I decided I would need to panel my skirt to create the shape I wanted. I drew out my seam allowances and started to draw out the panels from my traced skirt block. Each panel got longer from the front to the back to create the asymmetrical shape. The panels were also drawn wider in the middle to create the bubble effect.

I then needed to make sure that the waist of my skirt and the waist of my bodice matched up. I measured both an realised that the waist of my skirt was 1cm bigger than my bodice. The darts on the skirt were set to 2cm an so to reduce the length I reduced one of the darts at the back of the skirt to 1 cm so that the entire skirt waist now matched up with the waist of the bodice.

I redrew all of the panel pieces of my skirt to get the adapted basic shape of my skirt. These were my second raft pattern pieces. I then colour coded these pieces to help me match them up an to stop me from getting confuse. I also did this on my design so that I had a guide to work to. I then pinned my pattern pieces on to the mannequin to check I was going to end up with the correct shape I wanted. It was perfect and I was happy.