Fashion Dissertation Survey

UPDATE: 
Thank you so much to those who contributed, I'm truly grateful. It was also good to see everyones individual take on the subject, and its nice to see that although everyone can see that there are pressures to be a certain way, individuality is not lost. Thank you again.


Original Post:
I'm currently in the middle of writing up my fashion dissertation, and would love it if you could help me out by anonymously filling out my dissertation survey on the pressures of 'perfection'.

I would really appreciate the help :)

Looking forwards to hearing your views:

Thankyou!

Instagram

One iphone app I'm in love with right now is Instagram.

Its perfect for fashion bloggers to take quick shots of outfits, or anything of inspiration. 

You can add a variety of different filters to your photos and it uploads your chosen photos to its mobile community to share with friends. 

You can also choose to automatically post the photos to twitter, tumblr, flickr, posterous, foursquare and facebook as you upload them onto Instagram.

Bad news: Not available on android/blackberry

Good news: Its free!

Instagram

London Fashion Weekend!

I've finally booked tickets to London Fashion Weekend this February. 
(£5 off silver and gold tickets until Monday)
I seriously cannot wait! 
Will try to save money this time round though: Last time I went I took virtually no money, and it was so heartbreaking walking past all the designer stands knowing I couldn't buy any of it..! 

I ordered Gold Tickets for the fashion show and show bag. I'm such a sucker for freebies (though technically I paid for the show bag, I'm going to pretend it was free to make myself feel better..)
I just wish I could see London Fashion Week too. Hopefully (depending on my workload) I can see if I help a designer backstage. 
That would be amazing! 

Design Development

As promised, here are some photos from my current project:

Ive put in a collage of some of my research so far, and my initial lineup.

The designs after that are developments of my lineup, where I'm trying to make the garments more wearable and more appealing as I feel this lineup is a little ameteur.

The fabrics are a mixture of textures, opaque and transparent, and its an all grey collection (based on total colour blindness). The shapes and draping are inspired by a distorted photo I took from my everyday life.

(Sorry for the bad lighting, my scanner is broken so I'm having to photograph them in poor lighting)

Collage of Concept:

 Initial Lineup:

 Design Development:

Need to pick one outfit to fully make in final fabric, and another outfit to mock up in a toille.

The final outfit will be styled and photographed in 2 different styles.

Hopefully I can do it all!

Not Forgotten

I haven't posted anything new in about a week, which has been so hard (I'm at that point where I think I may be 'slightly' addicted to it...).
I've been away AND attempting to fight my way through the current workload.
But I haven't forgotten about my little blog, and will be updating regularly again once I've got settled back in.

In the meatime I will be posting up a few pages of my current design development, which will go up in the next hour or so. :)
Watch this space..

Current Design Project: Pre Collection

For my pre collection I am working around the subject of blindness.
Im looking at it from the perspective of how i'd react to designing with either no or little sight.
So I've been trying to focus on interesting fabric textures, mixing smooth with rough, opaque with transparent etc.
Ive also been looking at distorted everyday images. Taking photos from my everyday life and distorting them to the point where it is unrecognisable, and getting my shapes that way.

While doing research I came across an amazing fashion designer from Ukraine.
Sergey Ermakov creates exquisite Haute Couture garments, with such attention to detail.
Yet he does this with only 5% of his vision. He is virtually blind, to the point where if hes up close to a garment, all he can see is its colour.

Therefore he relies on touch and memories to design his collections.
Personally I think what he does is amazing, even by the standards of a fully sighted couturier.
Here are a few examples of his work:

Photoshoot

This garment was Designed, Created and Photographed in the 1st year of my course. Its not part of the above 'Photography & Styling' shoot. Its based on experimentations with sleeves, shirts, jackets, fastenings etc and is pretty ameture in design, but im still proud of it as it was the 1st thing I'd ever made.
Styled by me, and modelled by Nina Watford.

Still in love with the shoes in this shoot, from BEBE.com

Photography & Styling

I thought I'd include photoshoots of 2 previous garments I have made.


The two shoots are laid out in a magazine layout for a 'photography and styling' project during the 2nd year of my course.


This is a magazine spread of a dress I designed and made for a 'Draping & Contouring' project, and is inspired by the trees themselves, hence the woodland setting.
The dress is made of silk and chiffon, and is modelled by Chloe Henderson.



This next photoshoot is of a jacket I designed and made for a 'Tailoring' project, and is inspired by the concept of androdgyny, and based on a mixture between womens and mens jackets.
The outfit was styled by me, and is modelled by Hannah Munford.

.

Stockman Mannequin

Finally, after all the snow causing delays in deliveries, my Stockman Mannequin arrived today!

I absolutely love it, and I cant wait to get designing on it!

Dress Form Review

I figured while im here I'd write a mini review on mannequins and dress forms for UK fashion designers/students as personally I found it hard to come across a good quality dress form.

The main problem is that theres loads of display mannequins out there, as well as adjustable dress forms.
-Display mannequins tend to be plastic or polystyrene, which are obviously completely unsuitable for dressmaking.
-Adjustable dress forms are all very well if you're flat pattern cutting and you're just using it to make sure it fits the specific measurement of a customer/client, however its not really suitable for draping/contouring/drafting a pattern from the stand as you really need a solid form, whereas these have gaps where they've been adjusted.

1.The obvious choice for a dress form is Kennett and Lindsell.

Their mannequins are widely used across the UK, and come in many shapes and sizes. The main problem is the price. A full size dress form will take you very close to £700, and a miniature one costs roughly £400 from morplan. As a student there is no way I could ever afford that, and its near impossible finding one on ebay, let alone winning it in a bid. I tried and failed 3 times!

2. Morplan Tailors Dummy are a cheaper alternative to Kennet and Lindsell, selling at £379 plus VAT

As this was still more than I could afford, I carried on searching and came across this gem of a site:

3. Vintagestylemannequins.co.uk

Inspired by Vintage mannequins, Julie's main focus is on creating ansolutely stunning display mannequins made to suit anyones taste, and they have such care and attention to detail. Again, these are intended for display, however there is also a section on her site dedicated to vintage dress forms, in this section youll find rare mannequins in beautiful condition, some even dating as far back as edwardian times.
If you're lucky you may stumble across a K&L mannequin, or (even more likely) the american version Wolf Form (in my opinion wolf forms dress forms are beautiful and very unique looking). In my case I came across a Stockman from the 40s. Stockman is a brand used by french couturiers, and I am absolutely in love with her!

The amount of pride Julie takes in her business is rarely seen in other sellers. She makes sure all mannequins arrive in the same condition they left her in, and so makes sure they're thoroughly packaged.
I highly recommend her for both her products and customer service.

Contact Me

Any questions, feedback or suggestions are very much welcome.
I look forward to hearing from you.

New Year, New Blog

Something I've wanted to do for a while now is set up my own blog, but never had the time or courage to do so until now.

I figured the fact that it being the 1st day of 2011 was a good excuse to start one up!

New years resolutions: the usual start excercising, manage money better etc.
Another resolution: To gain the confidence to start putting myself and my work out there more.
You only get one life, and have decided I need to start getting the most out of it.
Wish me luck!

Happy New Year!