Liberty Art Fabrics Design Team: A/W 12 Print Collection

Above is a video from Liberty's Art Fabrics Design Team and each of their design/collections for the A/W12 Print Collection. Each of them have different approaches to their designs and different inspirations which really interests me. All the designs are amazing and I really like the creativity behind all of the ideas and concepts.
During the video, the design team are interviewed whilst sat at their desks, and in the background you can see their computer with their work on it, they then start developing and changing the design by playing around with colours and shapes. It really interests me as to how fast you can change aspects of a design. They also talk about how the swatches were created and why. 

Sally's designs called Camilla was inspired by leaves and pondweed and they're designs were based on print techniques. Sally shares that 'its normally a design that we would have to do digitally because of the amount of colour, but as the brief was print techniques we tried to do it conventionally and use screen printing'. This resulted in using 10 screen printers, but I feel that it worked just as well and the designs are gorgeous.  

Altogether, I feel that this video highlights and gives an insight to the fashion industry and how fast paced and creative it is. This video on the whole is an eye opener to everyone.

Nicole B: Textile Designer Boden

As a textile designer, your job heavily relies on computer software. For Example CAD, illustrator etc. Below is a youtube video of Nicola B who is a textile designer at Boden and throughout the video you can see her using computer software to manipulate and develop textile prints and designs. As you can see this is very helpful in the modern world as you can change and develop designs with a click of a button, as apposed to re-drawing ideas out over and over again.
I feel that this job role would be good for me as I like the idea of exhausting ideas for textile prints and creating garments with these prints on them, also using global inspiration to create these designs, however I feel that I would not be creative enough to create a design. 

CAD - Computer Aided Design; In The Fashion Industry

Computer Aided Design is used when designing on a computer, mainly to enhance the quality of design and to increase the productivity of the designer, also it is very economical. this is very useful in the fashion industry as a design on paper can be transferred to the computer so it is precise. Its a very quick process which is great working in the fast paced fashion industry as it allows you to change, recreate and develop designs. For example, a last season best seller, can be modified and developed into a new garment, still using similar elements in minutes using CAD. 

As you can see in these two images, the designs include precise details of the pattern, the colours and design, and how it is to look on a model. This is why it is good in the fashion industry as you could send that off to construction and they would know all the details needed to construct it. Also it gives you an idea of what the design would look like on a model and can show you if the design is possible to make and look good to sell. 

Winner of Best Womenswear Award 2014: Graduate Fashion Week

Graduate Fashion Week was a big inspiration for me and my future studies and career. I really enjoyed the experience and one day strive to be as good as all the participants in the catwalk show. As we all know that Graduate Fashion Week also has competitions within itself and Grace Weller from Bath Spa University won the Best Womenswear Award. Being so close to home I am delighted for Grace for doing herself, Bath Spa, and Bath proud and an inspiration to all the up and coming designers. 

Now why did Grace Weller win? Was it because of her flawlessly designed garments? or was it the use hand embroidered lace?

The hand embroidered lace looked amazing (shown in image below) and was created using a sewing machine. Personally in the past I have struggled with machine embroidery and therefore did not show off how well it can work but I feel that these designs have really tested as to what it can do, especially with the lace. You can also see the inspiration clearly (the ideas and themes behind the work of romantic artists and writers of the 18th century) which I think makes this collection so great as you can relate to each of the garments and see the ideas behind them. 

Grace Weller : Bath Spa University
Winner of Best Womenswear Award

Embroidery Machines

Embroidery machines are used for stitching pattern onto textiles, they can be used for fashion purposes and for branding on uniforms. There are many types of machine embroidery ranging from free-machine embroidery, link stitch embroidery and computerised machine embroidery.

Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014

On Monday the 2nd of June I went to Graduate Fashion Week for inspiration in my own work. I watched the Nottingham Trent University show and took images of my favourite garments and collections. 

Stephanie Parsons- Nottingham Trent University
Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014

I love these garments as I feel they are original and unique. I love the use of a contrasting colour on the black, white and grey and love the style of the garments. My favourite design is the jumper with the leather trousers.
Overall I feel that this work is very strong and portrays a girly yet sporty look that has created a trend within the current trends.

Shengjia (Sophia) Ding- Nottingham Trent University

Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014 

I like the range of pastel colours in this collection and how it portrays the current trends. I like the sophisticated and feminine look that Sophia has created and feel that this work is strong. However an improvement or development from this that I would add in would be some laser cutting around the waistbands, hem and neckline or embroidery with white to keep in touch with the sophistication. On the other hand I do understand why this was not done as it looks classy without any designs on the garment.

Aimee Lorraine Spies - Nottingham Trent University

Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014

In this collection I mainly liked the detailing on the garments. It looks like it has been made using free machine embroidery or a hand embroider. I also like the use of a contrasting colour for the detailing so it stands out as apposed to a similar colour that you can only see when close up.

Olivia Andres - Nottingham Trent University

Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 2nd June 2014

I love this collection for the use of white with a contrasting colour and that the collection also fits into current trends. Also a range of fabric manipulation was used to create the pleats. Also the use of dip dye or dying the fabric at the bottom.

Potential of Illustrator in the Fashion Industry

Illustrator and the Fashion Industry

Adobe Illustrator is a computer programme which allows you to draw and create images on digitally. This can be used in architecture, graphic design, and also fashion illustrations. Personally I love using the software for fashion illustration as I feel that it produces a neater and cleaner piece of work and allows room for change. 

Here is a design which I drew on illustrator recently.

As you can see. Above I have used illustrator to create a fashion illustration of one of my final designs of a recent project. I drew the fashion illustration using the pen tool and brush tool and have added a pattern. 

The reason I feel that this software is good for the fashion industry is because it has flexablility. What I mean by this is that you can create patterns for garments, resize the pattern, add to a garment, and play around with proportion and scale, as well as having the flexibility to create whatever garment you want and edit this in the process which can help with development. 

Laser Cutting in the Fashion Industry

Laser Cutting

Lela Rose

 Spring Summer 2007

Ready to Wear

http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/spring-summer-2007/ready-to-wear/lela-rose/full-length-photos/gallery/183633

As you can see above, there is an image of a garment by Lela Rose in her Spring/Summer 2007 collection, where the detailing has been made using a laser cutter. 

Laser cutters are machinery that cuts into a surface, which provides a cleaner and more accurate cut towards a higher quality finish.  Laser cutting works better on synthetic fabrics due to the plastics in these fabrics melting creating a sealed edge that will not fray, whereas more natural fabrics will singe by the heat holding the fibres in place. 

Laser Cutting Machine

Above are two images that I have created using illustrator. They are laser cutting examples that can be used on a garment. You could put this design on the bottom of a skirt to cut out or on the neckline of a top or a dress. You could also use this on a waistband. 

When creating this, I used guides and rulers to make the pattern the same, and then I used the pen tool to create a filled shape. When creating these, you have to make sure that you do not use too many bezier points due to the laser struggling to cut the fabric and it may take a while. 

Above are the laser cutting designs placed on to a dress. as you can see I have played around with the positioning, to the waistband and hem.