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.

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. 

Experimenting with Flowers on a garment

Above is an illustration and four potential dress ideas using the flower that I drew on illustrator using a picture that I took. As you can see, you can play with the scale and proportion of the textile pattern to create other patterns. This is part of the developmental process and I have illustrated this above.