DMU Level 4 Shirt Project

ZARA Women’s wear Shirt Project Spring/Summer 2019 Isabella Burzynski

Zara Products on offer.

About Zara.

Founded in 1975, Zara is one of the largest international high street fashion brands. It is renowned for it’s ability to develop a new product and have it in stores within 2 weeks.

Blouse /Shirt Silhouette Trends Colour Trends Puffed Sleeves

Knotted Shirt

Shown are the colour trends for SS19 from WGSN website. Mainly quite bright colours are present. Websites like Glamour.co.uk have stated that golden yellow is a must have colour this season , Vogue.co.uk have said ‘En Beige’ is the way to go and Cosmopolitan.co.uk have stated that light lavender will be popular spring/summer 2019.

Blouse / Shirt Trends Decorative Technique Trends Lace Inserts

Tie & button up blouses.

A popular decorative technique found throughout the highstreet & online (left image - Reformation). A statement top that pairs well with jeans and fits to the body well.

Lace tends to be symbolic of lingerie however, recent trends pushing through show lace being inserted into everyday shirts, blouses and tops.

They create a soft, feminine feeling, making clothes seem very delicate.

White floral shirts.

Competitors

Zara Product Offer

Floral Embroidered Top £29.99 100% Cotton Embroidered Shirt Blouse £29.99 100% Cotton

Printed Top with Ruffle Sleeves £25.99 100% Polyester

Checked Cropped Top £25.99 99% Cotton, 1% Elastane Lining - 82% Polyester, 18% Cotton

Contrast Shirt £25.99 91% Cotton, 9% Linen

Dotted Mesh Blouse £25.99 100% Cotton Lace - 100% Polyester

Frill Off Shoulder Top £25.99 68% Viscose, 32% Linen

Printed Blouse £25.99 100% Cotton

Topshops range of styles is good, they have a good mixture of prints, including the popular animal print. Also different hem and sleeve lengths. They differ from Zara on probably there fashionablity, they are more trendy styles, for younger customers whereas Zara stick to simpler, easy styles for all women. Prices are similar to Zara ranging from £25.00 to around £40.00.

Competitors

Urban Outfitters product offer for shirts and blouses mainly consisted of floral prints, capped sleeves and tie ups, there is not much range in there collection of blouses. They are also suited to younger women than Zara is. Prices were similar to Zara but mainly on the more expensive side.

Competitors

These are some of the blouses and shirts on offer at H&M. The main difference I found compared to Zara is that the prices of them are considerably lower. Their designs however are not as complex as some of Zara therefore this could be a reason as to why they are on the cheaper side.

Initial Ideas

Sleeve Ideas

Developed Ideas Here a two images that I keep refering back to when thinking of my own designs. I like how the sleeves fall in both. The picture to the left is from the Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini Ready To Wear SS16 show.

I like the floral embroidery anglaise they have used, this could be a material I could use for my own design, I have also seen other Zara design using this material showing that it is a popular decorative technique.

Developed Ideas

Developed Ideas

Pleat Samples

Cuff Sample

Here I tested the style of pleats I wanted for my design. I tried different spacing between the pleats which with less spacing the pleats created a fuller look, the more separate pleats created a nice curve to the line of the fabric. My theme for my shirt is a very feminine, soft style therefore I think the spaced out pleats would work better as the other are quite bold and might be a bit too much for the design to handle. Also as this shirt is being made and designed for Zara the less pleats that have to be put in saves on costs and time.

Here I created a cuff as I had never made one before. I drew some sketches to see what other designs I could do for my shirt. I could add button and loops and more pleats to create a fuller sleeve. The cuff could be less traditonal and not have a placket. There are many options. After looking over my designs, I like idea 2 the most, it does not have long sleeves therefore I won’t need a cuff, however this exploration of cuffs has been really interesting and will mean I have some experience if I were to make cuffs in the future.

Lace / Broderie Anglaise Once I had picked the design I wanted to make, I then looked into what kind of materials and embelishments I wanted to use for my design. From researching into Zara’s product offer for shirts & blouses I found that they used a lot of Broderie Anglaise. At this point I did not know much about the material, but was intrigued by the light, summery and floral aspects of the material. I thought it would really work for my shirt design.

I went onto looking online and in material shops around Leicester for some broderie anglaise that suited my shirt. I struggled to find any that was suitable or not too expensive. I decided that I was wasting my time; knowing I wanted to bring florals to my shirt I looked into lace, as there were a lot more cheaper options for this avaliable and WGSN shows that it is trend coming for SS19.

Pictured below is the some lace samples I got, as lace is quite see - through it would have had to have lining underneath, this would then add more to the cost of the shirt.

FABRIC CHOICES

EMBELLISHMENT

FINAL IDEAS

These are two of the embellishment I hope to use in my design, I am not quite sure where these are going to go but once I sew together my base design I think they will fit well with the design.

The fabrics I have picked for my shirt are a plain white shirting fabric and a poplin cotton spot fabric bought from John Lewis in Leicester. I think that these will work well together as they are the same colour and will work to break up the design especially the spot fabric.

TOILE MAKING

FINAL SHIRT MAKING

FINAL SHIRT EVALUATION My research found that white floral shirts where a popular design for SS19, also looking in stores showed this. I was mostly inspired by an image I found on pinterest of a shirt from Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini Ready To Wear Spring Summer 2016 show. I was inspired by the cut and how the shirt sitted on the model. I believe that the plain white colour works really well for spring/ summer.

In my opinion this shirt would work and sell well within Zara’s product range.

It has the simplistic features that a lot of Zara’s products have and also fis the trends well, with the big puffy sleeves and lace trim. I think the only attribute that might affect a sale is how short it is, it fits just a bit higher than the waist therefore may cause issues with some women who do not feel as though they can wear something so short. If I had the opportunity to design it again I would make it a little longer so it fitted around the belly.

I would price this shirt at £25.99; Zara’s highest price point for their shirts and blouses because there are additional costs with the extra embellisments and the difference in fabrics means the cost of making will be higher. I therefore believe it is suitable at the price of £25.99.

After making the toile and finding out that the back seam was far too long and the hems were unlevel I was able to learn from this. My final shirt fits on a size 12 mannequin really well, the hems are level and it does not pull on the fabric too much around the bust and arm holes.

Overall, I am really pleased with the outcome of this shirt and believe it would work well with Zara’s exisitng shirts and could be worn with jeans on a cooler day or shorts on a hot summers day.