Technical File Slow is Beautiful Design Project Dominique Taylor Technical Folder• BA (Hons) Fashion Design & Development Year 2• 22 August 2012
Thursday, 31 October 13
1st stage of experiments
Having work out the theme of the project and its relativity to the special fabric that would cut out the radio-waves a fabric that is called “radiade” , I experimented with ways in which i could work with a prototype fabric that would act and react in similar ways. This fabric has a one way weave of metallic thread that gives it its stiffness as well as the structure that is similar to the “Radiade” fabric.
I then looked at how I might create a way in which fabric could be protective by simply having a metallic coat/layer placed upon it. The samples to the left are of a lycra fabric that has metallic paint placed on it. Although the paint is quick drying, it is not possible to use in this project as the paint cracks with expansion or stretch, It also does not go with the target audiences expectations from the garment, These samples create a good grunge/ punk feeling to the material but do not reflect the clean cut couture collection that I am aiming at creating.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Similar to the idea of paint, I tried placing with-in two layers of fabric a medium weight wadding and sewing around it, in both straight stretch and zig zag. The effect was both cheap looking and far to tribal for the couture collection and much like the paint gives the fabric and material a completely different feeling. The fabric choice for this effect was also wrong and made it look even more common and cheap. Therefore the idea of this technique has been benched.
Thursday, 31 October 13
I also thought about how there was a possibility that in the year 2025 the technology would be so developed that the trimmings such as Fringing and Bindings could have a way of letting off the protective shield that would protect from the radio waves. How would those trimmings then be used on the garment and over the garment was a point of research.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Power Mesh & Organza =Disliked this combination
Organza &Metallic Fabric =Preferred combination
Organza & Black Crepe =Preferred combination
Power Mesh & Metallic =Disliked this combination
Power Mesh & Crepe =Disliked this combination
Thursday, 31 October 13
Having chosen some fabric that would both reflect the radio-wave protective fabric of Radiade (the silver and opaque fabrics), the woven black Crepe de Chine for drape, A black stretch mesh for experimenting on the body con aspects of the garments and the black organza, I then did some seam trials. I chose to trial all the fabrics in a combination to determine the best combinations of fabric. I decided that all the seams would either be bound or be french seams and therefore testing the fabrics compatibility was done by using a french seam.
The other reason for a wrap dress is that it can be used by the consumer as they wish. Meaning that the wrap can be used to cover up or reveal as much of their body as they would wish, Depending on the personality therefor it is manipulated for the user. A wrap dress can also be used to cover more than one dress size because of its nature, meaning less production and less waste at the end of the fashion season. However making a wrap dress was not a very interesting or exciting prospect and therefore I continued with the experimentations and sampling of other ideas for the collection.
Thursday, 31 October 13
The Protective Wrap
Experimenting with the Metallic fabric, here I was looking at making a wrap dress, the reasons for this were that the pattern pieces tend to be bigger, this big pattern piece idea goes with the concept of being able to unpick and reuse the fabric to make new garments at the end of this garments life.
Protective Casting
Changing strategy again to look at the viability of having something hard and protective on the body, or having the hard that looks liquid, or in fact having the liquid that looks hard. I made these casts to see how something that might be protective in nature can be fashion or art, I like this idea but it is more art than wearable fashion and therefore I can not continue on this path with the casting.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Shielding Cat Suit However going from having something that is plastered to the body and protective came the idea that I might make a body suit that is worn very much like an undergarment at all times, that is protecting the whole body or the body in parts that the person is most concerned about. With this idea however complications arose that were un avoidable. Does someone really want to wear a one piece suit at all times? What about in hot weather countries or conditions. How will other garments look over the top of this one piece suit. I therefore did not continue down this road of questioning and exploration as I wanted to be able to be free with the ‘over garment’ and create something that could be used in all walks of life.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Shielding Mini Metallic Dress Following on from the idea of having one garment that is protective, I wanted to give the option of having a garment that was not full body yet protective the vital chest and uterus area of the customer while giving the options of being multi purpose couture, This way lessoning consumption and using the concept that the fabric then can be recycled at the end of the purpose. The garment shown is a sample and not finished off very well but comes from the simple concept that one garment should serve many purposes. i.e. Protect, multi function and therefore multi faceted for day to night, dinner to club, red carpet to street.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Shielding Roll-hem
Having the theme that the protective aspects may not need to be in the fabric or in a garment that is separate from the one being worn, an idea occurred to me that would be useful for this project. In the year 2025 the the protective aspects can be sewn in to the hemlines and seams of the garment that create a link around that garment and therefor the garment becomes a shield against the radio waves. This sample garment made with big block patterns (again so that it can be recycled at the end of its lifespan) has been hemmed with roll-hems along the waist, neck and sleeve openings. The roll-hems would theoretically then sense the other roll hems and create the shield.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Shield Collar Looking at the idea that the whole garment does not need to be Protective but only one part need to be made into a shield, the metallic collar that is multi purpose and multi use was made. The collar I made has aspects that are fashion conscious like the design and the aesthetics, and that intricate and interesting collars are in this season, while the fabrics: both the binding and the “Lining” are made from metallic fabrics, in this case the metallic fabric therefore can be replaced by the “Radiade” fabric or could theoretically have a way of shielding the whole body from radio waves.
Thursday, 31 October 13
I have decided that for the final pieces and some of the samples I am going to use recycled and old pieces of jewellery as the fastenings and decorative accessories.
This is an old broken piece of jewellery that I recycled and attached a pearl pendant to it to create a cuff link-esque fastening.
These two Indian jewellery pieces, were converted so that they that be used as one piece that holds the collar together or can be separately used and then hooked on to the other buttonhole on the other side of the collar
The Jewellery pendants used to make the pieces.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Making Samples
Working on the cape like garment that can be worn at the back or on the front of the body. I chose to give the collar two button holes (one on each side of the collar) so that the distance between the collar is adjustable. I have there fore used cufflink like extensions with jewellery that is recycled from old accessory pieces.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Making the cuffs of the cape was an interesting process as I was trying to make the shape of the cuff curved over the hand of the consumer. first I overlocked the curved edge, then Overlocked the inner arm seam and bagged it out. The image to the left is the non bagged out pattern piece.
Having bagged out the cuff, I then gather the cape sleeve to the length of the cuff 10cm, and place it in between the lining of the cuff and the outer layer of the cuff.
Thursday, 31 October 13
The top seam is the seam that holds the cape into collar of the garment. This seam is neat and looks good. This cape was about the raw geometric shapes and the silhouettes they create. I started with a square and then added a rectangle to the one side, creating an unknown (no purpose) seam then gathering the bigger rectangles short ends into the cuffs. This created a sausage shaped cape.
Thursday, 31 October 13
The image below is the hem edge, it is a roll hem and suits this fabric and this garments edge.
The garment as a sample worked well. I didn’t in the end attach the jersey navy skirt to the back of the dress. I also would accessorise the garment by using a belt at the waist but didn’t want to place it here incase it obscured the garments shape. As far as the success of shape goes, I think that it works within its slow is beautiful brief. It creates power shoulders and using big pattern pieces makes a garment that can later be taken apart and recycled.
Thursday, 31 October 13
1. straight stitch around the cuff curve
2. Sew down the sides of the cuff
3. looking at the difference in size of the cuffs. In the end I choose to use the larger cuff because it gives the piece or of a personality.
4. Having bagged out and pressed the cuff in place, I then inserted the sleeve of the garment into the cuff and stitched the cuffs hem edge with a decorative stitch.
5. The cuff on the body. I like the way the cuff sits over the back of the hand. and the way that it is elegant in contrast to the bold dress.
Thursday, 31 October 13
2. Trim the curve of the collar 1. straight stitch around the collar curve 3. bag out and press the collar, press the hem of the collar up 1cm.
4. Place the dress inside the collar
Thursday, 31 October 13
4. Place the back strip into the collar and decorative stitch the hem of the collar so that the pieces connecting are trapped inside the collar.
Side seam Dart
1st Toile Starting on the Final Garment, I decided that it was going to be one dress, multi purpose, floor length couture garment.
The Side Panel
Thursday, 31 October 13
By experimenting on the stand I had worked out that the garment would be multi purpose if I attached two dresses together, where their arm holes would be wide enough for the head to go through, therefore I chose to make it into a halter neck dress. It would also have a side panel on the dress so that the dress could have extra fabric at the hem, much like a Godet, all the pattern pieces would be big and therefore recyclable in the way that i have stated previously and in the research booklet.
Side Panel inset too long
Having traced the Side Panel off the master pattern of the dress, I then slashed and spread the panel and traced around it, this was it added volume to the hem of the dress.
Using this pattern, I made the skirt area of the dress to sample the curved side panel. There were many things that were wrong with the sample. The fabrics chosen were no good and did not make the garment look good or expensive. The curve on the side panel was gathered too much and the length of the inset panel was at least 10 cm longer than the skirt, when trying to iron the seam the organza (being poly) melted on to the iron.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Curve on Side panel is gathered and looks messy
Organza melted after ironing.
1st Toile
Hem length needs to be fixed and adjusted on flat pattern piece.
Thursday, 31 October 13
On the first toile what was blatantly obvious was that the seams would either have to be sewn using the french seam or use binding, as the fabric frays far to easily and even with the roll hem the fraying is obvious.
Here the inside of the dress side panel and the frayed edges. Despite this the panel went in well and the curve sits neatly.
The collar has gone on neatly and the fastening I chose to use for this garment is a button, but I know that in the final one I will use the old jewellery.
The hem and all visible edge seams were hemmed using a roll hem. First a straight stitch then a zigzag stitch on top. Thursday, 31 October 13
Making the Final Garment
The first step in making the garment is sewing up the darts on the side seams of the Centre front of the dress pattern piece Then I can start on the Bias binding for the garments edges, To do this I had to cut the Bias binding that I bought to 2cm in width, this way the bias binding would end up being 0.6cm in width on the garment. I ended up NOT liking the way the bias binding machine bound the seams on the garment. 1: it did not make them flat but rather they sit more rounded on the inside of the dress 2: the binding machine on the curves is very hard to navigate around the seams and often came off, but there is little one can do to fix this issue unless a new pattern piece is cut and bound again.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Images of the dress side panel before the pattern piece is placed, both the right side and the wrong side are shown, The bias binding in this case around the dress was done on a straight stitch industrial machine and is sitting well and flat.
However the panel that was inserted into the side panel on the dress was bound using the binding machine at Curtain Road and was difficult to navigate around the edges of the panel and therefore there are some mistakes made. To rectify the mistake the binding would either have to be cut off or a new pattern piece would have to be cut out.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Example of binding made by the binding machine, having bound two edges, I then straight stitched them together. This proved to be to bulky and didn't sit flatly.
Example of two bound edges that have been straight stitched together after I bound them using bias binding on a straight stitching industrial machine.
Example of how neat and flat the binding sits on the garment opposed to the binding that was sampled using the bias binding machine.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Showing the raw edge of the top of the dress that will be inserted into the collar.
The collars hem is folded 1cm into the collar and pressed. The dress is then inserted into the collar between the notches and then is sewn on to the dress with a straight stitch.
The overall weight of the dress is quite heavy regardless of the thin crepe de chine fabric used, therefore i chose to do two more rows of stitching on the collar, catching the dress again. This not only works aesthetically but also reinforces the initial stitch-line.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Underside of the Rolled hem of the Final Dress. On the creme section of the hem.
This Image below shows the bias binding placed on by the machine and how the hem of the dress has been sown to enfold them into the roll hem, it sits slightly raised as the bias binding is bulkier that would be ideal.
Underside of the Rolled hem of the Final Dress. On the Navy section of the hem. This shows more clearly how the hem has been rolled once and stitched using a straight stitch and then following that rolled once more and stitched with a decorative stitch.
The Image below demonstrated the bias binding that has been done on a normal machine and the hem that it is enfolded into. It sits flatter and looks much neater.
The Hem of the dress on the Navy section from the right side. The only stitch visible is the Decorative one.
Thursday, 31 October 13
Thursday, 31 October 13
Bottom collar/ Cut x1 Contrast CUT ON FOLD Cut x 1 interfacing
Back Dress Pattern/ cut x 1 Main, cut x1 Contrast ON FOLD
Top collar/ Cut x1Main CUT ON FOLD
Side Panel Pattern/ cut x 1 Pair Main, cut x1 Pair Contrast
Front Dress Pattern/ cut x 1 Pair Main, cut x1 Pair Contrast
Final Garment Flat Pattern
The Flat drawings to the left are the flat pattern pieces for the final garment with the cutting descriptions written on. The flat drawings to the right are way in which the flat patterns will connect, and be stitched with the notches to indicate front and back and pattern piece connections, this creates one side of the garment.
Order of Assembly 1
Sew up the side seam darts on the front dress pattern piece, on all four front pattern pieces
2
Using Bias Binding that correlates with the colour of the pattern piece bind all edges labeled “A”
3
Using Bias Binding that correlates with the colour of the pattern piece bind all edges labeled “B”
4
Using Bias Binding that correlates with the colour of the pattern piece bind all edges labeled “C”
5
Using Bias Binding that correlates with the colour of the pattern piece bind all edges labeled “D”
6
Sew edge “A” to edge “B” ( sewing up the side seam, making sure they are contrasting pattern pieces)
7
Sew together edges labelled “C” - (the CF seams of dress in contrasting colours)
8
Bind edges labelled “F” - (this is the edge of the halter neck creating a loop back to the Front of the dress)
9
Bind the empty curve made for the Side panel of dress
10
Sew panel labelled “D” in to the section labelled “E” on the dress ( use contrasting panels to the colour of dress)
11
Press all bound seams open
12
Iron the interfacing of bottom collar on to bottom collar
13
Stitch Top collar to Bottom collar, leaving 1cm from bottom edge on either side.
14
Press 1cm of bottom edge of collar up in to the collar
15
Place, Pin and sew the dress front pattern piece into the collar between notches
16
Stitch button hole on both sides of collar where marked
17
Roll Hem the Hem of dress circumference
F
A
B
E
Thursday, 31 October 13
D