MADE Fashion Design Issue Two

Issue 2 Fashion Design

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NUKU Interview with Sofia Heke

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Entertainment

10 Anxiety Interview with Wilson Fisher

14 A3 Poster 18 First year Interview with Molly Marsh

22 Incorporating Culture into Design Interview with Huiyi Zhou

MADE is a small run print publication focused on everything about design. At Otago Polytechnic we share our stories of how we creatively discover, engage, learn and lead with our communities and with each other.

NUKU Interview with Sofia Heke about her final year three fashion project and how she is working in a trans discipline team to work on the issue of sustainable fashion and buying locally made products.

What was the brief for this project?

I am working in a trans discipline team which is working with people from multiple different disciplines. For my collection, I am working with an artist and graphic designer and myself as a fashion designer. I have chosen to work in a transparent disciplinary team because usually when you’re working in a trans-disciplinary team it is to target a purpose or a problem. The problem I am targeting is the issue for future designers in New Zealand and for our future to be working towards being more sustainable and supporting our local community within New Zealand as well as supporting your local community and local designers.

What attracted you to taking Fashion design?

I was wanting to do something new and go into a fashion course with a good reputation and looking online at the Otago Polytechnic really stood out to me.

Were your expectations met?

Yes, specifically because the fashion course is really hands-on from the first year and you’re straight into making and that is what I was more aiming for to get out of a degree. In the second and third years, it is pretty relaxed and you get to create your own briefs towards the end of the year and have a complete focus which is your own which is really nice. This fashion course allows for complete creative freedom.

What are your values as a designer?

My design values are sustainability, designing with purpose and also transparency is a big one for me in terms of customers and target market. I am wanting to create a system so that people who are buying my garments or watching my process know how I’ve made them from the fabric to the final product. The whole chain of the process being understood by the customer.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

I created 6 outfits that represent mine and my sister’s creative identity by mixing her artwork onto the fabric which I make the garments out of.

What inspired you to create this style for your project?

I did a lot of research and really liked the idea of a traditional royal aesthetic mixed with modern art made by my sister.

Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

What are your thoughts on bi-cultural practices as an emerging New Zealand designer?

I think is very important to always think about living in a bi-cultural country and I like representing my Māori history in my design and also preserving my values and my transparent team’s values by trying to make a platform that supports other New Zealand designers.

Do you think about sustainability when it comes to your design practice?

Over the past two years, I have been working with recycled materials from op shops or using old fabrics from my own fabric I have collected. I strive to make non-binary clothing so that my garments fit a wide, diverse range of customers which broadens my target market.

What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

Just go for it, you need to be passionate about what you’re doing and why you’re there and having confidence in yourself. Don’t be scared to express yourself and make the most of the time you have.

The only challenge is that my sister is living in Christchurch so when I get free time I have to use my weekends to drive up and work on the project in Christchurch with her and the lockdown we went into made this not possible for a period of time.

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

Yes, in terms of confidence in what I design but I have gained more confidence, and doing presentations about each project is making me better at communicating my ideas.

“Be confident in yourself, don’t be scared to express yourself and make the most of the time you have.”

- Sofia Heke

Complete the crossword!!

Fashion 1 2

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3

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9 10 11

12

Created using the Crossword Maker on TheTeachersCorner.net

Across 4. What is another word for a garment designer?

7. What is the name of a shortened pair of pants?

8. What is a Tee shirt with buttons?

10. What is a popular Fashion event that is held in New York during New York fashion week?

11. What is a piece of material worn around your neck along side a suit?

12. What is another name for a plan/drawing?

Down 1. What is something you use to measure?

2. A place in Dunedin where fashion students study 3. What is a covering for your hands?

5. What is a common cutting tool?

6. What is a clothing material that keeps you warm and is also found on animals?

9. What is something you wear on your head?

Can you make a picture out of these shapes?

Can you be the master of Sudoku?

THREE FACES OF ANXIETY Interview with Wilson Fisher about his struggle with anxiety and how he used fashion to represent different peoples anxiety in hopes to start more conversations around mental health.

What was the brief for this project?

I did a personal project on my anxiety and recognising that there are different layers to people’s anxiety and different ways people deal with it. I wanted to see if fashion could be used as a medium to help people understand anxiety.

What attracted you to taking Fashion design?

I think what attracted me was that I wanted to try something new. I had never had real experiences with sewing before apart from making a pillow back in intermediate. My High School didn’t have the opportunities to sew because it was an all-boys school, I could have done it but it would have required me to have to go to Otago Girls High School to do it.

I was really into fashion, I liked the culture around it and I liked wearing cool clothes. I didn’t have a clue about what it was like to make clothing. My best mate at the time, Jonty, was swapping his course from product design to fashion so I thought “I’ll give it a go with him, I’ll do something for half a year” because we got that free year of study and I wanted to do something fun with it. After the certificate course finished I thought to myself “I don’t want to stop now because I’m having fun”.

Were your expectations met?

Yes easily, but what I expected it to be was not what it was at all. I didn’t even know what fashion design really was. It is a lot harder than I thought, and there’s a lot more to fashion than I thought. So much to learn and the teachers are really good at the Otago Polytechnic and my expectations have been more than met. It is a good place to come and study. I am given a lot of good opportunities for learning new skills and we get given all the opportunities we need plus more.

What are your values as a designer?

I try to be as sustainable as I can, as a designer in 2021 it is pretty important these days especially at Otago Polytechnic. Another value is I approach to fashion with a slow fashion approach, trying to design for long duty so that the clothing lasts longer and that people have a connection with the garments and don’t throw them out after a year or two. I like the idea of designing something for the aesthetic and using clothing as a reflection of who you are and what your personal style is.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

I created a collection of protective wear crossed with tailoring and layered them in a way of visually represents a different way of how people deal with their anxiety. The three outfits I made represented three different ways people hide and deal with their anxiety. Each of the outfits I named with a character like name. Outfit one is called “The Vulnerable”, the second outfit is called “The Master of Disguise” and the third one is called “The Everyday Person”. “The Vulnerable” represents a feeling of danger, panic, and dread in social situations where everything is overwhelming. “The Master of Disguise” has developed a skill of pretending everything is okay, to the outside of life looks good. They are the product of learned behaviour where they have been taught

to not express their emotions, especially for men.

“The Everyday Person” is someone who has come to realise that social anxiety is an ongoing part of who they are. They have learned from their experiences and gained helpful skills of managing their anxiety and develop empathy for others. I was playing around with fabrics, layers, and colours to represent these anxious characters. I wanted to contrast softer, lighter materials against more protective and darker toned materials to express the way people live and deal with anxiety. For example with “The Vulnerable” outfit, I wanted the outfit to be protective so the pants are made out of protective material and then there’s a leather waistcoat over the top which I took from the inspiration of a tactical vest, that full protected cornered off feeling that is the person that is shunned off from the world and let their anxiety rule them.

“The Master of Disguise” means you live with anxiety but you don’t let people see it. You are protected underneath, you have all these layers that you hide within and you put a smile over the top which is the colourful plaid blazer. I feel like that is the most common form of anxiety where people act like they don’t have it and not being open to talking about it.

My last outfit is “The Everyday Person” with softer more colourful fabrics underneath with a protective coat overtop. They are themselves and they have had anxiety before but it has become a part of them, they have accepted it and learned from it and they go about their life still with a layer of protection.

What inspired you to create this style for your project?

Anxiety is something that has really affected me over the last couple of years and it’s really personal and I wanted to find a way to express it in a collection without using print, without using screen printing that said things that made it obvious. I wanted to show it in a way that you wouldn’t know what the collection is about unless you dug deep and had all the information about my design process. For the style of blazers, vests, and shirts I got inspiration from living in Dunedin as that’s really common wear due

The Master of Disguise

The Vulnerable

The Everyday Person

to weather, it’s what I like to wear, it’s what I like to make and I’ve been working on my tailoring skills and that’s the type of style I want to adapt on.

What skills did you learn doing this project?

I have definitely learned skills. I learned how to work with different fabrics and different properties. There’s a harder leather, some of the fabric I used was memory yarn so that when you squish it, it holds its shape. Working with nylon, which was the rain jacket material, was really hard to work with and it takes a different approach. While creating the patterns for the shirts and blazers I knew the basics but I hadn’t gone and done it before so that was a first for that.

Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

I had a broken wrist for a good portion of the project and I didn’t think it was going to be possible, I thought I was going to have to quit, to be honest, but I didn’t. I didn’t think I was going to be able to get it done but I persevered and that meant time became a factor because I had to learn a new way to cut fabric and sew with a cast on but I did the best I could with having a cast on for nine weeks. Another challenge was that I thought doing a project on anxiety would help my anxiety but it only made it worse. Knowing I had to do a presentation about it and I’m already an anxious person when it comes to presenting I wanted to convey it right and do a good job explaining it but my anxiety seemed to take over me.

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

Yes, I didn’t know what a pattern was and I could barely sew a straight line but now I can make a complete collection of outfits.

Is there anything you would change about your final outcome?

Yes, I would have liked to have the coloured fabric a little brighter and eye-catching, I feel like a played it a bit safe as far as the colour went.

What are your thoughts on bi-cultural practices as an emerging New Zealand designer?

I think it is important to be appropriate and

respecting of cultural groups and taking the right steps to get design ideas approved. I think there is a lot that can be taken from New Zealand to be used in design but I think there needs to be more education on it. I haven’t personally done anything projects to do with bi-cultural practices because I haven’t had to incorporate it into my design process but to me, I think it would be done through print or garment design. Māori fashion is specific and very cultural and as a pākehā male, it is not something I have the right to work with without getting permission and approval from the appropriate groups.

Do you think about sustainability when it comes to your design practice?

Yes, being a part of Otago Polytechnic sustainability is something we have to think about and that I want to incorporate into my design practice. I like designing clothes with good quality and always taking a slow fashion approach and trying the create garments with cool details and fabrics that people create a sensory connection with which makes them last longer. I want people to fall in love with the clothing I am making. I don’t use recycled materials as much as I would like to. In terms of recycled materials it is good but I have a different perspective on it. I am trying to slow down the impact by making garments that last a longer period of time.

When it comes to making mock up garments I try and use all my scrap and left over materials and I’ve got a bunch of old fabric and leftover fabric from past projects that I am slowly using as you can use a lot of fabric when creating mock ups.

What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

You have to push yourself, you choose how much you want to learn in fashion design because you pick your projects and you pick what you want to make so depending on hard that garment is depends on how much you are going to learn. You think going through the whole course that you’re going to learn everything but you don’t. A lot of the things you have to go out of your way to learn yourself or go and ask about it.

If you want to learn a certain thing then you need to

incorporate that into the clothing collections you are making.

“Don’t play it safe, you want to learn as much as you can.”

“Keep yourself busy and take all the opportunities you get given.”

-Wilson Fisher

First Year Interview with Molly Marsh about what she has been learning in her first year of Fashion Design at Otago Polytechnic.

What was the brief for this project?

We had to make a utilitarian collection to start with and mine was making a capsule wardrobe, so making garments that I considered as basics so that lots of different people could wear them and making the garments easy to mix and match with different things and use staple items. The other element to this project was making things that are easy to put on so one piece items.

What attracted you to taking Fashion design?

I always liked design at high school and in year 13, I specifically liked text styles the best so then I chose to do fashion design here at Otago Polytechnic. I was trying to decide between going to study in Wellington or here but after going on the tour of Otago Polytechnic on tertiary open day I just thought that “this is the place for me” and it has been pretty fun so far.

Were your expectations met?

Yes, I didn’t really have any expectations because I wasn’t too sure what it was going to be like but I love all the different sewing machines because at high school we didn’t get to use industrial machines. It is so much more in-depth than it was in High School and I am getting to learn the proper ways of doing things at an industrystandard level.

What are your values as a designer?

I am still figuring out what my values are as I have only been here for 7 months but, we just did this exercise at the start of the semester to start thinking about these sorts of things. I feel like with my designs I will figure out who I want to make my clothes for and figuring out what my customers want and how to keep them happy.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

I had to make five different outfits in a collection but then we had to pick two pieces of clothing to make.

I made a dress shirt and a pair of pants, I hadn’t actually designed them as an outfit together but they ended up working together to make a nice outfit.

What inspired you to create this style for your project?

The brief was pretty restrictive for this project as it had to be a utilitarian collection but we also got to do visual research and I looked into Superette, Acler, and Camila, and Marc. We also had to make a utilitarian mood board and a target market mood board and these helped me capture what style I wanted to go with.

What skills did you learn doing this project?

I got to learn how to pattern make and adapted the patterns to fit with the style I was going for. We had to do a few trials which are clothing mock-ups. I had two mockups for the pants and two for the shirt dress to practice making pockets, waistbands, collars, and shirt sleeves. I got to try out a range of sewing machines and also learning how to cut fabric along the grain. We did a bit of fashion drawing as well as I hadn’t really done any before. We also learned about looking into care instructions of the fabrics and how to wash the garments once you make them without ruining the fabrics.

Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

Yes, I made the mock-up pair of pants and they fit fine when I first got my model to put them on and from there I made the shorts version of the pants so that I could practice making the pockets and waistband but the shorts didn’t fit the model so I had to adjust them so that they would fit, but that is why you do the mockups.

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

Yes definitely, compared to my work from high school it’s a lot better which is good and that was one of the things I was most happy with was the quality of the garments I made at the end. We are taught industrystandard sewing plus I am a bit of a perfectionist so that came in handy.

What are your thoughts on bi-cultural practices as an emerging New Zealand designer?

We had a New Zealand designer come and give a talk in DCC (Design, Context, and Culture). She was a Māori designer and she showed us some of her work.

It was really cool to see how she incorporates her culture into her work. We have to look into another designer and how she incorporated her culture into her material making. I like seeing how other designers incorporate culture into their work but I haven’t had to work with cultural elements in my design work so far.

Do you think about sustainability when it comes to your design practice?

Yes, I try to use as minimal fabric as possible and also think about where I source my fabric from which is also important, and even how much paper I use. For one project I did when making the mock-up for the gathered skirt, I used old bedsheets and I also buy good fabrics from second-hand shops if I come across them.

What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

I definitely think they should give it a go, come to the open day, and have a look around. Talk to people who have done it before so you can get a student’s point of view of what the course is like. There is a lot of diversity in my first-year fashion class and getting to see everyone’s different styles is great for inspiration.

I think it would be good to have a little background in fashion because that has definitely helped me out but it’s not necessary.

If you want to checkout some of the garments Molly has been making head on over to her instagram @mollysbedroomfloor

“Come along to the open day and speak to students who are currently doing the course.”

- Molly Marsh

Incorporating Culture into Design Interview with Huiyi Zhou from fashion about how she is mixing her Eastern Chinese Culture with Western Eourpean Fashion Design.

What was the brief for this project?

For this project, we were given the word “Synthesis” and we had to explore the meaning of Synthesis and show it through a five-piece clothing collection. For my collection, I mixed my Eastern Chinese Fashion Culture with the Western European Fashion Culture and showed the mixed styles in each garment.

What attracted you to taking Fashion design?

My mother was a designer so I grew up in a design environment. The Otago Polytechnic Fashion Course is very well known around New Zealand and is highly recommended. I have heard a lot about the ID fashion week at Otago Polytechnic and it made me more drawn to the fashion course.

Were your expectations met?

Yes, I have learned a lot, especially how to use all the industrial sewing machines such as the overlocker, bending machines as well as learning how to make buttonholes. I learned a lot about screen printing in the first year as well as dying fabrics text style class.

What are your values as a designer?

One of my values is sustainability as it is a very important part of fashion in 2021 and for the future of fashion design. I use old op shop fabrics and always try to use the offcuts of fabrics when making mockup garments. If I had my own fashion store where I sold my garments I like the idea of recycling the garments. I am mainly interested in creating clothing for children and because children grow so fast there’s a large amount of clothing that gets wasted, so I have come up with the idea that there’s a service where you bring back a purchased piece of clothing and you can swap it out for a different size or different style of clothing so that all my garments can be re-sold in hopes to create less clothing waste for a more sustainable fashion future.

What were the outcomes you created for your project?

I created five garments within five weeks for this project. I made two blazers, two skirts, and one overthe-shoulder cloak. I had to document my design process in a workbook and keep all my paper patterns to be marked.

What inspired you to create this style for your project?

I wanted to incorporate my Eastern Chinese Fashion Culture with Western European Fashion Culture to visually show bi-cultural design within fashion.

What skills did you learn doing this project?

I learned a lot about screen printing, handmade embroidery, mock bending, blazer tailoring, and learning how to make a buttonhole. I worked with a lot of different textured fabrics such as; lace, velvet, and chiffon. We learned a lot about production drawing so that when you send garments to be made in a larger factory the designers know the step-bystep process.

Were there any challenges you faced during this project?

Yes, making paper patterns and mock-up garments was something new to me and I cut the paper pattern too short and I did not allow for a one centimetre seam allowance which caused problems when sewing the garments. I find that some of the fabrics I want to use are really expensive so I have to change fabric materials to fit within my budget.

Do you feel like your skills have improved since starting this course?

Yes, I feel like my sewing skills have improved a lot and I feel more confident in my design process especially when it comes to presenting my design ideas to my classmates and lecturer.

Is there anything you would change about your final outcome?

I have a specific style and I incorporate it into all my garments but I want to try a new style but I seem to always incorporate handmade embroidery because I love the way it makes my garments look more unique and luxurious.

What are your thoughts on bi-cultural practices as an emerging New Zealand designer?

Bi-cultural is really big and broad, different and difficult challenge. It can be really hard to try and incorporate a big cultural element into the design.

I find it hard to incorporate two or more different cultural aspects into my garments and from the feedback I have received from my lectures it requires a large amount of research. For my next project, I will take more time to explore and figure out what I want to show by infusing different cultures into fashion design.

Do you think about sustainability when it comes to your design practice?

Yes, most of the fabric I use is from op shops and when I am making mock-up garments I have used bedsheets and leftover fabrics.

What would you say to someone thinking of studying design at Otago Polytechnic?

The lectures are really good. They have a really good skills and teaching styles. All the sewing machines are industrial machines so it creates a positive working environment. Otago Polytechnic gives you good opportunities to work on projects outside of the course and heaps of opportunities for the Otago Polytechnic ID fashion show.

“Otago Polytechnic gives you a wide range of opportunities to incorporate your individual design style into all of your projects” -Huiyi Zhou

MADE Publication Issue 2 2021 Edited and Designed by Kylie Woods Credits: All work is credited to the designers Typeface: Noto Sans, Janda Manatee Solid Sloppy typeface made by Kylie Woods Paper: ECO100 Recycled Middle spread made by Kylie Woods Photography for Post Cards taken by Riley Smith