MARKET LEVEL RESEARCH.

Beginning this project i was very excited at the idea of market research and investigating into buying and the business side of fashion. also id never done a fashion project that was aimed at a market, so all of it was entirely new. id always been encouraged to design as flamboyantly and excitingly as i could so id never held back.
Actually having to consider who would wear your clothes and where you could sell them was for me at the beginning a bit of a nightmare.

Starting off by researching into trends was good fun, although i kept getting side tracked into trying on and buying garments rather than just photographing them and leaving them there. So it wasnt good for the strain on my purse.

At this time i was massively stressed by my job, my boss fired all the barmaids apart from me so i was on my own working almost every night which was shit. But im terrible at saying no. I think december was the worst month for me so far, i had run out of money buying clothes! and was working all the time for no real gain!
I have cut my hours in my job down loads now, i work like two evenings a week, which is manageable, anymore than that and you dont really have a life outside college and work.

Going home for christmas was brilliant, it made me much calmer, and less stressed, i think i caught up on three months of no sleep in two weeks.

I didnt do much work over christmas which was my downfall really, i got a bit behind with the project, and i hadnt really done enough for the market levels because all i really wanted to do was get onto the containers part and start researching!

When i began looking into "containers" i wanted to do something with supeheroes and hidden identity, containing secrets etc...i went off researching into this and began looking into graff and street art which is a big passion of mine. I used to do lots of stencilling when i was younger, me and my mate used to do stencils all around the town we lived, and i was enjoying looking into it all again.
This led me into doing men's sportswear which ive always wanted to have a go at, but it just wasnt working for me, the designs were very generic and dull and i couldnt see a way past it, so i looked further into other routes, like blood cells and fertilisation and the body, which i found an outlet into knitting. This is where i started really enjoying the project. id never knitted before but i found myself learning on the internet and having a great time making some interesting samples. This helped my design go much further, the annoying thing is that i started enjoying myself too late, i could have spent ages more on this part of the project and i felt my final line up and samples were a bit rushed.
despite this, i liked what i did hand in, even though i know i could have taken it much further at that point.

Creative Design Realisation

Pattern Cutting!
I loved every session of pattern cutting, i love the process. Its like maths and fashion, and seeing it put together and work at the end is amazing. I like the measuring and adapting patterns to unusual features of the garment. I dont enjoy the sewing together neatly of the pieces so much, its very time consuming and i am too messy with sewing.
Id done an ncfe in pattern cutting in foundation which definately helped in the beginning of doing this project. Andrew is an amzing tutor, he really helped with understanding even further.
My garment wasnt amazing or anything, but i enjoyed it so much, i think the more pattern cutting you do, the more you grow to love it, and i cant wait to get better at it in these future years.

Elective

I began my elective "Visualisation and Illustration" absolutely hooked on it. I thought i was really enjoying the freedom of the elective being so broad and undefined. But when it got more into it i dreaded going to the elective sessions because i literally sat there entirely unsure of what we were meant to be doing at all. As much as i thought my tutor was ace, he confused me alot, he'd be trying to broaden our perspectives while encouraging us that whether we wanted to do a tap dance or a puppet show or a mime for our final piece that would be okay. I left me feeling pretty thick and like i didnt want to be there.
I massively fell behind doing the work and missed a few sessions because of work in the pub and the fact that i hated it.
that stressed me out alot over christmas and half term i decided to ask to do another because i couldnt stand the thought of even trying to do the work. So i have restarted another, which is just illustration this time, which is much more suited to me because its what i enjoy the most and i draw all the time in my spare time anyway.

november

Catching up from what i should have been writing...

forgot my password and then forgot this existed...very very naughty.

So November...

Handind in of Creative approaches, was pretty pleased with project in general and enjoyed doing it. the more fine arty approach is what i most enjoy so the straight jackety thing i made was exciting.

this is the final photograph. Based on the idea of "falling from the sky" ie alien!

With Beautiful ian modelling for me!

was ever so pleased with grade i recieved, i believe it was 76 so happy days.

Felt alright at this time, not too stressed, work was manageable, and seemed to be coping alright. my big problem has always been organisation, so when things started to come on top of each other is when i start getting things wrong...