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The Diary of a Fashion Student

Sunday

SHOES

A few weeks back now i styled a footwear shoot which was photographed by the amazing Alexander Jordan. Here are a couple of the shots...



Hope you like! Also If any of you are writers out there and want to contribute to Alexander Jordan's new publication Mythos Magazine, get in touch!

Monday

PRODUCTION

I just got back from a trip to a factory i have some connections with back home in Leicestershire, one thats actually still going! Anyway i took a couple of my toiles to the seamstresses that work there to discuss sewing my final garments for my collection! EXCITING! I'm so happy i have someone who can do that for me i know it will be made to a perfect standard and i have time to concentrate on the other side of my work! The leather work in my collection i will be doing myself though unless i find a leather speacialist cheap enough to do it. We will see.


They have some very interesting machines in this factory! Making socks, tights and jumpers etc something i haven't seen being done before! Pretty cool!

Friday

PRINTS

Last night me and my housemate with the camera went out and took some pictures of fireworks, lights and sparklers in order for me to create a print. Heres a few initial prints i made last night by edditing and playing around with the images on photoshop.





Still going to play around more but i managed to change the colours into some really beautiful combination's.

Monday

FUNDRAISING

Once all of our collections have been made an internal show is held for the judges, who will be selecting 20 students to represent the universtiy at Graduate Fashion Week in London. This costs quite a lot of money to set up there are so many things that have to be paid for and unfortunately the three grand we each pay a year doesn't cover it! So its up to us to get the money together! I think we are expected to raise about £4,000 to pay for a venue and good professional models. So its going to be a long proccess trying to raise that amount of money but everylittle counts at the point!


Today we put on a cake sale in our uni bar and managed to raise £168 to add to our stash! We have a long way to go but we have many different things being planned so hopefully by the end of the year we will have made a good amount!

Sunday

MYTHOS MAGAZINE

Alexander Jordan is starting up a new project for an online magazine called 'MYTHOS MAGAZINE' Contributors are needed to write articles for the first issue so if any of you see yourself as a bit of a writer have a read of the brief and get involved!

Mythos Magazine editorial brief: the “issues” issue.

Concept;

I am creating a magazine where the editorial images, be that fashion or portraiture, are included and in reference to the editorial texts and articles contributed to the magazine. To create this work I will need written submissions for the magazine that I can then create visual work for it to be paired with.

Because of this I am looking for pieces of fact based editorial writing, this doesn’t mean that the piece has to be full of statistics but it can not be full of un substantiated claims, other than this you are free to write about anything to do with a current issue and write how ever you like as I want variants in both the magazines content and style.

The deadline for this work is the 20th of November, as it will then need to be proof read, visually represented and then flat planned before the magazine can be finalized for its launch next year.

Any piece is welcome but not guaranteed to be included due to the concept of the magazine, although I do plan to include some texts without also creating imagery from them. Please send a concept, just a sentence, explaining what you intend to write about before you start to avoid having the same thing being written about by more than one person.

Please email any questions and your concepts to;

mythos.magazine@gmail.com

Thank You,

Alexander Jordan


TOUGH WEEK

It's been a bit of a slow one this week! My last post was about the start of a dress I was making and the top peice of it wasnt so straight forward as I had hoped! After draping and doing the pattern for it in a day once I had sewn it together I hadn't got the fit quite right!


So it was back to the stand to adjust the pattern! it turned out i had put too much fabric to the center to make it stand out and not distributed it evenly enough so the sides looked too flat with a kind of bluge out the middle...not a good look! I took the seams apart and split a couple of lines into the top to add in some more fabric where needed.


Once the adjustments were made i stuck the paper all together again to check it all looked ok, you could tell the difference straight away the way it stood was a lot better so i hoped that it would all work out in the actual fabric this time!


I decided to make two variations of the dress, one out of standard calico where the rest will be fitted and the other like planed out of the Organdi fabric with the latex dress underneath which will have a more interesting bottom which will flare away from the body. I want to test out both styles as the two different fabric types will make a big difference and its best to be able to see it to decide which works better.


The calico version was pretty straightforward to make i fused the pieces to make it extra sturdy and it stands really well. The sillohuette is pretty different its interesting but still flattering at the same time! I really want to make myself a nice black version to wear out!


The Organdi fabric however was not so straight forward and caused me a lot of problems which to be honest stressed me out a lot. You see the fabric is translucent so the seams inside have to be finished in an attractive way. Normally a French Seam is used but when i tried that out it was just not working because of the curve in the middle. It ended up pulling and puckering and was sooo hard to sew! I know it doesn't look like it but believe me IT WAS!


So after a few different trials trying to make the seams more of a feature on the dress i had to settle for normal seems which i think i will just have to end up binding inside. So with all my faffing around with the top part to the dress trying to get the fit and finishing right i have yet to finish it! but this week it will be finished!

Monday

MOVING ON

My first toile review went surprisingly well which i was pleased about so i now just have to move things forward and carry on! Today I started working on a dress that hopefully will be apart of the collection. I made a dress to go with my jacket last week but that was a more simple garment which was made to show the shape, silhouette and techniques that i will be working with.





I used paper again to get the effect I wanted , you can create structure and shape allot easier that way. I am going to stitch this top half together in calico tonight to check the fit then i will be using a more sheer fabric that has stiffness to it so that the fabric fits in with my concept.


I am using Halucination within my concept, the idea of something that is not quite as it seems, false interpretations, weird yet beautiful. So to represent that i am using structure showing a sharp and strong look but with delicate fabric in a more subtle feminine colour. The Outer dress will be masking what is really there (the natural shape of the body) and underneath it I will be using this amazing latex fabric i found in the cloth house to create a bandage tight dress underneath.

Anyway I'm off to go sew! I shall update later

BETTY SHOOT CONT.

So on Friday I spent the day with Alexander Jordan and Miss Carla Grima's legs for a photoshoot that will hopefully be going into the next issue of BETTY. Can't show any of the pics yet of course but here are a couple of shots of two of the Locations shot by Alexander Jordan.



The colours and the lighting on these shots were really beautiful.


Oh what we will do to make sure we can return the shoes unmarked!

Thursday

SHOOT FOR BETTY

I have just finished packing all the stuff for a shoot i am styling for tomorrow! Havn't had chance to do that in a while so its exciting! I know i am a fashion design student, but i think its so important to explore other areas of the fashion industry to get a greater understanding of all the aspects envolved making yourself versatile and employable!


Anyway I am styling a shoot that will be Photographed once again by Alexander Jordan this time for BETTY magazine. The main focus of the shoot tomorrow is shoes and tights which will be matched with locations and only the legs and maybe parts of skirts and dresses will be shown! I put a quick crop in of some of the tights i have got together, many different colours patterns and textures!

I'll post some "behind the scenes" images tomorrow also i had my first review today! which was scary but went well so i will be writing all about that as well! Right now though i really must sleep!

NEW IMAGES

Alexander Jordan has just sent my some new retouched images he'd been working on from the Femme Fatale shoot we did many months ago. He managed to get some great close up shots which shows the make-up i did really well. I love the stuff we used on the skin to giver her face a good sheen! Any way here are the images...



I adore the one where she is screaming! Remember to check out Alexander Jordans Blog and Website!
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