REFLECTION
Monday morning was dedicated to laying out our new design developments to share with the group so that we could take votes and generate our new line up. I was pretty disappointed because only three members out of the 15 of us, including myself, actually drew up developments over the summer. A lot of people assumed that because they were told there was nothing wrong with their garments, that they didn't need to improve. This set us back quite a bit. I am finding group work difficult for this reason.
I think that a group of 15 is next to impossible to work with in this particular unit, especially as it feels like we are lacking direction. The problem with leaving 15 fashion students to manage by themselves is that it is very difficult for a person who is not officially in authority to lead a group of others on the same level.
We are constantly being compared to menswear, a group of five (we are a group of fifteen) which both frustrates us and disheartens us because 1. a group of five is quite obviously going to be easier to lead than a group of fifteen and 2. menswear are constantly receiving more frequent and more positive feedback because they are being rewarded for doing well.
DESIGN SELECTION
To start with, we decided on Maisy's template to use for all of the designs. We think that it was hard to see the collection working when we all have different illustrations and drawing styles so we spent the morning re-drawing our designs onto our new template. We voted for Maisy's because we thought that it was relevant to Bolongaro Trevor.
We split the garments up into outfits to create our line up. And changed a lot around, changing jumpsuits and dresses into tops and designing extra pieces on the spot to go with unfinished outfits. We numbered the outfits and finished with a total of eleven. Ensuring that everyones work was utilised. We thought about garments going out on the runway and how they would transition from one outfit to the next, considering the fluidity of the collection as it would be taken out onto the catwalk.
We started off with garments with pleats, moving into textures that looked like pleats, into softer, flow-y outfits.
I was asked to merge two of my ideas together as Iain liked them both but wanted to use elements of each to create a hybrid of the two. These are the two designs;
By combining the two, I took the elements of the second skirt and the top half of my developments from the first design to create this dress:
FABRIC SELECTION
We went through every outfit, starting from the beginning and started to pick out fabrics. We had to consider colour, whether the colours of the fabrics worked together in one outfit, but also if they transitioned nicely into the next garment. We also had to consider whether the fabric was the right choice for the garment. For example, A jacket would need a thicker, specific material. Tighter garments would need a possible stretch fabric and pleated garments would need a fabric that holds a pleat.
That evening, we drew up back designs for our chosen selection and technical flats so that we could move onto pattern cutting the following day.
U-TURN / REFLECTION
When we arrived into class the next day, we put all of our designs, fabrics and technical flats onto the board to show Kait when she arrived. We spoke to her one by one in a group, telling her about our designs and where we took inspiration from. She was very quiet for a long while and then said that she didn't like any of it and that she wanted us to all go and start from the 'drawing board' again.
We all just stood around in silence and I felt the mood in the room drop below it's ever been before. We had been told time and time again that it wasn't right or it wasn't good enough and we all walked in that morning breathing a sigh of relief because we thought we had finally cracked it. To hear the words 'start from the drawing board' after all the time we had put in trying to make it right, was the last thing we wanted to hear.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF DESIGNS
I went away to develop my existing designs that had been chosen for the selection. Kait said that she wanted more distress in the fabric and really liked the idea of our narrative: a girl running through the tower of london, parts of her clothing burning or tearing as she runs.
We were only given a short amount of time to develop and given the extremely un-motivating talk we had just been given, I did the best with what time and energy I had left. I focused on the decay element, using my developments over easter to guide me.
TALK WITH KAIT
At the end of the day, we all sat down to talk with Kait one-on-one. I decided to show her all of my developments, right from the beginning. She complimented my work highly, telling me she loved my illustrations and a select few of my designs and congratulated me on doing the amount of work I had done. She gave me suggestions on how to tweak my chosen designs and I walked away feeling much better.This only reinforces my own beliefs and confidence in my work, which was exactly what I needed after how I've been feeling lately.
REFLECTION
Although this week has been challenging and draining, I do think that I've learned some valuable things. I am finding it difficult as always to accept criticism because I sometimes feel that it is more opinion based, rather than constructive. I've learned that one piece of positive feedback on my work can go a long way, that I shouldn't let myself get beaten up by negativity.
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