Draping fabric over a manikin was a task set by Sarah for one of the lessons. So we started doing so with some fabrics we found at home, some we had printed and some that we had bought. We started coming up with some quite extravagant designs but all flowed and weren't heavy all over. However we didn't stick to the draping because we had not imagined it like that. We also focussed and thought about the structure we had designed and we were mainly looking at the top of the garment for this feature. This really helped us figure out what fabric we wanted to use to create the look we were going for.
We went to a vintage shop in Manchester to try and find an old garment we could completely deconstruct and make into our own. We found a wedding dress that had a lot of ruffles and flowers but it wasn't this that first attracted us to it, it was the material it was made out of and we knew this was a key element we were looking for. Unfortunately we didn't take a picture of the wedding dress before we took it apart.
The first thing we did was deconstruct the entire dress and completely remove the top half. We then brought the waist line up to the neck line because it was soft, simple and round. Looking at the garment at that point we knew we needed sleeves so we took the original sleeves and pinned one back on because when we pinned both on there was too much going on. As the day went on we were pinning and messing with the dress, but we knew it was being printed on so we took it down and did a manutext print on it like our samples.
This is the garment after we printed on it and we loved how bright the colours stayed. Adding the colour made it even stiffer and we needed a bit of structure on the bottom half so we kept it this way
We added some fabric Laura had bought from london which went well with the colour scheme we had chose for the front of the dress.
As we kept looking at it and pinning it we were quickly disliking what we had done so it was back to the drawing board. We felt like we needed less fuss at the front and something more simple as the sleeve was quite overpowering. So we had a discussion and decided to make a simple front using one of our mautext prints, we chose this particular print because it had the large horse illustration on and we wanted to make this a feature.
We wanted to make the back on the dress completely different to the front. So Katie started experimenting with one of our manutext prints and drapped it from shoulder to shoulder, as we knew this print was done using chiffon we knew it would drape nicely and be very light. We then layered frills to make a peplum at the waist, the middle one again being one of our prints. We felt having the frills brought the sleeve, the front and the back all together even though they were all completely different.
Below is a picture of some of the different stages we went through to get to the final piece we have now. Throughout this project I have learnt many things; how to do manutext and puff prints, how to make a garment and where to start, how to design a garment properly and mainly how to compromise with your group if you have any disagreements. I have enjoyed this experience as well because of how much I have learnt but I have also struggled being quite ill and having other things that upset the process and project, but even though all those things were unavoidable I think Laura, Katie and I persevered through all these and worked well in the end.
The garment in itself was a challenge and after restarting the whole thing just days before the hand in deadline it is very successful and we are all pleased with it even though we would have done things differently looking back. As we had a sit down as a group we all said looking back we probably should have stuck with the draping of the fabrics but we are all still pleased and proud of our work. It took all of our different ideas and designs to get to the final piece and I feel we all eventually respected each others input and creativity. I would like to work in a group again and like to see what other people's ideas would be in other projects and what I would achieve in a different environment.
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