Library Book 3

Fashion Designer
By Miriam Moss

This book looks at the career and life of a Fashion Designer. It's dated, but a mine of info!!!!

The first chapter talks about how some designers create expensive, extravagant haute couture clothing, and others create ready-to-wear "designer label" clothes using fine materials and taste, and lastly, there are mass market ready-to-wear materials made from cheap materials.
Fashion designers have to constantly adapt to the changing styles, and be able to be under the pressure of many deadlines and long hours.
Chapter 2
Most designers go to design school, where they learn technique as well as art. They also choose whether to specialize in women's, men's, or children's clothing, and then what category to specialize in; sportswear, evening wear, lingerie, knitwear... Many have internships, and enter design competitions for exposure in the field, and eventually jobs.
Many start out as assistants
There are three ways of working as a designer: Free-lance (sell to stores, fashion houses, manufacturers, and are labeled by the companies that buy the clothes), work in-house (designers are employed full time by company), and lastly, designers can choose to start their own company. Some designers don't even have formal training, some do, some are lucky, and some never break out.
Some designers used to be architects... Paco Rabanne "It is very important to have access to other ways of creating because all creation is the same gesture. If you can design a dress, you can design a piece of furniture. You have a feel for technique." This is like my thoughts for learning to make clothes! I know how to paint, now why not try clothing?
Chapter 4
Betty Jackson- "Sometimes you rack your brains for the muse to strike and she doesn't and you get in a panic thinking you'll never think of anything again." I really like this quote, since after Judy said at Carrie's presentation that you must force yourself to create everyday, and you can't wait for the muse, it made me feel guilty. I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets blocks in thought!
Designers don't just sit around and sketch all day. They usually have to meet deadlines, budgets, cope with stress, and work long hours.
Since designers work for seasons, they have to start a season about a year in advance
Each collection has a theme for inspiration
A team: Fashion designer designs shape/style, knitwear picks color combos and patterns, fabric designer designs fabric for fashion designer, assistants, sample makers, pattern makers
Sketch or drape to work out design, or use old patterns
Think about market, season, and cost
Paper pattern, then MUSLIN- muslin copy called toile (Autumn calls it a sloper), then cardboard copy
Inspiration/FUSION
French designer Jean Louis Scherrer inspired by trip to Rajasthan, India- pant suits, turbans, silks
Brit jewelery designer Dinny Hall inspired by classic domes/spirals
Jean-Paul Gaultier inspired by skeleton
JEAN-PAUL GAULTIER

 



















Isaac Mizrahi inspired by Matisse
Irina Burmistrova uses black plastic, gray foam, garbage bags, cable...
LOOK UP ROMEO GIGLI

Chapter Four
Fashion show- buyers come from all over to view completed collections- buyers, rich, and magazines
In Paris, lasts ten days, with over 40 shows, anywhere from the Louvre to the banks of the Seine
Jean-Paul Gaultier used an abandoned bomb shelter
SEARCH AZZEDINE ALAIA

 YOHJI YAMAMOTO

Major Events

fabric exhibition @ Interstoff Clothing Textiles Trade Fair in April and October- new colors predicted two years in advance

Italy (Milan)- clothing is a large industry, purpose to make sleek designs (Georgio Armani, Versace, Benneton)

London- young, innovative fashion, resist conformity, no barriers

*** One of my favorite London brands is All Saint's*** very edgy- you'll have to see the store, 'cause I couldn't find any good pics online

New York City- led by multimillionaires (Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Christian Lacroix, Oscar de la Renta***)

***LOVE Oscar de la Renta!!! One of my first magazine clippings (see wedding dress post) was a dress by him- see images below

Paris- ship samples to New York for Americans- showcase streets are Fifth Avenue (NY), Bond Street (London), Boulevard Saint Germain (Paris)

Funding

financial backing is difficult- as expand, need more money for materials

international- i.e. French designer financed by Japanese, and manufactures in Italy

several price levels so affordable- same look, different fabric, less extravagant cut

Clarification on Sections

It's easiest to read this blog in sections if you wish to separate the research from the reflections and the sketches from writing, however, as a pdf, this is impossible. I'm still pondering on how to separate it. Anyway, I wish to clarify on the sections and simplify them, so that when you are reading this and looking for certain aspects, you can see where everything is.

Research is categorized as follows:

• Research
• Learning
• Notes
• Inspiration

Hands-on work is under the following:

• Sewing
• Sketchbook
• Flat Sketches
• Learning

In Class and Mentor Meetings have their own separate sections
Planning is usually under Planning, but is sometimes under Research and the sketching sections as well

Fabric Paint

Curious about what the fabric painting book said, I decided to search how oils were different from fabric paint. I found the link below.
http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4612055_fabric-paint-differ-oil-paint.html

It seems as though oils will be stiffer, and dry slower. They also crack if they are too thick. However, they are also very permanent.

Library Book 2

Fashion 101: A Crash Course in Clothing
By Erika Stalder

This is pretty much an illustrated encyclopedia of different types of classic garments. Everthing from the little black dress, to cargo pants is included in this book. I flipped through here, and got many ideas of how to do fusion, and who created these designs. The garments are divided by type (dress, shoes, pants, jewelery etc), illustrated, and then have blurbs titled: "What they look like," "Who made them," "Who made them hot," and "How to Rock Them."

I learned a lot about the names of these classic cuts, and could thus explain my ideas more clearly. For example, for my cowl dress, I wanted an A-Line skirt, which was first showed in public by Christian Dior in 1955, and was made popular by the fashionable London girls in the 1960s.

The book also contains small blurbs on certain periods and revolutions of fashion. For example, "The Shake of Youthquake," which talks about the 1960s fashion revolution in coralation to the women's liberation movement, civil rights, and protest on the Vietnam war. Instead of following the adult's fashion trends, the youth started their own lines, and created the mini-skirt.
Speaking of the Miniskirt
It was designed by Mary Quant and Andre Courreges separately (much like Newton and Leibnitz arguement over calculus, except less argued)
Made popular by British stars

I focused mainly on dresses, since they were the most fun for me to look at.

Some of my favorites:

Bubble Dress
Created in 1957 by Pierre Cardin
Worn by many stars, including Jessica Alba
Should be made of material that holds its shape

Cheongsam (after which my shirt is inspired)
Traditional Chinese dress made from brocade
First worn by Chines men in a loose-fitting version
Westerners adopted the style for women and made it tight-fitting in the 1950s
Calendar girls of the 1930s first introduced the dress to Westerners

Little Black Dress

Coco Chanel coined the term in 1926

Meant to be adaptable to flatter any body

Black previously meant for mourning- cuased an uproar, but became popular easy coctail dress

First commonly seen on Betty Boop. Most famous one is seen in Breakfast at Tiffany's

This book is so interesting, I would love to write a summary of the whole thing, leaving out no detail for you all, since history is something that truly fascinates me, however, I will now end with the blurb "Defining Dresses of the Decades," which had a chart stating which style and body type was popular during which time period

1950s- shirt style, hourglass figure

1960s- shift style, all body types

1970s- wrap style, curvy figure

1980s- pouf style, slender figure

1990s- slip style, waif figure

This book dates itself- it doesn't have the 2000s, but I would say mini style and thin and tall figure for today's dress code

Wait!!! There's also a page on necklines! there's the boat, cowl, crew, keyhole/cutout, mock, plunging, scoop, slit, square, sweetheart, V, butterfly, convertible, Peter Pan, and mandarin

Sleeves: Cap sleeve (I used this on my shirt!), doble cuff, french cuff, kimono sleeve, knit cuff, puff sleeve (on the design for the nest dress), single cuff, and three-quarter sleeve.

In short, a recommended read!

Library Book 1

How to Paint on Fabric: Freehand, Tracing, Stamping, and Stencil Methods for Beginner and Advanced Craftsman
By Marge Wing with N. Mahr, L. Young and G.G. Grimshaw

This book was attrociously old-fashioned. The pictures were really granny-like, and the paintings on the fabric were tacky. However, what I wanted was not how to paint, but how to apply paint to fabric. In this book, instead of using special fabric paints or acrylics (note, this book was written when drying machines were not commonly enough used to be mentioned in the book, and synthetic fabrics were considered new), the book uses oil paint, which is prefect, since that is the medium I work with best. It suggests that one puts a layer of cardboard, to pin the fabric to, and then paper to prevent the paint from seeping through. This is probably the most important information in the entire book. It also says to use enamel, and that without enamel, the oil paint is not permanant, however, a quick wiki search showed that enamel and oil paints together can be substituted with acrylics, which might be easier, since this way it's a one-step process. It also says to use "mineral spirits" as a paint thinner. If using oils, this is the equivalent of turpentine. If using acrylics, one can just use water.

Favorite Designers

DUDE!!!!
I just noticed, and I am severely lacking in photographs compared to how I started, and I haven't posted ANYTHING about my inspirations! Perhaps that should be saved for the presentation...? Nah!

1. Alexander McQueen
2. Oscar de la Renta
3. At Sew Green yesterday, we were working with tulle to make fairy tiaras (see Sew Green 6/2) and there was this show that had dresses made of tulle that were SOOOO COOL!!!! They were from www.style.com and the designer was Victor and Rolfe for Spring 2010. Check it out! This is deemed as "ready to wear." Like anyone would wear this on the street!!!
http://www.style.com/fashionshows/complete/S2010RTW-VIKROLF 
(by the way, the reason why I didn't put pics up for this website was because blogger doesn't let you do copy and paste, and the pictures were not entered as separate .jpg sites

Sew Green 6/2

Today we made tiaras for the Ithaca Festival to fund raise for Sew-Green. We took a metal band, and then tied tulle around it, with flowers and ribbons. It was a lot of fun, and I ended up doing it for the whole time I was there. It was nice to take a break from sewing and give back to Sew-Green.