Photograph by Jack Codling
As promised, here is a glimpse into my last year at uni studying fashion design & the build up to my graduate collection! If anyone out there is also studying fashion, I expect you are constantly told how quick your final year will go - they are not kidding! It was an intense amount of work for only 9 months, with little sleep towards the end (6am-12pm was my working day in the last couple of weeks to show day) & with many worrying thoughts that I'd never finish the collection, dissertation & portfolio. But I did it!!! And despite everything, it was worth it to see my collection come to life on the catwalk & to share my hard work with everyone around me. So I introduce to you Sickly Sweet Suburbia SS16...
You may have guessed by reading my blog or following me on social media, that I am a huge fan of 1950's Americana - it was just so feminine, so sexy & was such a good starting point for a narrative collection. My initial inspiration was the colours & set design of TV program Pushing Daisies, mixed with the mysterious narratives in William Eggleston's & Gregory Crewson's work. This soon lead to my six persona's, from the Hopeless Romantic to the Bold & the Beautiful - the innocent, sweetly naive housewife to the wickedly charming, spiteful & cunning suburbanite.
Photographs by Abbie Stern
My toiling & pattern cutting process... I love the creative freedom of pattern cutting & how you can really control the figure & silhouette through it. For this collection I created the patterns from scratch myself, which were then taken to fittings to make adjustments & develop before the final stage.
For this collection in particular, colour was extremely important. I wanted each piece to reflect the nature of my characters, to range from sweet & feminine to sickly, jarring & OTT. The chosen colours then had to be matched with the digital printer's colours for my prints & with my wool choices for my textured skirts. Print & texture is another detail I love to include in collections, to really create stand out, one of pieces. So my next step was to create my prints & experiment with placements.
Photograph by Abbie Stern
This skirt... It took around 3 weeks to create, which involved cutting all the wool lengths, mixing the perfect ratio of colours & finally sewing each piece to net. But it was worth it in the end.
Photographs by Abbie Stern
My final collection & the fashion show photos.
Photograph by Mitchell Severs
A few photos, illustrations & CAD's from my portfolio, if you would like to see the entire collection in detail, please do visit my portfolio.
Photographs by Sam Taylor
During this project, I was also very lucky to work with some extremely talented photographers & film makers, of which you can find their portfolios & links by clicking on their names. This particular set of photos were taken from a short film, currently being edited, which featured my entire collection. I will share the film with you when it is ready! But for now, thank you for taking an interest in my work, it means a lot to me! If you would like to purchase anything seen here, work together or even have something designed especially for you, please contact me.
SICKLY SWEET SUBURBIA SHORT FILM
Produced by Eloise Rudd. Directed by Anna Ling. Production Design by Georgina Devine. MUA & Hair by Jo Budden. Photographs by Sam Taylor.
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