elizabeth

Presenting my final look for an 1890s inspired tailored coat!

Click below to read more about my tailored look and final critique!

Tags: tailoring | final | wool | sewing | construction | critique | final product | coat | tailored | collar | gray | 1890s

elizabeth

Hello hello!
It has certainly been a long time since I was last here... a few too many weeks for me to count. I must apologize for my very sudden absence from the site, but rest assured that I am here now!

Once school ended for the quarter, I thought life would slow down a little bit, but boy, was I wrong! In the midst of holiday/family madness, I was offered an internship position in NYC for a well known American teen clothing brand. Very exciting, but very scary. I'd only been to New York once or twice for very short periods of time, and I only had 2 weeks to move there for the job! I went into a tailspin trying to get my life organized, find housing, etc. I got up to New York about 4 days before I started my job, and found housing 2 days before I started.

After my job started, I once again assumed things would calm down. I mean, I'm working a 9-6 daily schedule. It should be easy to find time to post, right?! Wrong, apparently. Between my hour commute, trying to see and do as much in the city as possible, and being completely exhausted from work, the very little free time I had to myself was spent catching up on sleep.

I am 8 or 9 weeks into my internship, and I have 2 left once this week ends, which is absolutely nuts, because it's gone SO fast. I realized I needed to catch everyone up on what's been happening, and I also need to get into a good routine of posting before school begins again at the end of March!

So, bear with me as I catch up on all the other student blogs and see how this amazing site has grown! Stay tuned for posts about the end of the Fall school quarter, and the pictures of my final tailoring project that I promised so many times.
You should also stick around to hear about my INCREDIBLE day at New York Fashion Week (seriously...amazing...both Michael Kors and Tim Gunn had their arm around me...).
I'll also give you a little more detail about my internship job, what I've learned, and how I'm preparing for my summer internship.

Love always,
Elizabeth

Tags: internship | nyc fashion week | tailoring | sorry | oops

elizabeth

Our tailoring class time (4 hour class, 3 days a week) is now just work time until the end of the quarter critique. I think that's December 2 or 4. Then, on December 7, we have a final crit with all the faculty. The public is invited to this crit.. it's not advertised or anything, but our families, friends, and other students are all welcome to sit in on it. Anyway, the purpose of the final crit is to be scored by the faculty on a scale of 1-5. If we receive an average of 3-5, our designs will be entered into our hugely popular end of year fashion show.

The point is - we're not doing a whole lot of new stuff in tailoring right now. We're just working on our final designs in the fashion fabric, and applying the tailoring techniques we learned from the practice jacket, such as pad stitching, lining with wool canvas, etc.

I do have new work to show you, though. I decided since I was already halfway there, that I would finish my mock-up design to sell in my Etsy shop. I've put out so much money on supplies this quarter, it would be worth putting in an extra few days of work to get some return. I went back and fixed some of the mistakes I had made, put in the pockets, worked out my collar issues, lined it, and added some pretty metal clasps. I was absolutely in love with the final product, and I'm quite happy to report that it sold from my shop within three days of posting! Needless to say, it was a really exciting weekend for me, haha. With no further ado, here is my final mock-up!

Click below to see more photos!

Tags: tailoring | mock-up | sample | sewing | design | final | stylized | 1890s | woohoo

elizabeth

This has been one of the busiest weeks of the quarter. My drawing teacher wanted us to have 80% of our final project finished, which no one actually achieved, because we had our mid quarter critique for tailoring on Wednesday, as well as our practice jackets due today.

I have some pictures of my final design mock up coat for you. The crit Wednesday went well, I think. It was pretty informal.. another faculty member came in to give us advice. It's always helpful to have someone with "fresh eyes" take a look at your design. If you've been working on something intensely for a long period of time, it's hard to step back, look it over, and objectively judge all that hard work.

Click below to read more about my crit and see more photos!

Tags: critique | design | sewing | sample | mock-up | tailoring | coat | collar | wool | sleeves

elizabeth

We are finally starting work on our final designs for my tailoring class. I'm completely exhausted today, since we now have two projects going on in one class. I just finished a 7-hour homework session, and boy does my back hurt!

Anyway, I wanted to post some photos of the beginning stages of my work. One of the most important ways to be a good designer is to know how to edit -- to know when to start/stop adding to your design, to be able to step back and get a good look at it, instead of being constantly close up working on it.

This is the first 3-d manifestation of my design thus far. As you can see it's still collar-less and sleeveless. I'm thinking I need to edit my skirt pattern.. it's just not what I had in mind yet. I like how it subtley gets longer as it winds around toward the back, but then in the middle of the back it's far lower than I wanted.

But, that's why we make it in cheap muslin before the fashion fabric! More to come later this week, when I'll hopefully have made further progress!

Love, Elizabeth

Tags: patternmaking | tailoring | muslin | mock-up | design

elizabeth

I was hit with a flurry of work this week, but I finally got my ideations scanned in! Our teacher asked us do to some sketches of our design ideas, and have some kind of color indication as well. What we typically do is have everyone pin their sketches up on the wall, and then our teacher goes down the line and gives advice, helps us pick which one we want to ultimately make, etc. Here are a few of my 1890's inspired designs. Don't judge the state of the figures, they were just quick sketches 

My favorites were the first and last sketches... I really want to do a ruffled standing collar. My teacher and I seemed to agree that the last would be the best. And as far as colors go, I'm thinking something either pale pink or ivory, to keep with the theme, using light colors that were used during the time period. I'm planning on making a pencil skirt with a paper bag waist in a gray color with a lace blouse.

The coat will, as I mentioned, have a standing ruffle collar, and it will also be a very tight fitted princess seam coat, to mimic the corsets of the 1890's. The coat will then have a circular bottom that cascades a little longer toward the back.

Any thoughts? Have any of you guys designed something based on a certain time period? If you have any sketches or photos of past projects, I'd love to see them! Feel free to post them in our "Showcase & Critique" forum: http://www.fashionstudentsonline.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=28
Be sure to put a link to your post in the comments section here so I can come find you!

With love, Elizabeth

Tags: ideation | concept | designing | inspiration | tailoring | UC

elizabeth

So far in my tailoring class, we have been working on making a practice jacket, pocket samples, and designing our vintage-inspired coat. The class requires us to essentially build three coats: the first being a practice coat that we build with aspects of classic tailoring to help us learn the correct technique and style. The practice jacket includes a welt pocket on the left breast, a notched collar, and double piping pockets on the front sides. We have the option of editing the jacket to have darts or a princess seam - the idea is for the jacket to fit us a way we would like it to, while still using the elements our teacher wants us to learn.

At this point, we have sewn a welt pocket, a double piping pocket, and a bound buttonhole. We are currently working on cutting out our jacket pieces and basting them to one of the inner layers of a jacket, wool canvas. For step-by-step tailoring instructions or to follow along with my class, we are working out of the book "Classic Tailoring Techniques: A Construction Guide for Women's Wear" by Roberta Cabrera and Patricia Flaherty Meyers.

Then, we have the jacket we are designing based on an era in history. We will be using a model for this project so we can learn how to fit a tailored garment to another person. This project will require at least two coats being made. The first coat will be the mock-up. It will be made out of a fabric similar in weight to our final coat fabric. In this class, we are required to use 100% wool for the final coat, so for the mock-up we can use a cheaper material of similar weight. The mock-up is made and fit to our model in order to work out any design or pattern issues before cutting into the more expensive final fabric. Some students, if they have problems with their pattern, will make multiple mock-up coats so that they don't end up building a whole coat out of the final fabric only to find out that it doesn't fit.This mock-up coat is extremely basic and is used only for working out the pattern and some design details. The mock-up coat is not lined, and details like pockets and button holes aren't necessary.

Finally, we'll build the final product. Like I said, in this case it must be 100% wool. We will completely line and finish this coat with a thin, soft fabric, often something like polyester, silk, or satin.

Stay tuned this week for images of my ideation sketches for the final coat, as well as news about my Design Communication class, which is geared toward an entry for a CFDA contest (Council of Fashion Designers of America).

Love, Elizabeth

Tags: tailoring | ideation | UC | patternmaking | steps

elizabeth

As I mentioned previously, my tailoring teacher asked us to start thinking of a decade of fashion to use as inspiration for our projects this quarter. We could choose any decade from 1820-1980, and ultimately I settled on 1890-1899.

I love the femininity of this decade, which is known as the beginning of "La Belle Epoque," or "The Beautiful Era." During this time, the corset continued to be popular, but the skirts of dresses relaxed. Women began to stop using crinolines (cages that went under the skirt to make them huge). Skirts began to have more of a bell shape. Gathering became a big part of clothing, especially in the sleeve, and these sleeves with tons of gathering at the shoulder, but thin wrists, became known as leg o'mutton sleeves.

One of the challenges to being a good fashion designer, in my opinion, is to create garments not just based on clothing details that you like or think will be pretty, but based on a thoughful concept. Even though we have been thinking about inspiring decades since school began, we have not begun sketching. Yes, I like ruffles and feminine details, but school teaches me to put those ideas on hold and delve more into the history of the decade rather than the fashion.

During the 1890's, it was becoming acceptable for the first time for women to take part in sports, such as bicycling and tennis. They obviously couldn't wear their long skirts, so women's sportswear developed as a result. There were ankle-length bloomer-type garments and tailored jackets, and men's inspired blouses.

There is a very interesting contrast between the feminine shapes of the ruffles and corsets and the masculine sportswear garments. I got interested in exploring this contrast and finding a way to relate the two styles.  I found it intriguing to research women’s dress changing to integrate into a male society, and I would like my garments to reflect my further exploration on the subject.

So, I look forward to developing an outfit and tailored coat based on this thought. I hope this is helpful for anyone wanting to get into design... Coming up in the next few weeks will be mood boards, sketches, and garment samples!

Have a great weekend,
Love, Elizabeth

Tags: concept | designing | inspiration | conceptual design | tailoring