UNIT X | Final Evaluation

Unit X has been a really exciting unit for me and overall I am proud of what I have achieved both as an individual and as a group. I have allowed myself to explore and push my interest in fashion and have learnt lots of new skills, such as improving my illustrations and learning important fashion processes' such as creating a muse. As a group our strength and success has come from our ability to work really well as a collective, from the start we have honoured each others strengths and weakness' and continually helped each other, i have learnt so much from the fashion girls and they were so open to helping me learn skills that i didn't yet posses, I hope this was the same in reverse and that i was able to provide them with new skills from a textiles perspective. 


By gaining a strong theme from the very beginning, one that we were all greatly interested in, meant that our research was extensive and informative and by not only looking at motocross but mechanical engineering as well, this continually opened up new doors for development. As a textiles student I was surprised at how different the fashion design process is to a textiles led one, to say fashion and textiles run hand in hand in industry, I expected them to be similar in process , however I learnt very early on this wasn't the case. I had to learn quickly and adapt to the fashion working style, sometimes this resulted in me feeling quite lost and doubting my skills, but luckily for me i had great group partners who always helped me when i felt stuck or lost in the process. 

My main contribution to our project has been through digital print, embroidery and laser cutting. I was able to bring processes to the group that some of the other girls weren't familiar with, in particular using the ethos multi head machine. By involving digital techniques in our line up this allowed us to create a variation in costings through our line up, which is something Tom had expressed in his initial presentation. My work in the laser room also resulted in some really exciting results, by taking found materials such as the seat belts and lazering in to them, this added a really exciting element to some of our garments. Tom mentioned that he really liked the James Long logo engraved into the seatbelt, which was great to hear and receive praise for!

I was also really happy that the girls in my group trusted my illustration and digital skills to allow me to have a big part in the end line up design. My photoshop skills allowed me to professionally add our prints into the garments and using scans of materials allowed me to create feelings of texture throughout the line up. I suggested to the group that we should leave sections of the line up blank and use hand illustration to fill them in, i was so happy that the group liked this idea, as i feel using hand illustration really lifted the colours in our line up and created a much more interesting end result, making the garments look much more animated. 

Looking back on our design process and the end line up as a whole i feel we created a really exciting collection, one which has a really strong theme that can be seen from the very first drawings to the finalised garments. Overall i found this to be a really challenging unit, working in a completely new style was difficult at times, however i feel that i used my skills appropriately to overcome these obstacles without losing my original flare and style. 

UNIT X | Presentation

Our choices for presentation i feel where really successful, they allowed us to effectively and easily display the concept of our project and i feel our themes and directions where easily read. Our samples where comprised in separate piles which where split between; design, base fabrics and finishings, by splitting them this way this made it easier for us to locate a certain sample when Tom wished to see them. Overall our presentation with Tom went really well, and i couldn't be happier with how well we worked as a group, we received some great feedback about our illustration work, which was great to hear as we knew how hard we had collectively worked to make them really strong. A few comments Tom gave us were in consideration to the representation of samples when used in our line up, he advised that it would of been better to see a small sample or scan of the sample on the apposing page of the garment illustration, this way it would be straight forward for the viewer to know exactly what materials and prints where used, which i completely agree with as somethings we found ourselves stumbling through our samples. 

UNIT X | Final Line Up

I am so pleased with how our final line up has turned out, i feel we have been so focused as a group that we have been able to sale through the design process. By brainstorming each outfit from garment pieces to fabric choices, this allowed to create a strong diversity through out our collection, distributing our prints throughout the line up allowed a fluidity to be created, that helped tie the pieces together. We tried to create a balance between the everyday generic garments we used and the motocross inspired outfits which i feel we achieved really well.

I think as a group we have worked amazingly well together, all of us had a distinct role in creating the end result and i feel this really shines through, each of us have different working styles and ideas and by continuing collaborating and combing our skills together our end line up has established a unique style. My job for the final line up was to digitally add the prints to the line up and then hand draw over the top, adding in colour and texture.

UNIT X | Personal Designs

After selecting our garments for the line up we all went away to create a body of individual designs, so that when we came to selecting our final line up we had a diverse set of deigns to choose from. I feel from the pinball and vintage motocross references we had a really strong colour palette, so when it came to designing i found it really easy to create what i feel to be a strong body of designs. I received some really positive comments from the girls in my group, which was a big confidence boost for me, especially to receive those comments from the fashion girls, as my main worry when coming into this unit was that my skills may fall short in comparison to someones who studies fashion full time.

UNIT X - Selecting Garments

I have been so pleased with how my group has worked together, every week that we meet our project moves in such a positive direction due to the work that we have all put in, and this week proved that even more.

selecting our garments for our final line up was actually a much easier process than i had originally thought, and i feel this was fully down to the fact that we had all individually created a really strong body of design work, so when it came to picking and choosing we had a really creative range to work from, extracting garment choices and ideas from one another and then clashing them together in one design resulted in a range of really exciting combinations.

UNIT X | Laser Cutting

Laser cutting allowed us to add another depth to our sampling. We knew that laser would be apparent throughout our whole collection but having one look involved layered material would allow our final line up to have a differential in standard and price, which is something Tom had mentioned in his very first presentation, how it is important to have those garments that may cost say £300 against a basic t shirt that would be £50.  I have always loved working in the laser room, however sometimes working with fabric can cause annoying issues! we chose to work with jersey and unfortunately as the material is so fine it became burnt by the laser, causing discolouration around the edges. We knew the standard of this would not be acceptable for a high class collection, so re evaluated our fabric choice and re made the sample using a high grade cotton which in the end worked our much cleaner than the jersey.

I also took the time in the laser room to experiment with the cutting and engraving of different materials, particularly to re create the james long logo on fabric pieces to be used for fastenings, tags and zips.

UNIT X - Designing

After establishing our muse and our garment direction i began researching my own ideas for garments and looks. This was a really fun process for me as it allowed me to fully explore fashion illustration and how having an extensive body of research in terms of garment direction makes this process a lot easier.