Penetrative Light....Subtraction Top

The subtraction top working with penetrative light.

Final Photo's

Photo Shoot...

The final photo shoot was kept simple, we wanted to keep the overall look within our concept of 'penetrative light' so the colour palette was kept white and we used sheer fabrics. As a group we decided to photograph and style the garments separately because they worked better as individual pieces.   

The Construction of the final garment....

Through weeks of research and designing, it now come to producing the final garments. At first I thought we were going to sail through the day because all our patterns were completed and we knew the construction steps.

The Start of a long hard working day.

We thought we would tackle the skirt first as it seemed the least complicated of the two. Everything started out fine, we cut out the front and back panels then Amy being the strongest sewer of the group started sewing the darts that were going to create, we wanted to keep the whole process as professional as we could by pressing out the seams and panels. As separate panels I could already imagine what it was going to look like completed.

 As we started to join the front panels and back panels together we noticed the shape of the skirt wasn't coming together as we hoped, the fabric that we used (Bukram) didn't have the flexibility to create the clean lined shape we hoped for. After

evaluating this we figured out there was too many darts in the pattern, so we decided to go back to our original idea of two darts.

                                                                                                     

At this point I didn't think we were going to get both garments completed by the end of the day. To save time we decided that Dean would start on the subtraction cutting for the top, and me and Amy would concentrate on catching up with the skirt. Luckily we had enough material to start again. Once the pattern was adjusted back to the original plan the construction started to come together, and we made up some time.

We made the right choice in going back to the original pattern and using two darts the shape was coming together a lot better. As it was becoming closer to completion the final touches were starting to get more difficult for example fitting a concealed zip was more of a challenge than we realised, because the material was thick and we chose a full length skirt manoeuvring it on the sewing machine wasn't the smoothest. But with determination and hard work we finally got there with the skirt.

Subtraction Cutting.

As we had some complications with the skirt, Dean took it upon himself to tackle the top. With concentrating on the skirt I didn't get a chance to see the full process of the top come together. However the construction of the top went well, until it came to the lining, (we used a silk lining for the top because it was a nice weight and had a good sheer quality, and for the lining we used an organza). The lining was sewn the wrong way round so all the rough edges were on the outside. Usually this wouldn't of been a problem because we would be able to unpick the stitch and start again, but the material we used is very thin and with using an un-picker its will catch the fabric which will result in fraying. This had to be one carefully so prevent this happening as much as we could.

After this minor complication we finally finished the garment in time for our photo shoot.

  

As a team I thought we worked really well together and I am happy with the final outcome of both garments, they each individually reflect well from our research and we were able to incorporate innovation and interesting cutting techniques into the final design.

Time for the technical part- The Toile

Now the final design has been chosen, the next step was to toile our garment, see what materials would work best and if the design would actually work out how we wanted.

Subtraction Cutting.

For the top, our chosen innovation cutting technique was subtraction cutting. We thought this was the best approach that would work well in creating the desired outcom

e from the design. As we had already tested out this technique at the beginning of the project, we had a good idea of what to do and

how to go about creating the right effect.

The toile of the top went rather well, we agreed that a light weight material would work best, so we

used a silk jersey. There wasn't any definite problems, the only issue we had was with the placement of our circles, where we placed them affected the back of the top, it was pulled up too much and make the top backless which wasn't the look we were aiming for. So from this toile we knew what to chan

ge for the final garment. This is the same technique we used in the innovation design workshop at the beginning of the project.

Drawing out the front and back pattern.

The front and back pieces on the bagged out material, ready for the negative space to be cut out, which will start the form of the top.

Side view of finished toile.

Back view of finished toile.

Lantern Skirt.

The Pattern for this skirt at first seemed

rather simple and in my mind it created the lantern shape perfectly.

We originally wanted to toile and make the final skirt in

organdy which is a cotton based

organza, this would hold the structure of the skirt and have the sheer effect we wanted. But the fabric stores

that we visited didn't stock our wanted fabric so we had to think o

f an alternative. For the toile we went for a sheer cotton, we were not too sure on how it would wok with the darting an panelling but we went with it. The result wasn't too bad

but it didn't create the fullness we were hoping for. So we decided to re-think our skirt patterns and alternate them so it would add more volume to the waist, creating the defined look which is shown in the design.

We first traced around an original skirt block, added length so the total length was 110cm. To get the darting we cut down one side of the dart to the hip line.

we then measure how big we wanted our dart, mark down the points and stuck the pattern pieces in place, then we did the same for the back and cut out the patterns ready to toile the skirt.

Final toile of the skirt.

The toiling process was very beneficial in helping us find the positives of the design and allowed usto come across any adjustments that would better the final garment.

Variations of the final chosen design.

These are some variations of our chosen design, I was trying to design the top in as many different ways but with using the subtraction cutting technique we cant get a definite design,so I have just sketched out possible ideas.We are going to have to see what will be the final outcome on the day.

3 is a magic number....

As a section of my project is producing a final garment as a three person group, I have been working with Amy Holden and Dean Fallon. We have been trying out different techniques of innovation cutting and have decided to use one of them for the production of our final chosen design.

We decided on using the lantern skirt from my collection and a top design from Amy's collection, we are going to use darting and panelling for the skirt and the subtraction technique to produce the top. Being a three man team we have all had an input on the final design, material we are going to use and a final photo shoot of our finished outfit.

Our next step is to make our patterns and toile our chosen design, we aim to work out what parts will work and if we need to re think some areas.


Amyholden.blogspot.com
Deanfallon.blogspot.com