The final product

After I created my final design it took a while for me to get my head around how to actually construct the garment. I took the approach of attaching the in a different place to create a 3D look. 

In my honest opinion I wasn't entirely happy with how the final piece actually turned out. I think the reason for this was that I made the design far too complicated and conceptual to allow me too make it in the time frame we were given. Because of this I wasn't able to sew the garment together so that it was functional, but I think it represents the design in some form and I managed to find a way around doing a photo shoot without having to put it on a person. 

Surprisingly, the photo shoot in my opinion really worked. It looked appealing and the detailed over lay intrigues people to look closer to work out what’s going on in the image. The reason why I added the red strip was purely just to add more dimensions to the image. 

If I was to do it again I think I would choose a design that was a lot less conceptual. In doing to I would have been able to add more detail to the garment, which I was unable to do with the other one because it took so long to work out how to create the silhouette.

Designing

The first initial designs That I did were a combination of the collage work right at the beginning and also the collages from the mannequin work that I did. The stand work that I did wasn't full outfits, they were just section or individual garments, Buy by combining the two I managed to create outfits that were layered and also detailed.

I then chose four that I liked the most out of the 24 that I did and merged the two of them together at a time to see what I would end up creating. I think this worked really well and made my final designs almost look like a collection. 

I had a really clear view straight from the beginning of what I wanted my colour pallet to be like. One of the collages I did features deep blues and blacks with a few bod greens and reds which when put together looked really appealing. The reason why I chose against the bright colours was because I wanted to incorporate denim into my final piece and didn't feel that bright colours would compliment them. 

Developing mannequin work

The next stage for me was to develop my mannequin work further and I did this by doing observational drawing from the stand and then collaging the different angles I had photographed onto my illustrations to see what if what I had created looked good in other places on the body. 

Personally I felt this worked well for some that I did and others I didn't quite like as much. The first ones that I did were quite disappointing and I couldn't figure out what it was that I was doing that didn't work but as I tried again with different garments I really liked them and found that combining more than one example of a reconstructed garment gave the collages a lot more depth and interest. 

Reconstruction techniques

I thought it best not to pick a theme for this particular project as i thought it might restrict me slightly and sway my designs in a certain direction. i tried to be as experementative as possible with the clothes that i brought in and also the way i changed them on the stand. From looking back i believe that i maybe could of taken this slightly further in regards to using really clashing colours and more adventurous fabric matches. when i looked at the work i produced today, my overall vibe is that it is quite safe looking at the moment which could let me down as the rest of my project is based around this mannequin work.
This style of initial designing definitely isn't my favourite and is something that i believe i have to work on and develop throughout this project.

Collaging on the other hand, is one of my favourite styles because it creates really interesting shapes and seam lines that you might not initially think of, so i was really pleased when we were to include this process into the project. i was actually really happy with how the collages turned out and also thought the illustrated designs i did from them were some of the best designs i have ever done. this is because it taught me to start layering up my outfits rather than just having a singular garment on top of my illustration.

The other reason why i liked my collages so much was the uses of colour on each set of three. so far this year i don't feel like i have used an adventurous colour pallet which would enhance my designs. so if i incorporate the colours i have played around with it will develop my skills further.

I think by combining these collage designs alongside my mannequin work i could come out really a really interesting garment.

Deconstruction Reconstruction

Deconstruction and reconstruction is the art of taking pre made clothes apart and putting them back together in inventive and abstract ways to create new garments from the old ones. When I first studied the brief my initial idea jumped straight to Faustine Steinmetz who was a huge success at London Fashion Week 2014 and featured clothes purely made from old jeans and other denim items that had been unthreaded and then remade into different garments using techniques such as heat pressing. i think denim is a perfect material for a project like this because it is used for many different types of clothing such as jeans, jackets, skirts and so on... Whereas you don't tend to find fabrics used for eveningwear such as silk and embroidered fabrics that diversely use, especially at a commercial level. 

Another obvious choice to consider as part of my research was Martin Margiela as a lot of his collections feature this process.