uni make module - revealed!

well i know i was quite mean in my last post and tempted you with hints of a new project but all will now be revealed!

my new module at uni lets me chose whatever i wan to make, as long as it is somehow related to what i want to do during third year. having greatly enjoyed making the marie antoinette dress for photography i have decided i'm going to spend third year doing historic theatre costume (i may as well do something i enjoy rather than trying to break into the haute couture or ready to wear market, which i don't really enjoy designing for) so this module i'll be recreating an elizabeth 1st tudor dress, somewhat similar to this -

My version will be pink though, and thats all i'm letting slip today!

designs for this new dress to follow soon, and i'll try and post up a few updated photos of the marie antoinette dress, it's getting finished just quite slowly!

fashion illustration; inspiration and technique, Anna Kiper

well i had a wonder around WHSmiths when i finished uni early this afternoon (looking for the OHs magazine) and found this delightfull book, 'fashion illustration; inspiration and technique', by Anna Kiper.

Maybe i was attracted to the pretty picture on the front i don't know, but something about it caught my eye. After a quick flip through i was sold and bought it, for once this is a fashion illustration book that doesn't rant about 'the right way' to illustrate! it promotes that every illustrator should have their own style, and thats it absolutely fine to illustrate using different mediums! (don't think i've mentioned before that at uni we are taught that the only way to colour illustrations is with tria markers, not only are they about £5 each, they don't last 10 mins and they're bloody useless, all of my marker coloured illustration look like a 5 year old coloured them in!)

Anyways hopefully some illustrations to follow soon, now that i'm quite inspired!

Also, uni has thrown a fantastic project at my this module! not giving anything away yet through, will only say its a make module and its going to be fantastic!

marie antoinette inspired dress - prepare for a bombardment of posts!!

well prepare for a bombardment of posts today, finally finished bloody uni work work (thank god, i was ready to give up!) and i've finally got a day off from work so there'll be lots of work on the marie antoinette dress today!

i'm planning on getting the dress finished (binding done, hems fixed etc), petticoat gathered (again) and hopefully corset started but that might be me getting a bit ahead of myself, not sure i'll get quite that far in one day!

Next semester starts on wednesday though so need to get quite a bit done today, otherwise i'm going to end up falling behind with it and the dress will get pushed to the back of my head, and forgotten about!

more to come probably about tea time, i'll post photos i promise!

of lost things and found things and wonderful university IT technicians!

well i managed to leave my usb memory stick at uni for the 3 time this week, after being pretty sure i put it in my bag! after a screaming match with the boyfriend (in which he said lots of mean things but did tell me to buy a bag things couldn't fall out of, so i'll take that as 'go and buy another handbag darling') i went to bed last night very annoyed an angry, more with myself for losing it than him for shouting really, since i did start the shouting.

Luckily the technician at uni has learnt that i'm pretty useless and regularly lose important things, he remember which memory stick is mine when someone hands it in! I walked past his desk this morning mumbling to myself about having to start work i'd done all over again and he waved my memory stick at me!

so of lost things and found things! and an ode to wonderfull IT technicians everywhere! thank you!

marie antoinette inspired dress - part 4

well here we go as promised, a few teaser photos taken during my test fitting on my model! since i now have my very first follower (hi martine!) i thought it's time i started posting things when i promise i will, instead of my usual rambling promises and losing track of time and forgetting.

so here we go, a few photos of my model test fitting, the dress is still in the same condition as it was on the mannequin, the smaller sections sewn together (eg. bodice is all sewn together, skirt pleated, petticoat gathered......well sort of......you'll notice the petticoat is worn in some of these photos but not others as we had a mass-ungathering problem when my model got a bit over exited!)

Full body photo (try to visualise it being worn with paniers, the skirt looks quite flat here, it's fully pleated to be worn for lots of volume but really needs paniers as the fabric is not very stiff and so doesn't really look as i intended it to)

front/side view (arms definately need to be adjusted, they're intended to be quite fitted but my model has much slimmer arms than i guesstimated)

Back view, showing the pleated sack back i incorported, i'm quite proud of this bit, i had no idea how to patterndraft it so just guessed once i'd finished the back and fitted it to the space between the shoulders (it involved lots of pleating and pinned and rather a lot of swearing loudly but i figured it out eventually!)

These were photos taken for my sketchbook for university, to document the development of the dress from fabric to a full garment, they were supposed to be professional looking photos, but i loved my model enjoying wearing the dress so much that i got a bit carried away taking photos.

To quote my model to the letter 'ohhh its for flashing (refering to the open front of the dress after she managed to ungather all of my gathering) quick quick take a picture of me flashing!'

reading list

well since finding that the library at university actually had an amazing selection of books on 18th century fashion, and drifting around somewhat and ending up finding rather a lot of other books i fancied reading i now have quite a lot of books waiting to be read

at the minute i'm nearly finished a biography of madame de pompadour (louis xiv's mistress), which goes into amazing detail of the clothing worn during the period. This is definatly one that will have to be blogged about when i'm finished it, but for the minute i'm just going to leave you in suspense!

a few others on the waiting list include -

'the culture of clothing - dress and fashion in the anchiene regime' by daniel roche

(this is one that i found on uni's online library catalogue, and i've spent the last 3 weeks looking for it in the library, its a pretty big place!)

'the second sex' by simone de beaviour

(on feminism, looks interesting, it was one that was named during a lecture and sounded pretty good so i thought i'd give it a go)

marie antoinette inspired dress - part 3

Front of dress

Side view

Back of dress

Well as promised heres a few photos of the dress in-progress

As you can see i've got all of the pattern pieces sewn together, in part at least, the bodice is ewn together with arm sewn on, with stomacher pinned in place, the skirt is pleated and pinned in place, the petticoat is gathered and sewn in place (edit- when fitting it on my model we had a slight.....erm.....well mass ungathering and the whole skirt ungathered, my model got a bit carried away enjoying posing for photos wearing the dress, so now i have to find a more secure way of gathering about 4 metres of fabric, more research needed me thinks), sack back is pleated and pinned to the back

Having it all pinned at least gives me a decent idea of what work i still have to do before its really wearable, for example i think i'm going to add some sort of decoration down the front, and around the bottom of the skirt, perhaps little bows? I think it just needs a little something for aesthetic value.

next up will be photos of my fitting on my model when i figure out how to get them from my camera onto my computer.

marie antoinette inspired dress - part 2

Heres a quick picture of the fabric i'm using for the outer shell of the dress, and the matching stomacher and petticoat. As i described last time, the dull side is the soft suede and the shiny side the satin side (technically the wrong side but its the side i'll be using as the outside for the dress)

Gotten quite a bit done the past few weeks so a few in-progress photos will be up soon!