The Fashion Show - My First Year Final Collection!

 Elly my lovely friend and myself.

 Bolero and Dress made by me! Bag: Vintage. Socks: Primark. Shoes: c/o Simply Be.

 Poncho and Dress made by Me! Socks: Primark. Belt: Asos Curve. Shoes: c/o Simply Be.

 THE PERFECT SHOES: c/o Simply Be.

As you may have read in my previous post here. I've recently just finished my first year of my foundation degree in fashion design and it ended with our fashion show! And these photographs above are of my final collection for this year which was to create 2 full outfits, of course we had sketchbooks and themes etc which we had to develop. Mine originally started with the film "An Education" (which by the way is brilliant, do go watch it!) then I looked into late 50s early 60s furnishing as back then when you got something new it just went in with the old instead of redecorating a whole room, which is where my mixture of colours/prints/pattern all came into their own. What I truly love about these is that this mass of pattern and colour isn't readily available in plus size fashion on the high street and it is really eye catching and I got a lot of compliments from people watching etc. 

I styled the garments with some of my own accessories such as my cat eye glasses, hair flowers and vintage bag and I just picked up the socks from primark for about £1.50. Now this is the time I give Simply Be a HUGE THANK YOU for sending me these utterly dreamy shoes which were the perfect finishing touch to my final collection! I wanted myself and my model to be all matching so my collection flowed well together and as we both have wider feet finding matching shoes that both fitted us  and we felt comfortable in was beginning to make me worry (I know I'm a perfectionist when it comes to the finishing touches with styling) and this is when Simply Be came to my rescue and I can't thank them enough as I'm so happy how my collection looked over all.

Any feedback of what you thought would be really apprieciated and I'd love to know what you'd like to see next design/creation wise!

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PhotoShoot.

These are some pictures the ever so lovely Mike Sutton took of key pieces from my collection for me, aren't they just darling? I'm really happy with the outcome of these shots and how the session went, I hope I'll get the chance to work with Mike in the future. I styled this shoot as well with an over seeing eye from Jemma Sawyer who is a freelance stylist and consultant shes worked with people such as Example and Jessie J to name but a few. I've met Jemma before when she came and spoke to my college and I hope I'll possibly get a chance to work with her in the future also!

I'll try and talk more about how I felt doing this shoot if and when I get more pictures from it as so many were just lovely! I'd like to say a big thank you to the photographer once again for being the right person for my collection and cheers to Jemma who virtually left me to my own devices for styling my collection as everything I did seemed to work perfectly with it.

You can see more of Mikes work at www.jukeboxboombox.co.uk
And if you want to see what Jemma's work is like just google her Jemma Sawyer

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Calling myself a designer?

The title relates to the fact that now technically I'm classed as a designer and its quite strange to think of me like that. This post will be another short but sweet one as I'm really tired after tonight show and packing everything away in the horrible rain!

This picture which isn't very good quality at all, sorry is of me and the models who wore my collection down the catwalk. And I have to say I truly was really happy with them! they all walked well and looked good in my garments. Though if I had to have a favourite it would be Jess who wore my map printed pencil skirt with the black and white blouse. It's not because she was the prettiest or thinnest or whatever, its just cause I love her hair and it matched so well, that and her poses and everything. Yes I know there seems to be a girl crush developing! But honestly all of the models were utterly lovely this year and in general we couldn't of asked for better ones!

So I'm going to love you and leave you now as I'm falling asleep as I type I'm planning on doing more posts on the fashion show in the next week or so once I've got hold of my better pictures! And on one last note this time next week I would of finished college and its terrifying just to think about it, I'm welling up now!

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A sneak peek.

This is going to be a very short post, as I'm dead on my feet right now and really need a decent nights sleep, I've been living off about 4/5 hours a night for the past couple of weeks and these dark circles are hideous!

Anyway I just wanted to show you two pieces of my collection complete with accessories. I snapped this just before Natasha and Lauren my models were about to go on stage, Hopefully I'll get one of Jess and Lisa tomorrow so I have full pictures of my collection, I'd love one of me with them all but I don't think it'll be possible but who knows?

I'll do a much more detailed post or two next week once I've recovered (ish). I think the hair works well with my collection and as much as people seemed to think heels would be better the brogues and socks work so much more in keeping or in style with my theme. I can't wait to show you more pictures and stuff as I was lucky enough to watch the whole show tonight while sitting with my college friends it was so lovely. So I'm going to go before I start rambling emotionally about it all!

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On the models.

These are my final four models, lets just hope none of them drop out! Two of these models I worked with last year as well as they were both in the fashion show then as well. I'm really happy with my models all of them seem utterly lovely so I think the show will go really well.

I hope lauren whos wearing my playsuit doesn't mind her belly button being on show, when I fitted her I was yet to put the zip in so we had to hold it together! I'll be taking lots of pictures during fashion show week which is next week, so look forward to me spamming them on here! I know this is only a short post but I'm off to see a band tonight and I'm yet to decide what to wear! I'm sure I'll try and blog about it tomorrow if I get any pictures, hope you all have a lovely rest of the weekend!

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Tree's and timber.

The post is only called this because a) there are tree's largely in the background and b) you can see some random bits of wood behind me as well. I took these photos in May but never got round to posting them, they were taken at my Granny's which a lot seem to be at the moment but we can blame this on the fact I can find places to balance my camera without having to lug my tripod everywhere.

So this is something I wore for college and you've seen all these pieces before. The top I bought while I was in London from New Look and its from the normal range but its supposed to be a baggy fit but I wear it more fitted and its really comfy. My skirt was a sale bargain from Dorothy Perkins and I tend to wear it almost weekly as it also works for the whole range of weather, which lets be honest is basically perfect for a British summer! The cardigan is also a much used and abused item of my wardrobe its worn basically all the time and is beginning to fall apart but until I find the perfect replacement it will have to survive. Of course I'm wearing my little floral headband I made myself! I'm hoping to make some more I just love wearing it so much.

I feel this is a pretty short post for me but I'm kind of mentally exhausted from writing my toile diary and just generally over thinking. So I don't want to bombarded you with me wittering on, also I have some pictures of my models in my garments I'll get them up as soon as possible! I'm so tired now that if I yawned I'd possibly swallow my face.

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Final collection ready for fittings.

So these are pictures of my almost finished collection, I just have to add trimmings such as zips and accessories then fit them to the models and I will be done. Which is kind of terrifying to think I've almost finished college! As I've said before my collection is based on the women's land army of the second world war, but bringing some of there styles up to date. Hopefully by now you will all know that I love vintage so of course I enjoyed researching for this work. If you read my blog around Christmas time I did a lot of blog posts about the women's land army and there style, so to save me from repeating myself just look back to the end of December.

I know the play suit doesn't look much now but once I've got the exposed zip on and belt as well as rolled up bottoms (which will be similar to the ones on my shorts) I think it will look really cute! The dress is possibly one of my favourite pieces as I feel I spent the most time on this and after the issues it began with, mainly thanks to me sewing the panels the wrong way round.... its turned out pretty well. Also I'm not sure if you can see the print of my pencil skirt and play suit arms but its map patterned fabric unfortunately I couldn't get any of the underground but this actually works really well (its a USA map with the routes on) And the collars on my garments were all found on eBay and bought all together, there is also another one going onto my play suit.

Today was the start of fittings week, so be prepared for a fair few posts either to do with my collection or just totally random because I may be waiting around for models. So one of my models came in today her name is Natasha and she was truly lovely she will be wearing my shorts and blouse which I fitted her in. She was nice enough to let me take some pictures of her to put up on here so I'll be putting those up tomorrow! Now I'm off to update my diary for my collection and hopefully get a brew.

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The start of my collection.

These are two toile's out of my collection, when I am finally finished I will have created four garments which believe me is quite crazy! In case you don't know what toile means (which I'm guessing a number of you may not, because I've been a fashion student for over a year and I'm still baffled by it) A toile is in basic terms a mock up of the final piece, be it a skirt or a dress. I wrote a number of posts earlier this year about my final collection and telling you what my theme was and it was based on the women's land army and the 1940s era. All my pieces will have vintage style lace collars on them as pictured in the centre pictures. The market level for my collection is high street, but good quality and well made.

Over all I am quite happy with my toile's so far, though as I'm doing the finishing touches to these two now, the machines are driving me crazy by just deciding not to work and sew really badly.ARRGGHH! Okay my little rant is over now. I'm using binding on my sleeves and necklines to make sure the collection is pulled together with matches pieces, there is also exposed zips on both of these pieces which also ties together my collection with a modern twist. I used this because I felt I needed a modern edge to my collection so it didn't just seem like they are replica's of 1940s clothing.

The fabric I've used for my toile's is not my final choice of fabric and when I've finally put them all together I'll snap a few shots for you all to see what I've decided on! It's a mix of floral upholstery fabric, a vivid lilac colour and a white cotton with an extremely faint but lovely pattern of flowers across it. These with my tough exposed zips and vintage styled lace collars should produce a distinct but stylish contrast.

The skirt on these photographs will be produce in a fabric which is in a map pattern, if anybody knows where I can source this kind of fabric please let me know! otherwise I may have to create it myself and it won't then have the exact look I'm after. In case any of you lovely people were wondering where I got my collars from I found them on eBay, there is so many different type of lace collars on eBay ranging in era's and prices.

So what do you think of my collection so far? Would you buy any of it?

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