Structure and Attachment | Magical Mystery Fashion Tour

Pictures taken around London; 

Selfridges, Dover Street Market, Regents Street, Alexander Mcqueen Dover Street.

In preparation for this day trip, I looked up a few of the roads and places so I was aware of what kind of places I was be visiting and what to look out for when I got there. We met at 9.45 at Piccadilly Circus by the Eros Statue, then were free to go about as we wished. I stayed with three girls from the course, and we decided to hide from the rain and pop into McDonald's to check the map and plan out our route. By this point we were basically on Regents Street, so we started it there. We went into Burberry and asked the store manager about what it's like to work in a high fashion brand, she told us about the pace at which it moves, the classics like the trench coat and about the shop she worked in. The Burberry trench coat originated in the 1850's, around the time of the First World War as an alternative to the heavy serge greatcoats. As she had clients we couldn't hold her for long, but the information gathered was extremely interesting and she gets a pretty nice discount! 

Our next stop was Selfridges, we went straight to the womenswear floors and paraded around taking pictures of collections, details and installations that were either in our chosen colours (mine being red) or were inspiring either through structure or finishings. In particular I loved the Jean Paul Gaultier pop-up. I have recently been to his exhibition at the Barbican and it was lovey to see some of the pieces in the flesh and be able to try them on. As one of my themes is culture, his union jack stylised pieces, like the Gillet were fabulous. We saw a huge display of designers including Marni, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Comme Des Garcons, Wang, and Mcqueen.

We stopped off next at Dover Street Market, as I hadn't previously looked this up, I was slightly confused to see it was not exactly a market; more a collection of gallery-like showrooms, crazy installations and designer wear! I absolutely loved this place, and I am so glad we got a chance to visit it. Throughout the 6 or something floors, designer goodies are arranged among geometric wall designs. Each floor has a different 'theme' or feel to it, and although we weren't allowed to take pictures I took a few. 

I made sure we popped into the Alexander Mcqueen Store in Dover Street, which was on our way to our next stop: Berwick Street. It was beautiful, exhibiting an incredible sequinned knitted dress that Lily Allen modelled for GQ in. The shop assistants were lovely and allowed Bobbe (one of the girls I was with) to try on this digitally printed dress, we were told that it was designed using a placement print meaning it was made first and then the print was added. This made it almost impossible to alter, but at a couple thousand it wasn't the kind of dress you'd want to alter. The shop had interactive screens, so I signed up for the newsletter and emailed myself a current accessories picture, feeling it was appropriate due to the current workshop we're doing.

Finally we made our way to Berwick Street, a familiar street to me, having run errands there for Reiss when I interned there in Summer. I picked up red samples from all three Misan and Textiles shops and one from my favourite fabric shop 'Silk'. There was a massive jump in price range, from one end at around £9 per/m to a huge £210 per/m for hand beaded silk. Visiting fabric shops is really useful as it gives a realistic feel to what kind of fabrics are in the price range, and what's suitable for what designs. Whether the fabric can be machine sewn, hand cut, have darts added etc. Overall, I found the day extremely useful, I picked up samples, leaflets and took pictures, and we even had the chance to interview two very different fashion house employee's. On my way home I went via Jermyn Street, but as it was all menswear it was unhelpful to my project.

Structure and Attachment | Knitting Workshop

My first few attempts at knitwear went awfully, especially casting on took a while to get right. The majority of the techniques were fiddly but once I got the hang of them, they became much more natural and quick to do. I really enjoyed knitwear as all the skills seems extremely complicated at first, but in a very short amount of time you were able to see your technique and time seriously improving. In particular my first attempt at 'honeycombing' went horrifically, the lines and holes weren't lined up and were uneven and I kept dropping stitches, but then through attempting to fix it, I ended up with a series of threads and knots over my sample, unsuccessful to say the least. By the end of the week however, I also taught myself to re-loop a dropped stitch meaning if I made a mistake the sample wasn't ruined.

Ironically after hating the 'honeycomb' technique at first because I couldn't get it right it turned out to be one of my favourites. (it can be seen in both samples) It was double sided in the sense that it looked good either way as look as it was made neat. One main tip I learnt from attempting this technique was not to rush it as the threads are delicate and they snap, which meant it had to be started again which wasted time. The other tip I picked up, particularly with honeycombing, was to work from the outside in, this ensured the lines were even and the sample was kept neat and tidy. This was true to hemming samples too. Another skill I struggled with but soon came to enjoy was 'lace holds' or better know as 'lace knitting'. These dainty holds could be used to line the hem in a jagged style (seen in right sample) or using the technique to design patterns in the fabric. We started off by learning to do a diamond, and I attempted a 'heart' which was unsuccessful as I dropped too many stitches and it fell apart, however I also tried a staggered ladder 'skyline' which looked great so I used it in my final sample.

I felt I succeeded in knitwear and picked it up relatively quickly, as I have knitted by hand in the past I thought I wouldn't enjoy the weeks workshop, however to my amazement I really enjoyed it and am now considering incorporating it into my final project or even part-studying it at Degree level. 

I received positive feedback from my partner and in the final show of everyone's work, one of my designs was picked as a favourite. (The left sample) Being able to see everyone's designs together was beneficial, as we evaluated the good, or bad in each, I could see the broad range of ways that each simple technique could be incorporated together to create designs. One of my favourites simply changed the tension when she swapped yarns which created a dipped effect, these indents could be translated into so many different designs and were easy to create. I hope to return to working with the knitting machines where I can try out some combination designs I saw and made myself again.Mixing the techniques and creating new techniques and patterns was something I enjoyed learning, for example using 'lace holds' to create shapes or ladders in the sample. Or mixing stripes (two yarns) with honeycomb to produce pronounced stripes, all these combinations gave me ideas for garments or details on garments. 

Some design combinations would have looked better simply through matching yarns more thoughtfully, the best samples used similar colours, or the same colour in different tones or yarns, this looked much more professional. In my samples we chose a bright blue with a muted cream beige colour, I thought these complimented each other well. However when incorporating the fringing, I decided on a gold yarn which I don't think worked, I should have used silvery/grey tones or a thicker yarn. I planned out my final samples on paper before which was practical as it meant my final products looked well finished.

Working with someone else on the machine was great as we could help each other and learn from each others mistakes. However it also slowed us down a lot meaning we could only create three final samples together as opposed to four.