If you're just finishing your first year studying fashion, or even if you are thinking about studying at University, how do designers decide if they will develop their designs by the traditional method (flat) or by working on the stand? (known also as draping)
Here's a great piece by The Cutting Class which gives you a little more insight..........http://thecuttingclass.com/post/4083606181/drape-at-lanvin

- Gallery Views of Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations

So, I hope you have everything ready?

So, I hope you have everything ready?  I've already been out looking for inspiration for my print. If this is the first print design you've attempted then let’s keep it fairly simple.....Flowers, plants, leaves...anything like that will be easy for you to work with and should be equally easy to find.

Just don't get too complicated. (You can even get in to the garden or the local park and pick a few daisies :-)

I'm lucky in that this is pruning season here in Spain and so there's load of cuttings from the trees lying on the ground waiting for collection and the shapes and textures are just AMAZING! Anyway, here are a few photos so you can see what I mean..........

 

These Palm tree 'husks' are incredible! They're hard and shiny and look like some kind of Roman or Greek breastplate! And when you look closely.......there are fab swirls and waves.....just perfect for what I'm looking for.

I've been playing about with some of the pieces that look like corsets and I think I'll save these for evening wear inspiration. There are some lovely 'gauzy', feathery, whispy bits that I'd like to try and recreate in somekind of 'deconstruction' of silk or tule fabric........Later!!!.

"A Passion for Fashion"

Welcome to my blog which I hope is going to be of help, and interest, to all you Fashion Students or budding Fashion Designers out there!

I have spent many years working in the fashion Industry, and although it might seem strange, I really didn't appreciate how much knowledge I had acquired along the way until I came in to contact with those who had supposedly been trained, or were in the process of being educated in these 'Fashiony' ways.  So many 'Fashion courses' don't offer what they say they do, leaving students woefully unprepared to compete in the market place and the worst thing is that they are unaware of this themselves! The number of direct teaching hours for many also appears to be on the decline, which really doesn't work for such a 'hands on discipline' as Fashion.

So.....or should I say ‘sew’!? I hope to even a few things out here with some 'freebies' for all those interested in increasing your knowledge of the Fashion Industry, Sewing and Pattern construction, whether you be at school, college, or simply at home with your passion ......

Keep tuned and in the next couple of weeks we'll be learning all about textile printing....a subject close to my heart :).......and how to develop your own, repeating design.

What you will need to get ready:-

• A camera (Not compulsory)
• Plenty of paper, pencils and colored markers to work through your ideas.
• Tracing paper.
• Some A4 'Transfer printing sheets' for an inkjet printer. 
• (or 'freezer paper from your local store'.)
• An inkjet printer with colored inks.