Knit Wit

My Elle Magazine Cover

Probably not the best cover I've done but I think it is nice still.

Ad Work

My first ad for my creative suite class. Featuring Marylin Monroe

Joan of All

Joan Smalls. Ranked number 1 on Models.com, she truly is the definition of super model. She's not just beautiful, shes versatile, interesting, unique. She has a rocking body, showcased in her last two walks for the Victoria Secret Runway Show. The top row of photos showcases her sex appeal. This girl is hot. The bottom row shows that she is a true model, make-up less, on a beach, anything you give this girl, she performs. Then the middle row shows Joan as Joan, a kind soul who loves fashion and fun.

Garment Deconstruction

The fabric is a blue pattern made of 100% cotton. There are three buttons in the front, a bustier and a tie waist added to this garment. There are no care guidelines, you can iron, wash and dry this garment regularly. The extra notions fit the garment well; they add value to it and allow it to fit each individual person better. However there is one notion, hanger straps, which are not necessary as the garment has straps already. There is a stretchy back panel in the dress to fit individual people,

 a bustier top to the dress and multiple pleats in the front. The bustier top is meant to make this flowing dress more fitted and appealing. The pleats in the front allow the dress to fit smaller in the waist and flare out at the bottom. The additional elements add a lot to the garment by making it able to fit a variety of bodies. 

The stitching quality is average, when the fabric is pulled at the seams the stitching shows through,

 a few seams are not straight and after some wear one of the straps is almost detached. 

The stitching seems pretty easy to just rip if pulled hard enough. The stitching on the buttons was visible from the inside of the dress and the threads were not clipped.  All stitching is complete but this dress would not last more than a year’s worth of frequent wear. The bustier pads frequently fold and scrunch up and there is no way to get in there to move them around. Noted that the stitching was extremely easy to rip out when the first thread was broken.

The hem was stitched with black thread, like the rest of the garment. It was hemmed with the raw edge folded inside the hem. Un-stitching the hem revealed the bottom of the side seam to me. The side seam was stitched with a sewing machine and then serged to secure it. The thread at the bottom of the side seam was not clipped. The bustier was sewn to a waistband that was attached to the skirt. This was attached the same way the side seams were sewn, a double stitch followed by serging. The stretchy back panel was made by gathering a lot of the fabric by sewing over it with an elastic thread. This made it able to stretch to fit each individual person. When un-stitching the bustier, I found the pads had been stitched in, however it seems the other one has ripped, showing poor quality of the securing seam. I found the top part of the bustier was reinforced with interfacing.

The straps were so thin that they folded over each other and became like a thick string instead of a fabric strap.

This garment was made for girls ages 13-17. It is a summer dress intended to be worn on hot days. This product was made of a lightweight material that made it easy to breath in the summer. It was made for teenage girls who like to wear cute body conscious clothing that looks casual and appealing. I think this garment succeeding in made a variable fitted summer dress for many different sized teenage girls to wear on hot days. This dress was constructed on an average level, the seams were all finished and most stitching was not visible. However there are still some issues with the quality of the garment. The garment was very easy to take apart, the threads were able to be ripped 10 threads at a time. The fabric choice was poor as the dress was very light weight and it already flared out so it made the dress very hard to control coverage.

I think the design of this dress was good, however it could have been made a bit long. Overall the bustier and waist tie and stretchy panel at the back were great additions to make this dress fitted and able to fit more than one body type. The straps need to be redesigned and made from a sturdier material as I believe these straps are close to coming off after around 20 wears.  I think it was a good choice to make this dress out of cotton as it was a summer dress and the cotton made it comfortable and breathable. However I think either a slightly heavier cotton or some kind of heavy fabric needed to be added at the end, to help weigh down the light weight dress. The construction of this dress was done well, it had all of its seams finished and most hidden. Some of the seams were not perfectly straight, but it was hardly something to notice. I think the thread quality of this garment should be increased by a lot as this thread was very poor and this dress would not have lasted much longer in use. The buttons and bustier pads were a nice touch to the dress as they added a little something extra to help bring attention toward the body’s curves. I bought this dress one year ago for around $15, this dress lasted me one summer and I am now throwing it out because it has become very short and is starting to fall apart. In conclusion, this dress was bought for $15 and worth about $7.

This was a fun project and helped me learn a lot about how a store bought garment is created. I have made a pact to myself to only buy good quality basics that will last me years, and buy the trendier items at a much lower cost as they usually last as long as the trend does. 

Unit 2 Assignment 4

I believe to some degree the information we collected for our From Hot to Not project was helpful. We were able to find out what type of people liked what type of things. But by a business standard it would not be very helpful because it is easy for someone to just say they like something with no intention of buying it. The business wants to know why the consumer likes this based on their psychographics and demographics and use the statistics to create products that they like. Not just assume because they clicked yes to buying the new type of pant, that they will actually go out and buy it. We did not find out why they would by the product which would not be helpful in the future when trying to figure out next season what they would like. It would be much harder to accomplish this however because it was only a school project and not our full time jobs. But for the project, we learned a lot. 

Unit 2 Assignement 3

Gabrielle “Coco” Bonheur Chanel was born on August 19^th 1883 in Saumur, France. She lived in an orphanage for a lot of her life, after her mother died, which is were she began to sew. In 1913 she opened her first boutique that sold deluxe casual clothes for leisure and sport. As early as 1915, people and the media were already raving over her designs. This allowed her to open another boutique in 1918. Her fashion motivator category would be Designer because she designed a whole new era of clothing for women and released them from their binding corsets. Chanel popularized and invents things such as the little black dress, the Chanel tweed pantsuit, costume jewellery, two toned shoes, and no. 5 perfume. 

Chanel Couture 2012

Chanel Jewelley

Chanel's little black dress, popularized by Audrey Hepburn

Chanel Suit

Chanel Shoes

 Chanel is an example of the trickle down theory. She was at the top of the design world and sent all of her ideas and designs to the public, which they adored. It was such a great and new concept that people didn't even make that many knock offs because it was so different. Later on when it was a huge success people made their own versions of course. I would wear some of the clothing, the suits are for more mature people, but the bags, the shoes, the jewellery, the LBD (little black dress) are already staples in my closet. 

Gabrielle Chanel invented the modern woman. She created a woman that didn't need to be assisted to walk by a man as she struggled in her yards of fabric, she didn't need a maid to help do up her hundred ring corset. Hem lines were shortened, and the body was free'd from the binding clothing. 

Clothing went from this, 

Binding, long dresses, 

With large hats,

To this, shorter hemlines, non-accentuated waists and more modern looking.

This was all thanks to Gabrielle Chanel.

 Gabrielle Chanel was defiantly a fashion innovator. She invented a whole new style of dressing that we still use to this day. She took our whole idea of fashion and made it into something new, and everyone loved it. She truly was thee fashion innovator. I do not think she should be in the fashion motivators list because, yes she did motivate a whole fashion movement, but she did more then that, she created it. The media has popularized this trend by simply just reporting on it. The people did the rest by falling in love with it. For example, just two years after her first boutique opened up Harper's Bazaar  a fashion magazine was raving over her designs "“The woman who hasn't at least one Chanel is hopelessly out of fashion...This season the name Chanel is on the lips of every buyer.”