Sunday, October 3, 2010

Episode Seven: What's Mine is Yours!

The Challenge: Create a resort wear look that shows your point of view as a designer.

The Constraints: 30 minutes to sketch (on a boat!), one day to construct (until midnight), 30 minutes to shop at Mood with a budget of $150, and two hours in hair and make-up.

The Twist: Tim Gunn will randomly draw pairs to work together and the two will swap designs. The designers will work on their partner's design with direction from the designer! The goal is to get a feel for life as a designer and having a sample shop create your designs.

My Take: I am fortunate to have friends who sew. I had two ladies willing to help me with this challenge! I have done one so far, and hopefully the stars will align and I can get together with the other soon!
I met with CostumeMama in the evening where we shared our sketches and fabric selections. I wanted a striped tee and nautical inspired cropped pants. I had red-and-white striped knit for the top and black linen and red buttons for the pants. She had a halter and wrap pant combo with brown linen for the pants, a fun burn out sheer in warm shades of green, brown, and gold and a cream shantung for the top. Two very different aesthetics! We got to work on draping and patterning and explained what we were looking for. We worked for several hours and agreed to finish on our own (still working on each other's projects). It was interesting because I don't own a serger. I have used them, but it's been a while. Thus I think in old timey methods and working without a serger. I do a lot of French seams and occasional zig-zag stitching. She is a costumer and has a serger, and is used to having to create a lot of things in a limited time so she is used to working quickly and in a more modern manner. I think it was a good pairing because of the differences.

I took her pieces home to finish, and tried to keep everything in my mind for the construction. It is really interesting to work on something that is not my own, and not an off-the-rack pattern. Also, my aesthetic involves more tailored pieces, so it took more thought to work on a more drapey flowing piece. I admit that I didn't quite finish her pieces before returning them. I couldn't remember exactly how she wanted the sash attached to the top so I let it unattached. Plus I remember she had buttons for the pants, but didn't get them so I left that alone. I did not want to put the wrong size buttonholes in, that was for sure! Since the designers were able to take back their own designs at the end, we'll pretend that is what happened. (Of course if we would have still had time to work together, I would have been easily able to have her for reference.) I am still waiting to hear her feedback and get photos, so hopefully I achieved what she was after! It is pretty nerve-wracking working on someone else's garment. I know what shortcuts I can take and changes I can make on my own garment, but when someone else is relying on me I have a definite air of paranoia. I don't want to let anyone down or disappoint.

Here are the results of my design as created by CostumeMama:


Now, back at CostumeMama's when I first attempted to try on the pants, I discovered I didn't allow enough space at the front flap to get them on. I have a major difference between my waist and hips, so I tend to have to leave a lot of room to get things on, so they fit at the waist. We decided to put a side zipper in to alleviate this. Well, when I got them back, they were too snug. This was a combination of me mismeasuring and the fact that I ate very poorly all week and put on five pounds (it was a treat bonanza at work). They will fit great, though, once I am able to run again and peeps stop bringing treats to work every day I think they will be great! In the spirit of making it work I used my sun hat to disguise where it didn't fit correctly. It would have been on my head, instead it was at my hip. I thought about quickly turning it into a skirt, but felt that would have been far less interesting.

What do you think?

1 comment:

  1. First of all I'm so glad you said that was your hat as on my first look it seemed like some sort of big flower like embellishment ;)

    I like this look as it's simple clear and easy to wear. That said I think the judges would have deemed it only "safe" as they don't seem to like things that look like you could buy it off the rack. Nina in particular tends to view those kinds of looks as cheap. I'm not Nina and since we don't have a view of the back to judge, I'll say a solid "safe."

    ReplyDelete