Designer Statement:

This project was heavily based on certain factors: learning how to sew knit fabrics and simply get an idea of how they work and how the machines such as the overlock, work. It was also a great opportunity to dive into the concept of zero waste and think more towards sustainability. Our professor, Anne, gave us the option of either making the garment completely zero waste, or design it in a way where it can be worn different ways. Even without having any clue about what i would do for this knit project, i knew i wanted to keep focus on sustainability AS WELL AS designing it so that it can be worn multiple ways. We also were told that since we did not have much time (one week) to finish this garment, we should keep it a bit simple and within our range of skills given some of us have never worked with knit. I’m someone who likes to work with very conceptual ideas, so when it comes to keeping a garment simple, and me genuinely liking it can be very tricky, so i knew this would not only be a challenge due to the fabric and the fact that im purely draping, but also because ‘simple’ isn’t really my thing! I took this as a challenge and i knew i wanted to design something that i loved and was very interesting to look at! Here is the entire process:

I first decided on two fabrics; a thick ribbed knit jersey, and a plain white jersey with a subtle sheen. Given my personal taste as a designer, i gravitated towards the bold green as soon as i saw it at the store. I kept in mind, when buying the fabric, that i wanted a bold one to make a statement with the fabric itself, which emphasizes my design even more. I brought it into class and began to simply play around with it on a form. What shapes did i like? long or short? one shoulder? sleeves? all these questions and fun explorations took place.

 

Here are some images of the first every drape I did with this fabric. I listened to my professor and her suggestions and she mentioned how she like to start off by stitching one side of the fabric together, leaving a hole which can then be placed anywhere on the form such as the neckline. This is what I did ( I basted it with a 5 stitch ) for this little draping session I was carrying out, and explored all the forms i liked with this one hole as a possible opening:

 

Given this is a 6 hour studio class, it got pretty intense with this green fabric, and i felt like my mind was a little blocked by it. So, i went ahead and decided to give it a shot with the white knit that i also bought because it was so beautiful! The more i played around with the white knit, i noticed a lot of what came up looked very greek, which is not a bad thing at all! It simply wasn’t what i envisioned for this, and I didn’t personally feel so attracted to it. The shapes turned out very beautiful and elegant, but I didn’t feel like it was my final knit dress. I tried my best to make sure that the final result of my knit garment looked the furthest awake from ‘greek’. Nonetheless, it is worth showing these images because, after all, they are part of my process and it reflects how my mind works.

 

Here are the photographs of the draping using the white jersey:

 

After giving my mind a tiny little break from this assignment, as I get overwhelmed very easily, it was time to get back at it and start clean finishing some of the edges. I specifically asked my professor if i was allowed to leave some of the edges ‘raw’ simply because they looked so beautiful as they were and i knew that if i messed around with them, it wouldn’t look how i envisioned it. So, i clean finished the hem, and the hemline that is located at the top of the dress, which in the end, is tucked inside, so it is not visible. The part with the raw edges include the entire back tail of the dress, which create a beautiful shape which you will be able to see in the final photoshoot of my garment further on this post!

Meanwhile, I wanted to include some footage of my friend and I working on the specialty room to clean finish some of our edges:

 

IMG_3559-18p1dhb-1hv2riu  CLICK FOR A SHORT VIDEO!

 

Once i had stitched the two hems out of the 4 sides of my fabric (flat), i went on to working the final design, where i ran into some complications. Nothing massive, but a tiny step back. Firstly, I knew i wanted some part of the garment to be very form fitting, so i went on to working on that first, around the butt and the waist. Once I had drapped the perfect shape i loved, i pinned exactly where i’d stitch with a regular machine, removed the dress from the form, and stitched around 12 inches only, and it gave me the exact shape i wanted for the back (bottom part of the dress)! After sewing the lower part of my garment, i went on to work around the bust area. I knew i wanted this to be very simple, so it could be worn in endless ways. That was my exact outcome, which made me really happy! Nonetheless, the one struggle i had was that i wanted to use a few eyelets for decoration purposes, but i hadn’t thought about the fact that since it’s such a stretchy fabric, it would stretch (duh) and the eyelet would eventually fall!! So i decided to not carry this small detail through. I photographed the sample i did with my fabric and one eyelet + some images of the final processes of the garment:

 

I had a minor panic moment once i realized the eyelet wouldn’t work:

 

But everything turned out quite perfectly!!

Once i finished all the tiny details and fixed a few little things, I went on to photographing the dress!

Here’s the link to the photoshoot: