Monthly Archives: March 2010

yarn donations, knitting parties and the computer operated Stoll machine.

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So I guess I’m trying out this new Flip Video thing we all got for this blog.  I’m having a lot of fun with it!  Here’s a couple of videos I took this past week…

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Last Tuesday our critic paid to deliver some donation yarns to our lab and we all got really excited and hoped that something in our colour story would be in the boxes!


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Last Thursday I popped into the other Knitwear class’s lab time (because I wanted to hang with my fave professor), and found some fellow knitwear students doing some hand knitting and crocheting.  This is me chitchatting with Kelly, Jen and Mel.

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YouTube Direkt

It’s difficult to fully-fashion a jacquard fabric nicely so I opted to knit yard goods of my jacquard fabric and cut-and-sew them instead.  Here I notice that my fabric has some holes in it because of a combination of too-tight tension and too much take down force.  I ended up having to re-knit the whole piece… but maybe I’ll use this piece to make myself a skirt!


A (Regrettable) Leap Through Time or Sportswear: Slave to the Schedule

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So in an effort to catch up on my work, (and embarrassingly enough, I have a ton of work to catch up on) I decided to stay in my classroom till 2 (that’s AM, people!). After all, what better way for a twenty-something college student to spend her Saturday night, after having been “attacked” by a storm, because she just had to pick the worst looking day this month to go buy fabric?  Low and behold after working diligently till 2, packing up my belongings and transferring the contents to my locker, I look down at my watch (check that: cell phone) and see that it is now in fact 3 am.

Damn you, daylight savings!

Saturday night's 5-star accomodations...

Saturday night's 5-star accomodations...

Alas, too late to travel, I was forced to retire to the FITSA lounge for the evening. Yes, my friends, I spent the night in school (not my first, mind you).  Boy, there’s something about sleeping on a State University of New York-owned couch that makes you feel like you’ve really accomplished something… so why aren’t I done?

Just so you can panic right along with me, (your empathy is much appreciated, by the way) here’s a schedule of due dates you can keep referring to, compliments of my professor (along with some delightful asides, compliments of moi!):

MONDAY MARCH 15, 2010: COME TO CLASS WITH FIRST OUTFIT COMPLETED , HEMS ARE THE ONLY THING LEFT, TO FIT YOUR MODEL. START DRAPING OR DRAFTING YOUR SECOND OUT FIT. (For the record, I’ve actually chosen to work on my two looks simultaneously, so even though I presented not one finished look but rather two half–let me give myself more credit here, 2/3rds–completed, I feel that I’m actually ahead of schedule. Cheers to that!)

MONDAY MARCH 24, 2010: SECOND OUTFIT SHOULD BE ON ITS WAY TO COMPLETION, 50% DONE (this is where I have an advantage (check that: cue maniacal laughter))

SPRING RECESS: MONDAY MARCH 29, 2010 – SUNDAY APRIL 4, 2010 (USE THIS TIME WISELY) (Rough translation: “YOU WILL BE SPENDING ALL YOUR FREE TIME IN CLASS”)

WEDNESDAY APRIL 5, 2010 AFTER YOUR SPRING RECESS, COME TO CLASS WITH MOST OF YOUR GARMENT COMPLETED

WEDNESDAY APRIL 7, 2010 SECOND OUTFIT DUE

MONDAY APRIL 12, 2010 CRITIC PICKS OR AWARD WINNER FOR THE CLASS/START WORKING ON YOUR THIRD OUTFIT

WEDNESDAY APRIL 14, 2010: BFA JUDGING DAY FOR ALL CLASSES

MODEL FITTING DATE: TO BE ANNOUNCED

THURSDAY APRIL 29, 2010 BFA FASHION SHOW

THIRD OUTFIT DUE MONDAY MAY 17, 2010 (This is where it gets interesting, I happen to be doing the Cotton Inc. Competition–which I’ll blog about in a future post—so that is what I count as my third outfit and thus will be due, say, April 12, with the other two. The pressure is way on.)

THANK YOU

******

Here now is a [lame], random breakdown of a very basic cutting process that we all go through here. It’s what I’d been doing up until I had to check in to Motel FITSA. This is just to give you an idea of how I’ve spent a good chunk of my time these past few nights, aside from sewing, obviously.  If you’re a fashion student (or an avid viewer fashion design reality shows) you’ve seen this before; but the workroom novice might find this interesting.

These will be the pants for my second look. The fabric is a beautiful stretch wool suiting. I’ll post a photo of the finished product soon.
(Check that: Here now are my [pointless] visual aids, for which a co-ed’s blog should never be without. Stay tuned for more!)

Step 1: Laying out the fabric

Step 1: Laying out the fabric

Step 2: Laying out the patterns

Step 2: Laying out the patterns

Step 3: Tracing the pattern

Step 3: Tracing the pattern

Step 4: Cutting out the pieces

Step 4: Cutting out the pieces

and sew it began…

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It’s the event that we had looked forward to when we began our BFA degree, the infamous fashion show. It seemed so far away back then, and now, it seems to be knocking at our doorstep. A month and a half ago I started my last semester with piles of swatches, drawings, and inspiration clouding my brain. We were to design 3 complete ensembles consisting of bras, panties, corsets, bodysuits, robes, etc. Nothing was off limits to our imaginations (except thongs and underthings too “cheeky” for the runway, for reasons as you could imagine). Our professor worked closely with us to choose the first perfect “couture worthy” ensemble.

We dove into our work, from creating the initial prototype, to patterns, and second prototypes. It was a rocky start. The snow days, though usually a blessing, seemed to be more of a setback, and soon Saturday sessions seemed to be commonplace. Our critic, Sarah Wolf of Betsey Johnson Intimates, visited our class to see the progress we have been making. She offers advice, opinion, and inspiration ideas to make our garments that much better.

Its already mid-semester, and I am upon completion of my first ensemble. The bra, corset, and panty need some minor elastics to be zig-zagged and the bra straps need to be DTM (dyed to match, us intimate apparel designers are CONSTANTLY dying fabrics). I am also completing the look with a silk chiffon robe. The robe is still in pieces and is awkward to sew because I am so used to handling smaller garments. There was a snafu today in class with the construction of it, but I’m taking it in strides. For the corset and waistline of robe I am doing hand beading on French lace. It takes a long, long time to accomplish, but it is going to be well worth it. I just remind myself of the sparkling crystals catching the light from the runway when I’m beading into the wee hours of the morning.

Second ensemble sketches were approved today, and will be made out of 95% cotton as part of a competition sponsored by Cotton Inc., who also happen to be the main sponsors of the show.

garments with robe prototype

garments with robe prototype

hand beading on corset

hand beading on corset

a knitwear story.

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So as my first blog entry, I thought I’d sort of give a summary of what us knitwear students have to do.  Rather than go to the Garment District and purchase our fabric off of a roll, we actually purchase the yarns we wish to make our fabric out of, and essentially start from scratch.  Some of the garments we make are made out of yard goods (where we knit a square of fabric and cut our patterns out of it), but we are mostly encouraged to knit our fabric precisely to the shape of the pattern itself.  There’s a lot more detail to it than that, however, so I came up with a nice little guide to the process we go through!  Here it is (hopefully I’m not missing any steps):

a comprehensive guide to the knitwear journey.
a comprehensive guide to the knitwear journey.

a comprehensive guide to the knitwear journey.
a comprehensive guide to the knitwear journey pt II.

Currently I am on step 9/10 with my first garment (gack!  not nearly as far ahead as Nasya!), and have a LOT to do on garment #2.  Since we started quite a while ago, I started recording some of my steps within the last few weeks, so I’ll do my next couple of posts as a sort of catch up.

Down the rabbit hole……

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For my senior thesis, the theme is loosely based off the idea of Alice in wonderland and the transformation of her character.  Similar to the metamorphosis of myself over the past 5 1/2 years at school.  For special occasion, our assignment was to put together a cohesive collection of three eveningwear ensembles (2 that are to be judged for the show). There is our critic (Sergio Guadarrama) and our professor who offer their opinion and guidance through the process.  We all came to the first day of class with 12 sketches, fabric swatches and narrowed the ideas all down to 3.  Then the rat race called “you have less then 30 days a dress to produce these pieces” started.  The process is as roughly as follows: sketch, source fabric/trims, drape the garment in muslin, fit, make pattern pieces, cut into fabric, baste all the pieces together, sew, fit, embellish, and fit again.  Don’t forget there are understructures to think about so the dress will stay on, there are finishing’s, like linings and hems to consider, oh and to make sure that the end product fits beautifully and is effortless looking.  This is the start of my senior collection.

At this point we are already 41 day in and 29 more days left till the critics judging.  Dress 1 for me is 90% done.  I need to add more petals and make the piallettes more organic, coming under the belt on to the petals. Not sure if I should add the fur either.  I have moved on to Dress 2 this week, but that is for a later post.  The process for Dress 1 went fairly smoothly, sans the fact that I tried dyeing to get the exact color of eggplant I wanted. I epically failed at achieving the color and wound up buying new fabric.  Lesson one, there are more shades to a color then what they give you in the 96 box of Crayola.

Check out the pictures. I am welcome to comments and suggestions.  Design is all about the eye of the beholder.

Welcome!

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2009 Fashion Show

2009 Fashion Show

Welcome to the Future of Fashion blog — the official blog of the 2010 FIT BFA Fashion Show. We’ve got four talented FIT students and aspiring fashion designers that will be sharing the trials and tribulations of completing their final student projects, and no one is guaranteed a spot in the show! They are working on garments right now that they hope will be chosen. Look for their first entries very soon and wish them good luck, energy, and inspiration! Learn more about our bloggers.

The fashion show is April 26 by invite only, but we will be live webcasting it on the Future of Fashion website. The site also has pics and video from last year’s show and bios of our esteemed critics and judges including Calvin Klein and Carolina Herrera!