Structure inspiration

As we have started to look at structure on the mannequin and how our garment would look I started looking at hoods and hood structure on the catwalk for inspiration and to influence me.

Structure

As we are thinking about garments and protection we started to think about structure and shape.
Here are some ideas on the mannequin of collars, sleeves and hoods:

We liked the idea of multifunctional garments so decided to use a sheet of material in the same way and play around with shape and structure.

We also started to think about tent structure and umbrella structure as they are made to be waterproof.

 Umbrellas have also been used on the catwalk.

Alexander McQueen-

The Raincatch Coat

I found this as I was researching waterproof and interchanging technology, I think it is really interesting as it shows different ways of looking at things.

http://vimeo.com/25973817

Fashion and Technology

As we are looking at creating some sort of waterproof everyday coat I thought it would be a good idea to look at how fashion and technology work together to create something exciting and interesting. We thought briefly about having a coat that protects you from the rain but also changes in colour. So the heavier the rain the darker the colour, almost like a warning sign. If it was expected to rain a lot you would know before leaving the house by the change in colour.

Amy Winters- She creates garments that are sun and water reactive, she also creates pieces that are sound reactive too.  She is very influential when thinking about this change of colour.

The water-reactive ink disappears revealing the color underneath the dress whilst the sun-reactive ink turns the Rain-forest dress purple.

 This idea of changing colour can be done in a sophisticated manner and with the right equipment.

Caught my eye

This Burberry trench coat really caught my eye whilst I was doing research on detachable garments.

Metallic gold leather double-breasted trench coat with a buckle fastening belt at the waist. Burberry coat has long sleeves with a buckle fastening on the cuffs, a storm flap, epaulettes on shoulder, inverted flap pockets at the front, buttons through the front to fasten and is fully lined.

I felt it was a perfect example of an idea which we may want to achieve however putting out own individual stamp on it, not just copy something that has already been done.

Colour change

We started off with a vibrant colour palette of blues, oranges and blacks which are present in our earlier experiments...

However we wanted to create a more sophisticated palette so introduced beige, brown/yellow, purple and more subtle blue which we feel works much better with our work.

Experimenting

We started to look at waterproof materials and how to make things waterproof using a verity of different materials. 

As me and Jess are working together we decided to delegate jobs to one another. She has looked into coating the knits using waterproof materials such as spray, wax and liquid latex.
I started looking into how we can move the attachable and detachable idea forward experimenting with fastenings such as hook and eyes, poppers and Velcro.

I discovered that the poppers work better than the Velcro strips so would push the idea of poppers forward.
I then tested these samples out with water to show they are effective and waterproof.

We then started thinking about attaching plastic's and other materials to each other using the heat press and embellisher. After experimenting with different types of plastic, vinyl and fleece we realised the heat press wasn't going to get hot enough to melt the plastic to all the materials so had to re think how we was going to do it. We started using the embellisher. Although all materials didn't work on the heat press the plastic wallets worked well. The embellisher was also a success.

We also melted plastic onto knit samples using wool yarn and experimented putting water on them to show how waterproof they are.

Knits with melted plastic:

Knit with embellished cotton and liquid latex:

Knit with embellished cotton and melted plastic:

We then started to look into draw string, pulling edges together to keep the rain out and protect the body.

Then looked into structure and how we could create some sort of structure using the materials we have experimented with..

Boning

We felt the boning went well as we could create shapes and form from them as they created structured pieces. This gave us an opportunity to start thinking about structure and shape and what parts of the body we want to focus on.