One Day Mens Shirt Project

To help us with our Professional Projects we've had visiting tutor Clare Copeland from On|Off come in and help designers and promoters with their sketchbook research. To be honest the first few sessions were really un-inspiring and irrelevant to my chosen brief and I was not so happy in making a sketchbook- I wanted to call it or look at it from a 'research file' aspect rather than be artistic in a sketchbook way which I personally feel is more the way a designer should collate their finds.

However I went in to a session and for once was pleasantly surprised. We were to basically get into either a team (one designer and promoter together) or pairs and choose a men’s shirt and the designer was to re-design/re-make, customize the shirt to whatever they wanted (but to try and make it fit in with their chosen brief) and us promoters were to promote the garment as to how we would style it or present it etc. It made sense to work with someone who was on the same brief as me but on the design side- so together in my team was Jen Barnett and Laura Watts.

Before front and back.

After front and back

Side view

My style page.

My professional brief is to produce a magazine- so naturally I wanted to present the garment in a style page layout/format. The shirt that Jen and Laura chose was a purple stripe cotton shirt, we discussed and switched it up by making the shirt into womenswear and instantly I thought of work-wear- (something very big this season) and the type of customer who would buy this, and the stores would be something along the lines of 'Karen Millen' or 'Reiss' or 'Zara'.

The end result was what I like to call (if I was to give it a name) 'optical cut-outs'. Jen and Laura worked together to slash the sleeves so they would drape in a spiral direction giving an optical illusion with the stripes and Laura made a beautiful ruffle detail with the existing collar whilst Jen cut open the top bodice to give a cut-out panel on the top bodice. We were literally given a few hours and when I left Jen and Laura to find a computer and when I came back I was really amazed at what they had produced in such a short amount of time-really everyone's work around the room was really good. I liked this session and the outcome was really useful and something I would definitely put into my 'research file'.