RAA Assignment

I didn't want to post about this earlier, because I wasn't sure how the company involved felt about it. My designs didn't make it to the next stage, so here they are.

For the last month my class has been working individually to design a new uniform for South Australia's RAA. They're best known for roadside assistance, such as fixing or towing cars, refilling empty petrol tanks and stuff, but they also provide insurance and security services, and have a travel branch.
They came to us wanting a new uniform across-the-board, so everyone in "corporate" departments would have the same uniform options, and likewise with the "patrol" departments. Presently, there is no RAA-specific uniform, they order generic uniforms and embroider their logo onto the garments. A lot of them are also impractical, and a majority of the employees were unhappy with the options presented to them. One major issue was that many garments did not suit a wide range of body types.

Only customer facing employees are required to wear the uniform, while for other employees it is optional. The RAA wanted an original uniform their employees would be proud to wear.

Here are my designs for men and women (there are currently no female patrol staff, something the RAA is hoping to remedy), corporate and patrol. My patrol designs were heavily inspired by World War 2 uniforms, focussing on the "hero" branding the RAA has undertaken as part of their brand revamp. The female patrol uniforms are essentially female versions of the male uniform.



Male:


Female:

Christmas Delivery

Today my Christmas present from Tim finally arrived: the English editions of Pattern Magic 1 and 2 by Tomoko Nakamichi.
They're amazing! I can't wait to play around with some of these. I've noticed a few patterns are developed by draping first, and I prefer to work by flat-drafting, but I suppose it's easier to adapt draping instructions for different designs, and once I've mastered some of them, I'll get a grasp on how to flat-draft them from the onset.

Hopefully they're not all draping-based, but I'll still love them.




Photos of the Japanese editions I found online

Wrapping Up Project Rundle

The Fashion at TAFESA blog published a write up of my outfit. I'm pretty unhappy with the way it was presented to the judges (the dress is on backwards and no one could find the belt I supplied) but all in all I'm proud of the outfit. Mine managed to make the top 10, so is on display in the Gawler Place canopy today and tomorrow.
Not much else to say; it all came together pretty easily.

Read the interview here

Outfit progress: 98.1%

Yesterday I appliquéd the lace hem onto the underskirt, which turned out quite easily. The underskirt is my first entirely bias-cut garment (excluding the waistband), and I think it turned out quite well. Drafting the pattern actually ended up being exactly the same as if it were straight-grain, because I transferred the dart value into th hem. I did need to splice the pieces though, as the whole pieces exceeded the fabric width.
Today I attached the "collar" to, and hemmed the sleeves and bottom edge of the top jacket. It turned out quite well; I'm considering buying some more sorrento suiting. Despite the low percentage of natural fibre (something like 5% flax, the remainder being polyester and rayon), it actually handles really well and it looks like silk. My lecturer said it'd make a really nice men's shirt, while I thought it may be too feminine. Time will tell!

The only thing left to do is hand-embroider a Japanese maple Southern Cross onto the back of the sorrento jacket. Even though it's such a minute part of the outfit, it will probably take a couple of hours.

No photos as I'm updating from my iPod.

SCA Dress

No, not that SCA, I mean my Southern Cross Arcade dress. Here's a sneak preview of the dress, it's made of brushed poly-rayon jersey and will be worn with two kimono jackets and a voile underskirt. Because of the hip cowl, and shape of the skirt, it looks a lot better when it has legs inside.



Photo taken from the Fashion at TAFE SA facebook page.

Project Rundle

Last week we started 'Project Rundle', a Project Runway-esque assignment for which we were paired up and assigned one Rundle Mall side street and one Rundle Mall arcade. These become the inspiration behind an outfit to enter into a competition held by Rundle Mall to have our outfit on parade in March. The 9 runner-up outfits (all the rest) will also be on display but not on parade. Spotlight Rundle Mall is sponsoring the project by giving each team a $100 gift card, and the winning team a $500 gift card.

Being in Group 1, we were assigned Gawler Place and Southern Cross Arcade. My final design to toile up is inspired by Southern Cross Arcade, has four garments in it (including two jackets), and features both machine- and hand-embroidery. Obviously I thought I'd go down the easy route this time. Thanks to a fortuitously timed promotion, we saved $40 when spending $100 or more at Spotlight, and so managed to afford to make both Alyce's and my outfit. It's going to be a bit of a slog to finish both in a week, so I'll probably be spending quite a bit of 'overtime' in the workshop.

I'm really excited, I love both our outfits. Photos later!

Year Three

I start Third Year on Monday. It's a little exciting; I wasn't sure I'd get in. In that I mean I was quite positive but according to the rules of probability, there was a chance I'd be rejected.

I haven't updated since November because I haven't really done anything I want to showcase. My class worked on our Gilles St market project, which was a bit stressful (not even mentioning the ugly clothes), but my team was a lot of fun.

In the holidays I toiled up a pair of trousers for myself, and now I regret not overlocking the seams, because they look quite nice. Hopefully I'll have a nicer photo to show later, but here's one I took upon completion.

I expect I'll make a similar pair in a light cotton; the only problem is that I drew the pattern directly on to the fabric! What a chortle I had when I realised I'd have to unpick the entire toile to get the pattern from it (chortle means to commit self-harm, right?). At the moment they're made of what I can only describe as denim. It's not quite a drill, so I'm hesitant to label it at all. I still have metres of it though.



I imagine it will be a while before I can sew anything for myself again.