Placement.

For the past week and continuing into the end of this one I have been on work placement at a company in Ashburton called the Gro company, my life has also gone mental with deadlines and jobs, hence why I haven’t posted in a while. During this placement I have been given a creative brief as well as giving general design assistance to the creative team at the company.

My time has been spent mounting wall displays and images for presentations, helping out and modelling on product photo shoots and transforming the office into a more structured and well thought out display area for the company.

In addition to this my creative brief encompasses designing a range of Gro bags (baby sleep bags) and bedding with the focus on techniques (gathers, pin-tucks, pleats and panels). I am to design for 4 options:

• Boys

• Girls

• Unisex

• Nursery coordinated bedding

Towards the end of my placement I will then have to present these on presentation boards and talk through them with other members of the team including the creative director. So all in all I feel I will have accomplished a fair amount by the end of my placement with experience in a few of the major areas of a design company and a deeper understanding of the industry requirements (safety standards) when producing garments for a specified market area, especially if that area encompasses babies or children.

Pictured are a few of my initial design ideas.

From pattern to panties.

Today I attempted to make my first pair of knickers from scratch; pattern and all. Ok so they turned out a little more like hold-em all-in Granny pants than the sexy slinky exciting pieces I am looking to create, not to mention they look rather saggy on the stand (apparently because the stand is not a lingerie shape) and some of the stitching is a little scruffy, but I feel I have conquered the basic form now. Next stop manipulation; experimenting with print, panels and fabrics.

Pattern book used: Pattern cutting for lingerie, beachwear and leisurewear (Ann Haggar)

Chachoo...bless you?

I'm going to go with Chachoo for my name, it sounds soft enough to be used in conjunction with the lingerie designs I want to produce whilst still having relevance to watersports. A Chachoo or rather a Grubby Chachoo is an aerial downwind 360 and a sail 360 fused together into one move, the sail rotation is performed mid-air. Just to keep you updated on my progress.

Names,names,names.

After thinking I had finally settled on a name for my company ( [with love] : sherry ) it doesn’t seem to sit very well with my ideology and the collections I want to create so I have been exploring other avenues such as using foreign tongues to create my name my new possibilities are below:

More aquae (fashion water in Latin) - short and neat with reference to the water influence on my business.

More maris (fashion sea in Latin) - as above also I like the appeal of having more in the title as if it is an add on to something which I suppose it would be an add on to an active lifestyle

Mare pulchra (lovely sea in Latin) - not so sure on the pulchra bit it sounds a little aggressive

Mer belle (lovely see in French) - short and sweet

Clew first (term in windsurfing) - to link the company back to watersports

Chachoo - (windsurfing trick)- see above

I think at the moment I'm torn between the first and the last on my list but let me know your thoughts, I will have to settle soon though as I need to write my business plan soon.

Preferably buttons.

Buttons have to be my favourite fastening, I'm not quite sure why, they just hold an attraction for me. These are closely followed by buckles dependant on the weight of fabric being used. Then comes  poppers, especially if they are decorated with a button. Next up are zips, as long as they concealed and fit with the lines originally created in the garment and finally Velcro...eugh Velcro, itchy-scratchy-fails-to-perform-fluff-grabbing Velcro. How I despise you Velcro. That may have seemed like an unnecessary post, but I have been finding that my choice of fastening significantly changes the design qualities and market level of a garment. I will be interested to see how this effects my final collection.