Graduate fashion week

Graduate fashion week started on Sunday 2nd June! Colchester school of art had a stand within the exhibition and all of our work was displayed.  I was not part of the stand design team, but I thought they had done a great job in organising how to exhibit everybody's work.  We have a mixture of fashion and textile students within our course, some textile students design fashion prints for women's wear, menswear, childrenswear or fabrics for interiors.  There was a vast range of different specialisms on display which I felt made our stand come alive and appeal to a wider range of people.  On display was my girl's wear collection of party dresses as well as my portfolio and two wallpaper designs.  I was really happy with the way my collection was displayed, I thought the dresses looked quite eye catching on their rail.

Here are some pictures of our stand:

my clothes on the rail!

Aimee Todd 'Truebug' collection of hand printed cushions.

More Photoshoot Images

Here are a few more images from my photoshoot.  I wanted to catch the natural poses and have some single shots and group shots.  I am so pleased with the results.

Photography: Positive Image Photo

Models: Rosie and Tessa

Hair - Elizabeth Ashworth

Location - White Heart Hotel - Coggeshall

Photoshoot Images

Here are some images from my Photoshoot.  I had two sets of images taken, one set was against a white background, so I can transfer them onto my portfolio pages easily and the other set was within the setting, these are more like a magazine photoshoot.

The Snow Queen

These are the two digital prints included on this dress.

The Elves and The Shoemaker

Digital Printed used in The Elves and The Shoemaker

Hansel and Gretel

This is the only digital print used in this dress.  The rest of the dress is made from velvet devore fabric and soft tulle and organza for the skirt.

Sleeping Beauty

These two digital prints are used on the skirt of the dress.  All the other fabric is hand printed using different textile techniques.

Snow White

This dress has two digital prints for the skirt and the rest of the fabric is all hand printed.  I think this is one of my favourite dresses.  I love the twisted heart bodice and the colours!

Cinderella

These are the two digital prints used in the skirt of the dress.  The rest of the fabric is hand printed.

I am really pleased with these pictures, these will be the ones that I am transferring onto my portfolio page line up. I love the different poses!

Back stage at the photoshoot!

Last Saturday I had my photoshoot for my whole collection.  I used two little models called Rosie and Tessa who live in the same village as me.  They were both in the video too.  The photoshoot took place in 'The White Heart Hotel' in Coggeshall.  This hotel is full of old, antique style rooms full of beams, I thought it was the perfect location for my dresses because the combination of bright colours against the dark beams in the room and the red brick fireplace will hopefully create gorgeous pictures!

Some pictures from behind the scenes!

Video Day!

 A couple of weeks ago we had our video shoot day for all our final collections.  This video is going to be playing at Graduate Fashion Week and New Designers.  I had five out of my six dresses completed for the shoot.

In the video, the girls waved their magic wands and ran across the green screen.  It was so lovely to see my collection coming to life..finally!  I can't wait to have my photoshoot now.  I have no idea what the results will be like, so I can't wait to see the video!

Wallpaper collection

As well as a fashion collection for little girls, I also designed a simple wallpaper collection for little girls.  I have always loved interiors and at the beginning of the project I wanted to do a small interiors collection as well.  So whilst I have been print making for the fashion collection, I have also been keeping my interior design head on too!  I have created a collection of fabric fronts which could be used as furnishing fabrics as well as interior wallpapers.  Basically I want to keep all my options open in the children's wear market and at New Designers I will have my fashion collection and then my wallpapers and furnishing fabrics/ interior fabrics as well.
I had four different wallpaper designs printed up on special  wallpaper called Phototex which you can peel off and onto a wall.  It is transportable wallpaper!!
My four pieces of wallpaper are going to make up the design wall at Graduate Fashion Week along with other students wallpaper. Then for New Designers, I will have the wallpaper in my own presentation space.

These are my four designs:

These designs are from my Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty collection.  I chose these designs because I feel that they are subtle enough to be in a little girl's bedroom - probably as a feature wall though, as all four walls may be a bit over the top!

I can't wait to see them up at the shows!

It's all coming to an end...

I have been so busy over the past few weeks, blogging has been the last thought on my mind!  My head has been full of prints, construction methods, presentation...portfolio ideas and photo shoot ideas.  I never thought I would get so caught up in a collection that I would be dreaming about it.  I have had many dreams of screen printing and constructing my garments..bit disappointing to wake up and realise that it's not made and I need to do it all again in real life, but it is good practice!   Now this has all been completed  I am going to share with you the results!

Arts Thread...

http://www.artsthread.com/p/annabelrosemichie/

Online portfolio all up and ready to go!

Digital Prints are back!!

 The prints have arrived... all 13m of them!  I always get so excited when I open the package because it is always such a surprise to see how the prints come out.

I didn't have enough floor space to photograph it all at once so apologies for the awful pictures!

Lycra for leggings!!

Can't wait to turn all this fabric into my collection..including fabric fronts not just dresses!

Toiling Snow White Dress

All of my dresses are quite simple designs made up of layers of ruffles and strips of fabric all gathered up to create full skirts for the party dresses.  However, as I have got quite a bit of construction experience I thought that I would show off some of it!  In the second year of my degree I took some fashion construction evening classes which really helped boost my confidence in construction.  As well as learning the basics and the intermediate level, I also learnt the TR pattern cutting skill that has been created by Shingo Sato.  This was more tricky for me to get my head around, but there was one technique that I mastered and loved doing.  The 'twisted heart' technique!

I really wanted to put a little bit of the TR pattern cutting into my collection to show it off! So I chose this twisted heart.  I thought it would work really well within the Snow White outfit, on the bodice of the dress.

Here is my toile of it:

I am really happy with the outcome and will definitely be using this technique on the dress!

Digital Prints - Snow White and Hansel and Gretel

Continuing on from my previous post - here are some examples of my digital print work.

Snow White Designs:

This is an acrylic paint designs of a rose.  I added hints of colour in such as lime green to make the design look fresh and unique.  As well as glitter for the sparkle!  I then scanned the rose in and the result on screen looked better than in the sketchbook.

The rose print used in a border print design of deer.  The deer are quite graphic unlike my other designs.  

To create this design, I actually printed with the head of a rose.  It created a gorgeous print which I also scanned into Photoshop and developed.

Hansel and Gretel Designs:

These designs are a lot more graphic than my other ones.  I worked with the designs differently to create more simple prints.

These circles are filled with a hand painted image that I scanned in.  It was originally a flower but I cut a circle of print out of the flower and that is what gave me the circles.

Overall this digital printing process has been a huge task for me to do in the little time I have had.  I have never produced so many prints in such a small amount of time.  It has now been sent off to the 'Silk Bureau' and I will await the day until it arrives back!