Flora & Fauna

When I first started coming up with ideas for my garment, I instantly gravitated towards my Tundra themed mood board as I felt it would be a unique and interesting interpretation of the Arctic to work with. Furthermore, during my research I quickly realised that the idea and colour scheme for that specific mood board was very interlinked with the animals and people of Arctic regions which made the concept even more relevant.

I worked with this idea of having oversized sleeves that I felt looked very high fashion but were also quite similar to the shape of a penguin which was somewhat relevant to the theme. My first design did not go to plan and I felt that the colour scheme I worked with did not match my vision. I fixed this and used the same colour scheme throughout the rest of the designs.

These garments were planned to be a mixture of knitwear and fur and were incredibly ambitious. The white patterning was reflective of the research I had done into Inuit culture and I interpreted the patterns of their traditional clothing into my own garments. The designs were meant to feel cosy and also reflect the nature of the Arctic more literally.

After working with pro markers to create my first five designs, I moved to digitally illustrating my designs and experimented with the northern lights concept that I made a mood board for. With help from ‘Fashion Illustration & Design: Methods & Techniques for Achieving Professional Results’ a book created by Gianni Versace’s star illustrator, Manuela Brambatti, I managed to create a new template to create my designs on and experimented with unique silhouettes.

I designed a further four garments that were simplified creations of the tundra concept. I felt that the garment needed to be simple but effective and stay true to my original idea so that it was less difficult for me to bring to life, due to a lack of experience in sewing. I also started considering what materials I might use to develop the garment. Crochet was one of main features of these designs as well as the idea of up cycling charity shop knit wear, I was still unsure of what material I may use for the dress though.

I created a more finished and refined digital fashion illustration that was a culmination of the different interpretations of the concept that I had worked on. I wanted to show the different textures that I imagined the garment having and also decided with this that I wanted the dress to be a shiny silk fabric that would contrast nicely with the knitted areas of the garment and give the garment more variation.

Lastly when it came to the designing process, I sketched out a final idea for my dress and also decided to add a choker which I felt would tie the look together nicely. The idea with the choker is that it would be interchangeable in how you styled it as it could also be a tie.