Design class final project

I am winding down my time at school and have just turned in my final project for Design process class. The idea of this class was to teach you the process through which designers come up with a collection. Obviously, this is different for anyone, but there are certain pathways through which one comes up with a design concept that has a cohesive theme, tone, color palette, and consumer. Of course I decided to do lingerie and my collection is very "me." I thought maybe I should try to do something to challenge myself a little more but you go with what you like, right? I named my fictional brand "Chelsea Violet." The first thing to think about is your consumer. My consumer was a ladylike, sensual woman who is confident and comfortable in her own skin. She is happy. She enjoys the finer things like perfumes, afternoon tea and fresh flowers. Basically a modern, very English woman who purchases lingerie for herself and not for a man (though if I man gets to see them, its a bonus!). I got my inspiration through visiting the antiques flea markets around London and Paris, fashion editorials by Gemma Booth, and look books by Chantal Thomass who I have mentioned a lot on this blog.

The name Chelsea Violet refers to a few things. Chelsea is just a name that I like and that I found to be quintessentially English. Violet has to do with the color palette, which is based around the violet color (basically various shades of purple, lilac, etc.), and of course flowers which are very much an inspiration for the silhouette and fabrics. Also, violet is somewhere in between pink, which is the color of very sweet, innocent lingerie, and black, which is supposed to be the naughty kind. This collection falls somewhere in between.

I'd never done much drawing before this class so doing the technical drawings was definitely a learning experience. Lingerie is probably a little easier than drawing complex garments like a suit or something but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out in the end. I did the technical drawings by hand and then scanned them into Illustrator where I colored them.

And finally, the fashion illustration... this was a hard part for me and I owe my friend Margarita for helping me figure out how to translate a flat design (one of the more complicated ones at that) onto a body. I wish I had had something better than markers to color it in but that's all I brought. Would have looked a lot nicer with water colors.

That's it!

One more week of class and then I'm done... and will have to figure out what the hell I am doing next. Not even sure if I'm ready to move back to America yet, but may have to. Not sure what the future will bring.