Oh Sew Fashion: African prints

31 August 2012

Africa Fashion Week London 2012

So although I didn't go to AFWL at Old Spitalfields Market this year, I am still super excited as there were some really fantastic collections. AFWL celebrates the original and diverse cultural heritage of London, mixing Western and African culture through fashion, creating contemporary designs. Here are some of my favourites...

AFRO FANATIC

10 August 2012

GFW 2012 Croydon Uni | Truman Brewery

I met the lovely Anastasija Bogatirjova from Britain's Next Top Model 2011! Anastasija modelled my yellow African print dress.

13 March 2011

Uni Life So Far

As many of you are aware, being a student, especially a fashion student, is no easy ride. I'm currently in my final year of my Foundation Degree and already I am already preparing for my final major collection! Where does the time go? It sure has been a whirlwind although admittedly I have loved every second of this course. I have worked my arse off extremely hard since starting the course, hence why my social life has completely disappeared (the price you have to pay) but boy has it paid off- I have only received two high B grades and ALL the rest are A grades! I am very proud of myself and it just goes to show that hard work, perseverance, ambition and creativity really does pay off, just depends on how badly you want it!

Here are some projects that I have worked on so far:

This was the latest project we did, it was a jacket project but we could choose our own theme. I based my design ideas around african prints and freestyle quilting. This project was a lot of fun and it was the first time i have made a jacket and a lined jacket at that! I've put off doing any designs with lining for so long now as the whole idea of it was daunting to me, but once I got my head round the idea, its actually not that bad!

Jacket project

The green hooded jacket above was my final design. I used a dark green wool and a gold and brown african print fabric. I then did freehand quilting on the printed fabric with thick red embroidery thread.

This was one of my favourite projects as I got the chance to experiment much more with draping and creating patterns from the stand. This project was based around style icons and we had to design a dress for an event. I chose to design my dress for Thandie Newton as she's beautiful, elegant and has an understated style about her. Below are some of my design developments working directly on the stand.