Fashion Illustrator | Jerron Couture

Can't believe I haven't blogged for 4 months! Shocking! I've been so busy but have decided to return to it as I do miss it... a lot. So... i'm back!

I found this very talented New York fashion illustrator on instagram. Jerron Couture's style is fab. It reminds me a little of Hayden Williams style; cute, edgy and colourful! I love the amount of details that goes into his work.

     

Fashion Illustrator | Dudu Gonzaga

Dudu Gonzaga's fashion illustrations are simply beauitful. His attention to detail and use of colour in his sketches are just fabulous. I can't believe he is self taught and started at the tender age of four! I don't even think I could draw a stickman at four! 

Fashion Illustration at its Best

OMG I am in love with a London based fashion illustrator called Hayden Williams. His work is so inspirational and beautiful. I could literally dribble over his work lol. I am obsessed with fashion illustration and Hayden's by far the BEST I have seen to date. I am amazed at how realistic some of his illustrations look... if you don't believe me, just check out his illustrations of Beyonce and Rihanna!

His work is amaaaaaaaaazing. I would love to be able to draw like him but sadly i'm nowhere near that level yet! His illustrations are all done by hand using mixed media such

Graduate Fashion Week!

Wow, what a great year for Graduate Fashion Week. There were some amazing catwalk shows and some beautifully presented sketchbooks and portfolios. I was one if the student helpers working in Theatre A and B everyday. It was great fun working at GFW but by then end of each evening my feet were kiiiiiiiilling me!

Exhibition-
There were over 50 of the top fashion and textiles universities from the UK and overseas. My college, Croydon higher Education, had a stand there also (stand no B132). My favourite portfolio was from a fashion student, Aude Banzolo, from Southampton Solent University. I loved loved loved her folio. It was innovative, stylish, creative, retro and urban. I loved her fashion sketches... they were amaaaaazing! Check out her website to see some of her beautiful illustrations and designs www.kytoko.com

Final Major Project

So I have spent the last 3 months working on our final major project. it was a lot of fun but also so much stress with very little sleep. First of all we had to gather all our research for our chosen theme and create a sketchbook... this was fun but it's my least favourite part of the whole process! My final major collection, Summer of Fun, was loosely based around the 1980s and my design inspiration came from Balmain.

I then set about creating my patterns and toiles for the collection. This took the longest amount of time due to lots of panelling detail in my garments. It seemed like it took forever! Now I am not the best machinist in the world so this again slowed down the process... but... I sure learned a lot about which methods work and don't work for me- i unfortunately learned the hard way by spending alot of time that I didn't have unpicking things! I HATE unpicking lol!

So after weeks and weeks of sweat blood and walking around like a zombie. my collection was finally ready! Here is a snippet of some garments at the drawing stage.

I was so excited when it finally came to us showing our collections on the catwalk. On friday June 3rd, my student friends and i made our way down to The Old Truman Bury quite early in the morning. I was extremely tired as i hadn't had any sleep due to my mum braiding my hair throughout the night. As soon as we got there, it was pretty much go go go! I do love fashion shows but sometimes they can be so stressful!

Dress rehearsal was a blimming nightmare for me... it was quite chaotic and some of the models were having a hissy fit as shoes didn't fit them and they refused to wear them. I was one of these unlucky students. One of my models refused to wear the heels that i had brought as they were ONE size too big for her! I'm not being funny but you are getting paid to do a job so why do they moan so much! They was on the catwalk for probably less than 2 minutes so it wasn't that much of a biggie. Anyhoo after much running up and down and a lot of sweating and to no avail, i shamefully begged the designer before me if my model could wear her shoes and she kindly said yes! Phew! Day saved. I could breathe and kinda relax again! 

Our show was at 3.30pm so all the guests started arriving from around 3pm. By now i had done so much running up and down i thought my legs were going to collapse. all of my family and friends came to support me which was lovely. I was quite nervous and a bit agitated before seeing my garments on the catwalk... i don't know why though as it wasn't exactly my first show!

Our end of year Graduate Fashion Show at Free Range 2011 was a success and people seemed to enjoy it.

Here are some photos from the day:

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

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.

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Final dress design in baby pink jersey... also made a black one!