France’s new law on ultra- fast fashion.

 “France has passed a law curbing ultra-fast fashion brands by banning advertisements (including paying influencers to promote) and putting a tax on each item sold depending on how environmentally destructive it is.”

I think that this is going to positively affect how many people are exposed to the ultra- fast fashion brands as the advertisements are banned. Whilst it is a good thing that France is taking a step to reduce the use of ultra-fast fashion this does not stop people from accessing it and still being able to buy from these brands. If advertising is banded it will stop influences from showing new clothes and collections from these brands stopping new short lived trends which lead to mass brought fast fashion, effecting the environment. I think adding tax on each item sold depending on how destructive it is will help to stop people from buying from these ultra- fast fashion brands as freely. Adding more tax on should also encourage people to shop at charity shops and second stores making shopping keeping shopping affordable and good for the environment. I think this will help to reduce the amount of  destruction to the environment, however, there are larger countries that need to also take this initiative and more for the impacts to be substantial, for example, America who have one of the largest greenhouse emissions in the world, which fast fashion exploitation and buying contributing to. Overall, I think that this is a good step in the right direction and should encourage behaviour changes in other country’s towards fast fashion and how it effects the environment. 

Week Twenty Nine

 Week Twenty Nine

To start this week after half term our group had a chat and we saw where everyone was at. We had all mainly finished our garments with only small parts to finish. I needed to sew mine and a couple of Amy's three dimensional structures on with hand sewing, I also sewed mine and Liv's labels onto the garments. When putting Liv's design on the mannequin we struggled with the bottom fitting over the shoulders, she was thinking of replacing the zip with a longer one but we then had the thought of unpicking the bottom of the seam up to near the zip to create a split which meant the fabric could stretch and open around the shoulders. This will also be beneficial for our models as it will be easier to get onto them. 

After I finished this I continued to make my diary of makings digitally. 

Overall, It think that my group has worked well together and it was great to work with people I havnt worked with before. I think that our design have worked well together with clear links between them with our 3D structures and the same fabrics. 

In Photography this week, I finished making my tabloid/zine finalising the title and the final few pages layout. I have now ordered this off of Mixam printing which will arrive soon. 

In Stretch this will I finalised my designs by combining designs and colouring them with similar colours to my initial/ developed designs. I think my designs have worked well as they have bright colours trying to keep the mood positive. I also chose to do three separate subjects on my murals to try and relate to more people and  to hopefully interest people. 

In Cad this week I continued to work on my look book and I also made sure my photography zine was accessible on other computers and added it to a usb stick. 

Half Term break.

May half term.

Over the start of the break, I looked around Plymouth Arts University. I really enjoyed the Campus and it felt welcoming with lots of spacious rooms and linking buildings. As this wasn't an open day but an open tour event I didn't learn a lot about the course but I did see a few costumes that students had made an found them very inspiring. This was a student guided tour so it was nice to hear about her perspective and experiences and how they are more than welcome to try different subject and techniques than hat they do as a degree, they are even encouraged with weeks where you try about different areas of creative arts. I was pleasantly surprised with the Plymouth area as well as I have never been but I found the Marina and the Docks a nice place to be. Unfortunately the costume graduation show wasn't full out but I did see the textiles show which looked great and a few fashion garments where displayed in the hallways which where nice too see. 

I also visited the Falmouth open day the next day which I learnt a lot about the course and what they offer. I found it interesting how they focus on the design and making this into costumes. For example, instead of manly making the outfits, lots narrow down on the buying of clothes and then adapting or distressing it to make it suit their design and character. I was surprised by the grounds of this campus as there are large gardens and an old house which I learnt is used a lot as the backgrounds of photoshoots of film. In this course you also work a lot with other students, like film you would help supply the costumes. They also have a very large costume store that gets used for films or television. When visiting I also had a look at their textiles grad show which looked very interesting. 

In half term I made most of my designed garment for the group architecture. I started with making the pleats which went well but was slightly more challenging than the toile as I couldn't draw the fold line the whole way down as I didn't want to stain the white cotton fabric. Sewing this into the trousers went well as I was confident in the angle and how to arrange the pleats so that they create a curved shape which start going in and out from the seam. This time the trousers came together with no problems as I now knew how to sew the pieces together to get the trouser legs facing the right side up. 

When sewing the waistband, I firstly sewed across the waist but I wasn't happy with the result as the line wasn't neat or straight and the side seams created bulk. To fix this I decided to cut the fabric to create a straight line so all of the fabric was the same height. As one of the seam seams was higher than the other, doing this meant they where evened out and the bulk was smaller and less noticeable. As I cut the fabric the amount of extra fabric that we left to fold over was reducing this meant that I couldn't fold this as many times but it was still enough to fold the fabric under making it neater. This also meant that the elastic was slightly too big so I trimmed some of the top and then it fit, this didn't affect the elasticity so this wasn't a problem. I added bias binding to the hem of the trousers which was challenging as the front and the back meet at a point because of the asymmetrical curve. 

When sewing the top together I didn't come across many problems. However, where the thread is held at the top of the machine it would sometimes wrap around that metal stick and causing less thread to go through the machine so the tension was affected, making the fabric bunch up. At some points it was necessary for me to re-sew this so I had to unpick parts of this and re-sew them so the fabric wasn't tight. I think the piping I the seam of the top has turned out well because the zip foot managed to get very close to the piping itself. I think it also looks sleek in the seam as I firstly pinned it the one side of the top and then pinned the seam together entirely so that the piping is securely in the right place bending correctly around the curve of the top. 

To attach the hood and the collar to the zip I sewed them together first. This worked well as it meant they wouldn't move apart when I attach the zip, attaching the zip was simple as all I had to do was simple sew a line near the zip teeth. 

Once I sewed the zip on I thought that the collar and hood fabric went past the zip a bit too much making it look messy and occasionally get caught in the zip teeth. To amend this I decided to trim the fabric down so it wouldn't been seen with the intention of seam neatening again after. This was a problem though as the fabric that was left over was too thin for the machine foot to sit on and sew along, I decided to try different feet for example also a zip foot which still didn't work. As you can't see this it isn't much of an issue but next time I would think about this is advance so this is neat and looks good. As the fabric is shorter it sometimes still catches in the zip but much less and only in certain points.  

In the Half term I also started a new way of writing diary of makings, I started to do the digitally. I arranged the photos and scanned a photo of the brown paper that I use in my sketchbook to be the background of my writing. I think this has worked well as it's a similar format to my book and when scanning the brown paper it has come up a bit lighter which has made the writing on top of it easy to read.