Experimenting with sleeves

Experimenting with sleeves 

 I feel that this doesn’t look how I thought it would with the fabric on the inside of the arm sagging and not staying at the same height as where the fabric holding up is. To improve this sample I will try and fold up the inside arm more so the weight doesn’t drag it down. 

This gathered sleeve has worked better than the first attempt as how the weight is distributed making it stay more central to the line where the tie is. I think to improve the position of this I need to re-pin how the fabric that holds it in place is sat. I think this would looked better if the fabric was pinned smaller around the pleats so that there is less room for it to move, making the amount of gathers greater.

This sleeve works well to hold up the shape and form of the sleeve whilst being folded. I like how you can see the underside of the sleeve as it shows that the sleeve is obvously folded. 

Whilst this works and looks nice I do like how the gathers look and how the fabric pleats when it is not folded properly.

When I put the mannequin arm through the sleeve it held the shape and weight of the gathers more, which has helped my design making and how I view the sleeve on a real model with an arm through supporting the structure. 

This doesn’t look good as of how the fabric is unevenly pulled to the central point with it twisting. When I do this again I will make sure that the fabric is gathered neat enough to not look rushed or dismissed but loose enough to not look too much like it has been done unorganically. 

This folded cuff holds its shape well within the tie, but it will need to be thinner to fit comfortably inside the fabric piece when it is attached meaning it needs to be positioned lower. I feel that with this folded it looks too plain as it is just a colour block, especially as this will be in a plain coloured fabric so the pleated fabric may add more interest to this sleeve design. 

This is the most successful sleeve so far as the pleats are contained within the fabric strip, away from the tip so it could be sewn. I also like how the the pleats are bigger and of an even size. The fabric of this will be a plain colour so the the pattern wont interrupt the flow of the folds in the fabric.

I have put a toile of a jacket without the sleeves so I can see how it will look with the sleeve and bodice of this outfit. I like how far down the collar and revere comes downs to,as it is accurate to my design and doesn’t come down too far when next to the bodice. 

I like how the position of the sleeve end is just below where the jacket hem is as it breaks up the line at the waist and creates different lengths and dimensions, pulling the viewers attention away from this area and around the garment rather then sticking on the waist. 

I think that this will work well with the waistcoat and sleeves being different colours, making them stand out more rather then blending and looking like a jacket.

Pinning the trousers onto the mannequin helped me to envision my design better, especially with the fabric patterns contrasting the waistcoat sample making it easier to imagine what the final will be. 

I was wondering if the jacket should be slightly tapered outwards to add angles to the garment and I think that this could work well as it would also reveal some of the bodice and the colour beneath it which will help differentiate the the bodice and sleeves from the waistcoat.

I will leave the waistcoat open and not add fixings to close it as I want the underneath bodice to be slightly visible and not completley covered so you can see that the sleeves link to this and not the jacket.