....Reuse and make do....

During world war two england the ministry of information issued everyone with a book called, 'make do and mend'. This was because the country had come onto rations and they were low on materials for clothing and wanted people to reuse what they already had to make new garments. This was offensive to the poorer women of the war as they were already doing this as they couldn't afford to go out and buy new clothes when needed so had no choose but to 'reuse and make do'.

In this time around 1939-1942 they had many styles for dresses such as these above, these consisted of buttons, collars, waistbands/belts, short sleeved and one colour fabric with a patterned fabric. All the dresses at the time went just below the knee and they would have worn plain black shoes with them. 

Hats and purses were also a big accessory during the war. sometimes bows were added if they had enough fabric to do so. 

The main fabrics that they used were floral , green, brown, blue and sometimes red.

Another shortage they had was on stockings so what the women had to do was use gravy browning to colour there legs and then use something to draw the black seam up there legs such as, coal or if they were lucky to have one an eyeliner pencil. However, if they lived in a place where they had American soldiers coming in they were given stockings as, there wasn't a shortage in America.  

The reason why I have been researching the second world war is because, I have been assigned a project to make a dress for a tea dance during the second world war. I have been rationed to use only £3 for this garment as, it has to be a, 'make do and mend' dress,  just like they did in the second world war. So, what I did was I went out to a charity shop and bought floral sheet for £1.50 to make my dress with along with some green fabric I already had at home. 

This image is of my final garment in full colour, with no editing straight from the photo shoot. 

This photograph above is my final garment image that i edited in photoshop. I made the background white; then i cloned the dress next to it and turned it black and white. To finish the image of i wrote make do and mend in green. 

........Use what you've got! You don't always have to buy new......

..........Bows,bows,bows......

The first time that black could be worn outside of a mourning period was in 1926, when Coco Chanel introduced,"the little black dress". The little black dress is a short simple black dress that can be worn for absolutely anything and never goes out of style. 

The reason why I have a little bit Of history on the little black dress on this post is because im now going to explain the project that I just completed of "the little black dress". The brief that i was given explained that I had to research the history of the little black dress; produce mood boards; research designs; design little black dresses and hats to match them. However, for this project I had to make a hat/ head piece as, this project was only two weeks long so I couldn't make both the dress and head piece.

These are a few images on the ideas I had on my hat designs and I used some of these on my mood board. 

The reason why I chose to look at bows is  because I researched the character of dorothy in the Wizard of Oz the 1939 film when bows first became a popular hair piece.

After, all of this I went onto designing then making my head piece. I will get photographs of these asap.

.........Lions and tigers and bears! oh, my!!....

.......Rusty wheels.....

The very first project of my second year , that I have completed was a project titled, "Shape and Structure", this project lasted five weeks. I decided to use the 19th century hoop undergarment in my research as, we as a class in college went on a trip to the Platt hall gallery. While, I was there I saw a hoop undergarment from the 19th century on display.

After, seeing this in the gallery I decided to use this as part of my theme as, it links in well with the title, "Shape and Structure. I gathered more photographs from the internet of hoop underskirts and corsets to create a mood board. Here are a few of them....

Photograph of mood board coming soon....

Rust and wheels was the other theme for this project as I like the shapes and colours made in these. I took many photographs of wheels and tires and rusty things.....

This is a photograph that I took of a rusty wheel then I edited it in photoshop. I edited the image in a way that I could see the shapes bolder that the rust had made within the wheel.

feathered wheel.

When I had completed all my sketchbook work and fashion designs I came to sketch my final fashion design and then went on to make my garment.

This is the front of the top of my dress.

The back of the top of my dress.

This is my final garment from a photo-shoot i did and this image has been edited on photoshop.

This is the photograph before i edited it on photo shop:

Just another hoop skirt picture I adore.

.......hoops,hoops,hoops......

...Piranah...

For my final major project in year one i decided to chose the theme of the Amazon rainforest. So, after researching into the Amazon rainforest and the animals that habitat the Amazon, I choose to base my garment on the Piranah fish as, when I was looking through photographs on the internet of the piranah fish I admire the colours and textures on the fish.

This is me modeling the Piranha inspired garment. 

....Made from old bra pads....

........Recycle.......

This is one of my mood boards for this project.

For the recycle project in year 1 of fashion and clothing, I designed and made a garment that's inspired by Alice in wonderland. I made this garment from crisp bags , scraps of material, bin bags , playing cards, newspaper and paper mache.

Fashion illustration for my final garment front and back.

Final garment.

Alice: "If i had a world of my own everything would be nonsence"

My main inspirations in this project were Salvador Dali and the story of Alice in wonderland.

Photograph of Salvador Dali. The clock work above is one of Salvador Dali's pieces which was one of my inspirations to my work and links in well with Alice in Wonderland obviously becasue its got clocks on the piece just like the white rabbits watch in the Alice in wonderland story. Also, because its surealistic like how Alice is in her own wonderland.

This photograph on the left above is my research page on Salvador Dali taken from my sketchbook.

Front of my dress.

Back of my dress.

........Turning rubbish into something new........

....A little bit about me....

I'm Samantha Marie Reeve and im currently a student at Warrington Collegiate in my second year of the Fashion and Clothing national diploma course. In my first year, the year of 2009, I worked through quite a few projects these will be explained in blogs after this. As, I only just created a blog in my second year, Septmber 2010 I will have to go back over the projects and add them to my blog so that I can show what I have achieved in my first year of fashion and clothing. There are many influences to my work such as: Alexander Mcqueen, Salvador Dali and there are more which I will mention throughout my blogs.