New Designs : Old Ideas

January; a time for sorting, throwing things out, and starting fresh....but isn't it funny the things you find!?

I decided it was finally time to sort through all of my old college and uni work -you cant keep everything so time to be selective. Ah memory lane, all that work! and whats this? my old war project from my first year of college...

Some designs; some samples; a dress and a skirt ...that bears remarkable resemblance to the AW10 pleat skirt I designed!



I remember the original project began with a poem that my sister wrote. It was a reflective poem written from the perspective of a soldier having served through WW2. The pain, the horrors, and most of all the personal sacrifice. I wanted to communicate that juxtaposition of the defiant, hard, determined and austere front that was the national war effort, against the hearts and souls of real people; people that hurt, loved and lost. The real people underneath the shell.

I actually developed the pleat design by re-modeling a heavy, dowdy work skirt that I picked up in a charity shop. I re-fitted it, moved the pleats and darts and embellished the utilitarian fabric with tiny, delicate red silk roses.

Isn't it funny how some things remain in your subconscious. Even though I began at a different point when designing the pleat skirt for Llynfi, I somehow worked my way back toward a design that I loved back when I was 16.

...I wonder what else will resurface