After 5 months since I moved to London I have decided to make one step further on my career and I enrolled a fashion design course at UAL- University of the Arts London.
It was weird as after many years of using inDesign and other Adobe suite applications, I had to hand draw. Was like a flashback of my first year of school. In the first week after theme research I had to develop it into a fashion design. Through the drawing I had to communicate my idea exploring silhouette, detail and colour. The theme of first collection was the JOURNEY. Fascinated by Arabic culture what could have been my first theme? Obviously, the architecture and the design of Mosques in the Arabic world. After chosen and done the design research, I created a mood board and a colour palette. The mood board is like a collage of images, texture and samples of objects combinations in an unique sheet. This is usually used to give a general idea of a topic or such an inspiration for collections. In the meantime I was keep going to draw my ideas.Another thing that I have done after many years was the collage. I had fun to play with it and I have made a lots of nice design: this is another way to explore our creativity. By the end of the week I had to create the line-up with five or six models from my first sketches, now we can say that the collection is done.
On the second week I explored more deeply drawing styles and techniques in the context of fashion. I learnt how to draw a fashion figure, deconstruct and sketch garments, and seamlessly combine figures with clothing. This week was focus mostly on the hand drawing. The model came so many time and I explored so many way to design a real model: pose, gesture, movements and much more.
The third week is a follow-on from week one. I develop a new collection and this time the theme was someone which is an INSPIRATION for us. I choose FRIDA KAHLO because through her art she found a way to channel the pain which has suffered in her life. I like her art and I like her as woman. She is unique. As the first week I started to do researches, put everything together and made the mood boards. In this week I went to the fabric shop and I bought some for draping them on the mannequins. Was a very creative week. Furthermore I developed the colour board, the fabrics boards, the sketches and eventually I ended-up with the line-up.
In week four I had the chance to develop my ideas and creative skills through the fashion illustration. I studied different methods of illustration and recording work in the context of fashion. I explored so many thing: from watercolours to painting. As last, but not least, I created my own fashion portfolio.
I’ve had a great experience. I wanted to learn more about the fashion design and that is why i selected this program. It has given me so much tools and knowledge that I couldn’t even imagine what I would have learnt. I can now bring this knowledge on my work especially in the cycling field and use these for create future collections.
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