First week we have learnt about branding and how to identify what the brand is saying. We learnt about the 12 branding personality’s which i found really helpful, as it helps you with your branding and gives you half your brand. We then spoke about what motivates us, this was a really useful task, as i always struggle to come up with ideas that i am interested or i can relate to. This really helped me come up with my business idea, as i am really into fashion but wanted to do something that helps reduce waste.

In this project ‘First Person’ I was a bit unsure when I first got the brief as I am a person who has never read a graphic novel and has never really had that much interest as its never been a thing that attracted me, but I was still open minded. A story is something that is really important In fashion, where the idea has come from the story behind things, and this is something I have always struggled with so I thought this would be a great opportunity to help and develop this skill. On the first week when we went to the museum and looked at the photos I was very lost and confused and has no idea what I was going to do, and felt very out my depth, but once we had a group chat about all the pictures and I had gone home and looked at the images and what story I could make up behind these photos I started to see where I could go with all of this. I knew I wanted to do something to do with mental health and stress, but also wanted to relate it back to what I study. So I thought of doing a story of how the design process works in the studio and how you get your final outcome and garment, then I decided against that it wasn’t personal enough for me, so then I thought about a photo I had seen in the museum, which was a women who didn’t look very happy and was very slender and thought she could be a model and not enjoy her life and carrier, so I created a story board and thought to myself this is to basic and boring and quiet dark and gloomy, and I wanted to get my message across but it not be too deep, more light hearted and something you could laugh at while understanding the message. So I gave my character a name which was ‘Polly’ and then really got to know and understand her before I made a story about her, once I understood her I decided to make a ‘Polly’s Pouch’, this was something Polly would carry around with her day to day to help her get through the days, they have things in them such as ‘ Polly’s Dream’ which is a series of picture that Polly wishes she could be, then ‘Polly’s Life’ which is how Polly feels her life is like, then ‘Polly’s book on 8 ways to deal with stress’ which was images on how Polly deals with her stress. I have found this project really helpful with my story writing and will defiantly take it back to the studio and show this is my work in the future. I have learnt that I should stay under my comfort blanket and go out and explore other areas as it can really compliment my work back in the studio.

On week four/five I started to put together my story, I have decided to base my story on a young lady who does modelling and finds her carrier really stressful, so she carries round this pouch with her which helps her get through her day to day life, and gives us an insight and lets us into her life. I then explored how I should visually show this and played around with different types of folding and sizes. I came up with the idea of making the pouch and then doing little graphic novels inside showing how she feels about her life, what she dreams to be and ways of dealing with stress for herself. The idea is to really feel like we connect with the character Polly.

Week three I investigated some graphic novelist such as Andy Weir, I really like his style and felt like it really related to the story line style I wanted to do. Because I study fashion design I wanted to look into a fashion designer who bases there designs on stories, I looked into Renli Su, as all her collections and design are based on stories she has discovered.

On week two, we had lectures on storying telling and how to plan our stories. We also looked at some graphic novels and stories in the library. Once we had finished out lectures and looking at the books in the library, I carried on researching and looking into my story. I decided to base my story on mental health and stress, and ways to deal with them.

In the first week we have investigated finding our stories for our graphic novel. Firstly, we went for a walk through the park to the museum, this was helpful to connect stories with objects. Once we got to the museum, we looked at the photos and took photos of the ones we thought we could use in our story. Once we had finished at the museum, we had a group chat to see what everyone’s thought were about their photos and what their ideas may be. In our next session we all spoke about what our rule was going to be for this project, this was interesting and helpful for me who didn’t know what rule to use. The next thing we did was talk to people from different disciplines and looked at what graphic novels they were interested in and to see the different type of graphic novels there are, this was really helpful for me as I don’t have much knowledge in graphic novels. We then moved on to starting to develop our stories using our pictures from the museum and what interests we have, listening to everyone’s story ideas around me I found very helpful as I was struggling to get going.

I am very pleased with how my shirt/blouse looked when on the model, the sleeves were my main focus was the sleeves and the photographed beautifully. Putting it with a gold long skirt gave it a high end feel, and for the fashion show will be styled with doc martins to give it a festival vibe.

I am very pleased with my outcome, the shirt design was not exactly how i planned it to turn out. Because the fabric was so heavy the neck of the shirt stretched quiet a lot, meaning i had to change the design of the neck, but i am pleased with my design change. Now i have worked with silk i will know how to design and work with it in the future.

Here i experimented with draping on the stand, to find the style arm i was looking for, i was inspired by flamenco dancers. using that inspiration i knew i waned, frilly arms. once i had played around on the stand and found the type of sleeve i liked. Then i made a dress toil to see how i liked it. I realized that the shirt was going to be very small and was going to fit my brand, so made a few alterations, but kept the ruffled sleeves.

While i was in New York i went to a COS shop, to have a look first hand at their clothing and the quality. I also went to the Jim Kempner Fine Art Gallery and found some lovely textures that i may use on my shirt as they fit in well with COS.