A Trip To London

So yesterday the college had a trip to London to visit the galleries and do some research for our projects. We had the whole of the foundation group with us, from the illustration department to the fashion students.

We met at nine outside the college, and were in London for one, only giving us five hours for exploring, which was unfortunate, especially as we spent four hours traveling there and four hours back!

After having lunch we ended up in the Natural History Museum - pretty, but not really needed for my project - I wanted to have a look in the V&A at the jewellery and clothing, and to see how expensive the 'Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty' exhibiton was, what with him being one of the first reasons I wanted to learn to sew.

He committed suicide on my birthday, and since then I have been fascinated with him. The dramatic clothing, the excessive detailing, how he sometimes models his clothes on mannequins instead of live bodies, and how this adds something to them that's more associated with art than with fashion.

Alterations - The Kilt Gets A Makeover

So a week or so ago I inherited a lovely kilt from my friend Jenny (thank you!) which smells funny and really needs a wash. I think it's a man's as it comes to my knees, so as I'm pretty tall I think this would be he appropriate length for a bloke.

The pleats were sewn down about six inches from the waistband - this was unflattering on a woman's skirt and so I was going to reduce them to roughly my waist to hip measurement - but I got a bit unpicker happy whilst watching the #GBSB and accidentally undid many to the waistband...

The History of Lingerie

So at the moment I'm researching the history of fashion for my foundation diploma, I was halfway through and decided to blog about it as I found it so imformative. The links between lingerie and world history are stronger than you'd think, from metal shortages in the wars influencing underwear to fabric technology innovating the 1920s. 

So we start off with the one of the oldest pieces of women's fashion - the corset. Considered to have been invented somewhere in the 16th century to sculpt the body into the desirable shape of the period the corset was made originally with whale bone, which is why we call 'boning' boning. I could do a whole timeline on the corset and how it changed from era to era, but I've decided to leave that out as it'd be a very long list. I'd like to think this is a brief-ish timeline of women's underwear.

A Big Bag of Goodies - It's Alteration Time!

So today I inherited a bag of old clothes from my lovely friend Jenny! (Thank you!) it was a lovely afternoon and it was nice to spend it with the girls for once.

Seen as we didn't try any of the clothes on at the time - which in hindsight wasn't the best idea - I have an evening of riffling through them and ripping seams, sewing bits on here and there...

It fits in nicely with my grey skirt, which at the moment I still haven't found the right fabric for, but the idea is there of recycling and editing existing clothing to make your own, which is what Toni Sews is all about. 

Anyone else planning on upcycling clothing this week? Tweet me @tartantonaay with your ideas!

Toni