Senior design collections: more random things from my closet and other musings...

My last post contained remnants of things I had found as I was cleaning out my storage closet. It's always fun to go through your old things that you can't let go of for one reason or another.

I went back out today and took photo's of things from my senior collection when I went to school for Fashion Design. I designed two final collections my senior year. One was a swimsuit collection based off of vintage silhouettes. The other was a lingerie collection based off of vintage silhouettes as well. When I designed the swimsuit collection, I was inspired by certain designs by Halston. He used these amazing drapes and stuff in his designs. This is a bit of what I came up with:





I tried to have a very cohesive collection, which is something that I struggled with all through college. It's really hard for me to come up with multiple items that appear to go together, but I think I did a really great job with this collection. Here are some flat sketches as well:



I used a lot of vintage trims as well as embroidery on my garments. I made my sister a swimsuit from this collection for her birthday one year and she still wears it to this day.

My other collection was a lingerie collection based off of vintage designs. I unfortunately do not have have any pics from our school models, but I did have my things in a fashion show after graduating and the Chicago Reader was there. They printed an article about our fashion show in the reader and mentioned my designs (Mattie Reid Chicago is my design name):





Here are some flat sketches from my lingerie collection:





One thing that I found quite remarkable about doing both of these collections is that my pattern drafting instructor really did not want me to do either one. Her name was Jacquie DeRosa and she said noone had ever attempted to draft a collection like either one of these. I remember her telling me that we did not have a sloper (pattern base) to start with. I told her I wanted to do these and I knew I had it in me to do so-and I did! It was challenging for me, but if you don't challenge yourself once in awhile, what's the point of living? Give me a break, P-A-L-E-E-Z-E!!!

I still have so much work today. I sent off my samples to The Little Black Box yesterday. This is for their November box. I'm also going to send samples for their December box as well, which I've gotten quite a few made already. I also need to revise all of my prices in my Etsy stores and my own site as well. I'd like to sell some things this holiday season and with the economy being so crappy, I need to lower my prices a bit.