Finals

It was a stressful two weeks, but my final projects are finally finished.  They were finally finalized at 1:30 a.m. Monday night/Tuesday morning.

"What does Robin Hood have to do with this?" you ask.

For 20th Century I had to choose one design element from one decade of 20th century fashion and use it to create three contemporary designs, choose fabric swatches for the designs, and illustrate them front and back.  I had to mount a historical picture of the design element I chose, the fabric swatches, and my drawings on a black foam-core board and do an in-class presentation of the whole thing.  I turned this one in yesterday (Tuesday, Dec. 4).

For Illustration I had to draw three original designs in full color (this one was due today).

For History of Costume I had to choose one design element from one period of historic fashion—from 3000 B.C. up until 1970—and use it to create three contemporary designs, choose fabric swatches for the designs, and illustrate them front and back.  I had to mount a historical picture of the design element I chose, the fabric swatches, and my drawings on a black foam-core board and do an in-class presentation of the whole thing.  (Sound familiar?)  This is due tomorrow (Thursday, Dec. 6). There will be a written exam for this class, too.

Now, if I had realized that Janet (my History and 20th-Century teacher) would let me use the same work for both classes I wouldn't have chosen an element from the Middle Ages for my history final; I would have definitely saved myself some time and effort and done 20th-Century for both classes. But I had already started on the Middle Ages project. Oh well.
At least I was able to use my History final for my Illustration class final. Yay!

For 20th-Century I decided to use Jackie Kennedy as my inspiration—partly because it sounded easy, but mostly because I realized that I already had fabrics I could use for the swatches.

 My designs mimic Jackie's style with slim, sheath dresses, and boxy jackets with 3/4-length sleeves.

A creamy silk/linen-blend sheath dress topped by an aqua jacket with beige embroidery.

The same sheath dress paired with a pink jacket. The jacket's hem, sleeves and lapels are trimmed with the cream silk/linen, and edged with self-fringing.

A brown tweed sheath dress with a reversed shawl collar in cream crepe-backed satin.

Janet really liked these; she said if she were a buyer looking for this style, she'd buy the whole line. (!) And she said I had beautiful illustrations. :-)

For my History project I chose dagging as my design element.  Dagging is that squared edge you see on the sleeve of Robin Hood's tunic. ("Aha!" you say.) I did choose an orginal 14th-century source picture, as requested; I won't be showing Errol Flynn to my class.

This guy is wearing a dagged cloak (with a chaperon, which probably also has a liripipe).

I came up with all kinds of great names for my dagging collection:  The Dagged Edge (prounounced like jagged)—or maybe The Dagged Line.  Or how about Well I'll be Dagged! (not prounounced like jagged); or—this one is great!— Dag Nab It!

Well, anyway, here are my designs:

Here we have a blue suede skirt with dagging at the hem, a cream blouse of crepe-backed satin, and an orange silk scarf with dagging on the ends. The shoes and narrow belt are of burgundy leather.



This model wears a tiered blouse in varying shades of orange; each tier is edged with dagging. It is paired with an A-line skirt of a soft brown wool herringbone, and the look is completed by brown leather boots topped with burgundy dagging.



This look begins with a pair of jeans and the cream-colored blouse. A brown leather jacket trimmed with burgundy dagging and an exposed zipper finishes the outfit.

I already showed the dagging collection in my Illustration class today. Tomorrow I present it to my History class, take the written final exam and I am finished!  NO school for a whole month!! Hooray!!!!