Are you ready for another installment of Flashback Friday? Yes, I am reliving the 80's again this week with some faded and dog-eared pages of my old college fashion design portfolio. (
Tim Gunn, if you're reading this [as though!], please avert your eyes.)
These pages show the 5 outfits that were a part of my Senior Collection. I focused on knitwear and designed my own printed fabric as well as machine knit sweater pieces.
I was very much influenced by something new: computer aided design. I know, right? So very cutting edge back then. We fashion design students had virtually no computer access. During one of my co-op jobs (internship) as part of the fashion program*, I worked in NYC at Liz Claiborne Accessories. I was able to get one of the designers to teach me to use their singular CAD workstation. I scanned some feathers and manipulated the image (above center). Then I turned it into a graphic that I screen printed onto fabric (above left). During the time I worked at Liz, my brother worked at a T shirt co in Brooklyn. One late night he and my other brother and I took over the screen printing shop and printed a bunch of cotton jersey for my school project! The colors available were very limited and printing yardage with small T-shirt screens was a challenge, but we made it work! (What I would've given for
Spoonflower back then!)
Such an over-achiever...at least that's what I am sure my classmates said when I returned to school the next quarter with an armful of some crazy fabric I came up with. I used it in the three garments above: leggings (whoa!) a tunic, and some kind of romper thing(???).
For the sweater knits, we had been taught how to knit on punch card knitting machines. I basically converted the chunky pixels of the screen print to a gridded punch card that went into the knitting machine. The machine was operated by hand (much like a loom) and that is how I create the
masterpieces above. The sweater on the right was sort of a reverse fair isle trapeze tunic. Let's just say, it grew. The whole yoke area was a graduated rib that didn't not support the weight of the body! The outfit on the left...well, it could be cute on a toddler!
It's so surreal looking back. I can't even look at these with my present eyes and decide if this is good bad or ugly (well, I'm pretty sure by today's standards they are fairly hideous). It was simply a chunk of time from half a lifetime ago. When I look at these my mind fills with images of college roommates, late nights in the studio sewing, new wave music, the smell of clove cigarettes, cold pizza for breakfast and all of the things that go hand in hand with being in your twenties.
I loved those college days of design experimentation! I still own a knitting machine (or 2) and would love to have the time to experiment with it again. Maybe someday!
Hope you enjoyed my blast from the past. Happy weekend!
*My degree is from the University of Cincinnati. UC has a co-op program, alternating quarters of study and professional design experience. I highly recommend it!*
Purple and green plus orange: such a beautiful color combination! (via KickiL) I love to encourage people to use whatever colors please them and to make their project their own.
The use of covered buttons on the bird and roof is a nice touch. (via vsk03)
And for the roof this resourceful stitcher (same as above) took her sweater felt to the local scrapbook store and cut it with their Ellison Die Cut machine!
These cuties (via Alexandra408) have all sorts of lovely extra details. Leaf shingles, picket fences, fancy trees, you name it!
And this shy little bird has the sweetest eyelashes. Who knew? :) And the sunflower is a wonderful burst of color on the teal blue house. (via tex-anne)
