Cowls and Such.

Hello to Cowls!

All images found on Pinterest.

Left to Right: 
Dior Haute Couture S/S 2011, unknown, Stephanie Roland A/W 2011
Alexander Wang, Le Spose di Gio, Zang Toi RTW S/S 2013
Rhonda's Blog, unknown, Jason Wu A/W 2014

I had mixed feelings about this class. Still do. I think I have mixed feelings about the idea of draping. Yes, it's so much more visual - you achieve exactly what you want without having to go through sample after sample...
I miss being precise with flat pattern drafting. There's a square box I live in that is exactly 7 feet on all sides. I made it myself. It makes me proud. 

Started off with a 36" x 36" of fabric folded in half to make a triangle. Felt so origami - first step to making a crane. 
Also initially thought that I'll just be cutting a random size of fabric and draping it onto Meredith (draping myths). 

On the right side - which is where the selvage edge should be - we drew in an 18cm line. This marks the waistline.

Did I mention that this is a draped skirt?

(no I didn't)

On the other end, semi-ish circle is put in place at 39cm. This makes the hemline! None of these measurements are set in stone. No measurements are set in stone.

Top top fold is the side seam, and I made dotted lines to mark it.

Going back to the right side and chopped off the 18cm marked line. Made a notch 4cm up from the bottom (C), and another right at the fold line (A). This helps with the first pleat. 

I think another thing I'm trying to get used to is playing. I'm so used to teachers telling me exactly what to do - where there's only one correct answer (and thousands of wrong ones). Design school keeps telling me to play and all I can think is, "what if I'm playing it wrong?"

Here's Meredith in our first step - lining up the side seam and putting the front pleat in place. The fabric shape was a little odd and took me awhile trying to figure out where each end should meet. And of course, the answer to that is play.

It was an impatient day. I felt tired trying to put this together. I was and still am looking forward to next class. We've been told that we are all going to just sit and hand sew all.day. Music to my ears (hopefully in my ears too, while we sew).

Help, why does my cowls look like this?

A tired attempt. I couldn't see what was happening. I haven't played enough at this point to recognize the different things I could do. All I knew was I did this - and it looked like an undergarment from the 1500s. 

Some mega pleating action to see what would happen. A mess happened. That's all. 

Took me awhile to get here. Looked around the class and everyone seemed to be getting pretty, statement cowls and I just didn't know what I was doing wrong. 

Well, I was thinking too technically of course. Trying to keep the pleats in the CF boundary. Higher cowls need the pleats to go further away from them. The larger the pleat, the more depth the cowl will have. 

Also removed the starting pleat. You can do anything you want when you're playing. 

Can you tell it was noon?

Moving on to a more drapey fabric - something more lightweight rather than stiff like the muslin. 

It did look better, but it was harder to work with because of how slippery it was. The imperfections of the cowls (uneven pleating) seemed to be more obvious and it was not fixable by moving the cowl around to sit where you want it to. 

In the second picture, I started pleating from the side seam. I found this much more effective. It was easier to the the pleats to be even on the front and back. 

Went on to draping a side cowl. By this time, I think we all knew how to handle the cowls - but we were still trying to get used to the slippery fabric. 

Not having an arm made things rather interesting for me... drapedrapedrape - oh something cool! But where does the arm go again?

The elastic was put on the waist to hold down the excess fabric to make things less.. messy. I think this is another reason I'm really having to get used to draping. It's messy sometimes, and when things are all over, my head feels the same way. 

This "design" was meant to be a side cowl that would hang off the shoulder. Something like those effortlessly off the shoulder dresses you see that has a good bodice structure so that the dress isn't falling off too. 

Tried some back cowl action. I played with tiny pleats this time instead of large ones. Note that I was focusing more on designing the back instead of the front.

Kinda looks like a mother-of-the-bride dress to me. I think it's the unintentional sleeve...