In December we had three weeks of "orientation courses" (we could choose a course to see if we would like to study that subject) and I spent 9 days in "fashion photography". We spent the first 4.5 days reworking an existing garment into something new (pants into top, blouse into dress etc.), and the next 4.5 days building photo-backgrounds and taking pictures (with the teachers amazingly expensive awesome camera and lighting equipment!) of our garments. It was super stressful (mostly the last 4.5 days, because I actually only had 3 days to prepare my shoot, because I was one of the first to photograph so I had to be done earlier) but so much fun! And I'm so happy about the pictures!!!

But first a bit more about the garment I made:

I took an old mens jacket and turned it into a skirt. You can still clearly see the lapels, I found them the most interesting design aspect of the jacket. I ripped out the sleeves and sewed the armholes shut horizontally, to exaggerate the hips. I opened a sleeve used it as the rest of the front opening. It took a little longer than you'd think, because the placket on the sleeve was fake. I had to rip out the buttons, open the sleeve and sew actual buttonholes, but it was worth it! I made the folds by draping the fabric on the mannequin (really annoying, slippery, plastic mannequins...), basting them shut by hand and then sewing them by hand from the inside so the stitches wouldn't show. I did so much hand sewing on this as we had quite a lot of time and it gave me more control.

I actually had a bit of trouble getting started, because I really dislike altering existing clothes and I'm so used to making patterns. I've also gotten used to wanting to make everything "perfect" and washable with clean seam finishes. But the teacher really wanted us to take inspiration from the existing garment and use the mannequin to work in 3D. I was really frustrated at first cause I had chosen a men's shirt and it was not inspiring me at all. I'm so glad I switched to the jacket, I feel like the course really helped me think outside the box a little and let go of the "perfect sewing" aspect in favor of just experimenting.

I made a matching bustier but used another one for the shoot to make the outfit less soft.

For the pictures I wanted to create a stylized, dramatic office environment, because I can see the skirt being worn in a modern theater play version of Snow White, where the step-mother is the CEO of her dead husbands company and terrorizes everyone who works for her. And so we build white walls from cardboard, wood and hot glue. It sounds easy but it was really stressfull to make cardboard look like a wall...

My gorgeous friend Vicki modeled for me, she did such a great job :) I love photographing people who can act! She agreed to be my model for the garments I'm working on at the moment, so excited! It was quite a challenge managing this shoot because of my six other friends who sat still for an hour even though they all had to rush off afterwards (4 people cancelled or tried to cancel like two hours before the shoot, it was a little nerve-wrecking...), I had help from the teacher who checked every photo for small details like if someones head was covering someone elses, plus his assistant who was in charge of lighting. It was definitely a good experience, and I feel like my theater background helped me deal with the situation (even though I was soo hyper and stressed...).

Again, sorry for being a lame blogger, in January I was busy working on an installation, I'll share pictures soon (and a little table DIY)!