Woollen Mermaids

The exhibition has opened and is fantastic!  Of course the sub-theme that is closest to my heart is the Woollen Mermaids. I first started scoping this concept back in 2006, and in part I was driven by the desire to articulate how Annette Kellerman and the swimsuit have contributed to Australian national identity  - and in turn  how Australia has influenced the design direction of the swimsuit to create a distinctly Australian niche in global fashion. Kellerman is remembered for popularising the swimsuit in the early 1900s, however her contribution stretches beyond this, as she achieved success across a number of related fields – in fashion, film, sport and as a role-model for women, encouraging self-motivation and self-development. By drawing on her as muse for a contemporary swimsuit collection by Australia’s leading swimwear designers and the talented second-year students at QUT,  I was threading the past into the present to both celebrate and memorialise Kellerman’s achievements and give it new meaning and currency.

Kellerman drew on mermaidenry and the magic of fairy tales to create a charismatic persona clothed in the swimsuit, although in reality these were woolly and uncomfortable. Woollen Mermaids is a modern fairy tale at a time when swimsuits have a fashion edge – glamorous, exotic,  and designed in body-hugging fine wool/lycra.

Happy endings  - I love them – and Woollen Mermaids is just that!

christine xx

the end

For my final concept presentation I did an animation based on three of my swimsuit designs, I was really happy with the end product, and I think it was worth the 4 days with no sleep…! Haha (but seriously).

Anyway, enjoy, “in bloom” a 09/10 swimwear collection by Ana Diaz:

xx

The final swimsuit

three

two

one

The finished swimsuit!

Ready steady sew!

So I was wrong thinking that wool would be easy to sew with. Think again. I don’t believe I’ve ever unpicked a swimsuit so much….though it was all worth it in the end.

The 'QUT Unpickers' group

Just starting to piece together the top half of my swimsuit

I had to slightly enlarge the bra cups so they would fit appropriately to a size ten model

the bra cups that took me five hours to do. joy.

And…..here it is

My first- and final post.

We were given the whole summer holidays to ponder on a woollen mermaids swimwear concept… Unlike my fellow classmates I wasn’t in fabulous London or somewhere exotic …… But in T-bar (Toowoomba) where I had ample time to research and create a concept, due to the fact that there is nothing to do there.

3 Months Later– Suddenly I’m back at uni with no set in stone concept… I have a serious procrastination problem.. A complete reoffender!!

However over the holidays I did reignite the flame between movies and myself… I became a serious cinephile.. And LOVED IT!

Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 epic film Romeo and Juliet’s artistic direction was a huge inspiration for me visually. This original inspiration led me to South American Christian culture and their colourful shrines. I watched numerous movies on Oscar Romero and paid close attention to the places of worship in these realistic adaptations of Mexican culture.

To sum it up they were. Colour. Colour. Colour. Jesus. Colour

I looked into trends and fell in love with Trash and Vaudeville..

I love the concept within fashion that if something is so wrong… its strangely fashionably right

Slightly off.. is what Eurotrash Catholicism (my concept) IS>

New Age Catholicism attracts church goers with seedy neon tube lights and  fluorescent Jesus’

I wanted to approach my swimsuit in a similar way to this new take on catholicism… Deconstruct the image of standard swimwear and play with traditional conceptions.

Those saggy buns are history.. a bra for your bum. Playing with traditional swimwear ..

Other Designs

 

 

 

Sample stage- the fit was horrible . I found stretch very interesting to work with! Initially i was going to have a cape over the breasts. But it didnt have the desired effect. So I opted for Gernreich style, which coincidentally works with my eurotrash concept of challenging what western cultuere deems acceptable.

Toile Stage

 

Overall the woollen Mermaids swimwear brief was a really great learning experience, working with stretch and thanks to Jillian I have learnt invaluable skills about fabric handling and special swimwear techniques.

illustration

Just finalising my illustrations and my powerpoint for Thursdays final design presentation

Here are my final illustrations utilising my hand drawings and work in Adobe Illustrator

 

Designs in review

Making a prototype of the swimsuit was useful to discover any mistakes and reflect on the overall design and fit. The week before we embarked on our easter break, we all had a look at our designs on a professional size ten model….

Size ten model wearing my swimsuit.

I wasn’t too sure about the pom-poms on the shoulders. I was scared it was going to look too ‘crafty’. However,  using different material to the traditional yarn-made ones created a look far from ‘crafty’. There was the option of cutting lots of circles in the same fabric and making them sit up with starching spray, but, I tried this, and it didn’t work. Woollen pom-poms were the gooooooo. I also figured that the bra cups were hideously small, so these needed to be enlarged by at least one centimetre.

Side view of swimsuit

I was pretty happy how the ruching came out. Though I had to be mindful of the gathers bringing the swimsuit in too much. When the model tried the swimsuit on, it was really tight around the bottom and loose up the top. To fix this, I needed to expand the ruching pattern pieces by one centimetre on each side. For the top seam at the back, it needed to drop by one or two centimetres. I wasn’t really keen on the bra tassels. It was hiding too much of the design, so it was out with the tassels and in with the simple.

Back view

Overall, I was pretty happy with the outcome of my first swimsuit draft. Not much had to be changed for the final piece. Just a few tweaks within the swimsuit back, bra cups and the tassels were removed. I was on the home straight…

My “swim or sink” journey

Just like any other studio members, my swimwear production was a heck of journey.

Here is my

Tale of the ” Swim or Sink”    LOL

 

My inspiration for swimwear was ‘sustainability’. Each garments was designed with elements that you see in daily clothes (such as hood and sleeves) to encourage people to wear it as daily wear too. The details of the swimwear was inspired by Maori’s indigenes clothes (straw skirts and sleeves) and tattoo (know as “Ta Moko”).

 Below is the design that I chose to produce.

     

I wanted to make it as simple as possible…. but who said ‘simple is easy’? No one… that right, NO ONE for a good reason … ha ha ha…

The fist step was to use boy-leg swimwear pattern and simply cut deep on the collar and back, and cut out the opening on each side of the hips (as you can see in the design above). Also, I straight away inserted the tattoo effect on the bodice by engraving rope between facing and lining fabric.

Tattoo effect come out fabulous! It came out much easier and neater look than I though J

BUT! The swimwear itself was a disaster….   

 Yah… it would be too good to be true if it came out at once lol.

 Here is the list of problem areas I had to work on:

 -         loose shoulder

-         loose around armhole

-         no support on bust (in other words, too “sexy” lol)

-         too tight on crotch

 

So, I did…

-         cut 4cm off the shoulder

-         add 2cm across front neck line

-         move shoulder line 3cm toward the neck

-         add 1cm on crotch

-         move side line 2cm toward the back

 

And here is the problems that was solved

-         shoulder

-         armhole

-         bust area

 

Pretty good!!

 

BUT!

here is the new problem arise

 

……. UMMMMMMMMMMMMMM :(

 

 Possible cause were

 -         elastic around the back collar is too tight

-         too low cut

-         the back bodice is too short

  Now, this problem on the back was a real pain….

 I tried to add few centimeters on the back, rise the cut on the back, change elastic, add dart on the center back, made variation after variation of the garments ( I think I made at least four of them)…..

 

And…..

 

 

NOTHING!

Really felt like crying… lol

 

And when I was about to give up, the advise I did expected

“Why don’t you use the second pattern (the pattern with the most modest change) and just rise the cut of back”

“………………………..ok.”

 My honest though:

‘Well…. if this goes right it would mean that all the time I spent on other samples would be wasted…but…. better than been stuck.’

 And….

 

  

Seventh heaven!

I seriously though I wouldn’t make it this time

 THANK YOU!

 

I started to make the new garments out of wool fabric.

 

And …..

Seventh hell…

Oh….. My…………………

I used the same pattern as the good sample, paid extra attention to not stretch the fabric when I was sawing, and yet….

 BACK TO START

Love of whoever it is….. why……

 

Took me two days to recover from the damage….

I didn’t have enough fabric to remake, didn’t know what was wrong and I seriously panic!

 I’m not good with flat pattern so I didn’t want to touch it anymore.

So I though

‘Well, it can get worst than this. I will pick one mannequin and I’m gonna fix these problems on it.’

 

And here is what I did

 -         took further 4.5 cm from shoulder

-         took further 4 cm from front bodice

-         add bridge to support bust area

-         re-elasticated the collar

  

And who knew! It worked!

 

 The next, and hopefully the last, thing I had to make was the giant hood.

I started to look at a pattern making book to make the hood. But no matter how I saw it, I couldn’t make the pattern from the flat paper. So I made the hood on the mannequin. I felt like I proved to myself that I’m better designing clothes from the mannequin. I think I had a rather strong perception that the garment should be made on flat pattern. But now that I think of it, it’s quite a silly misunderstanding.

 ‘You learn something new everyday’ LOL.

 

Anyhow, the hood that came out was so funny….  

 It looked like a giant tooth! lol

 I used this hood as a base to make actual hood made out of cords.I didn’t really want to make it looking too geometric, so I drew guidelines however I wanted without ruler. After that, I laid cords on top of the guidelines and stitched together.

 Once I attached the hood, the swimwear was done!

 

 Felt SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!

 Come out looking like this

 

 There’re only few changes:

-         tattoo on both sides

-         bridges across bust area

-         round cut on the front neck, instead of sharp “V”

 

If I could change any other thing, I might try to insert elastic in the cords of the hood because it didn’t come out as straight as I wanted.

 

I’m sorry that I have no photographs at this stage. I did take few photos along the process but the transmitting cord for my camera snapped while I was carrying it around, so I don’t have access to the photos. And I don’t have final garment with me to take new photos because I already submitted it. I guess I had a little short in luck for this project, ha ha ha. I putted my transmitting cord to fix so hopefully I can get some photos in few days…

I hope my illustrations made a little bit more interesting and easier to understand the process for you.

 

Anyway, that it! Thank you for reading this far!

Final Artwork

Cut Cut Paste

Making the patterns for the swimsuit wasn’t as bad as I thought. Altogether, there were eight pieces to form the ‘Seaweed Pom-Pom Swimsuit’. It was quite the opposite of pattern making for woven material. It was satisfying how it all came together so easily. If I were one inch out, the stretch would compensate…

Ruching pattern pieces for centre back

Cutting out cotton jersey with the patterns

We were all required to use two meters of black wool fabric. This was only part of the challenge, as little did we know how machine dependent swimsuits were and how fragile wool is…. (Unpicking was a disaster!)

I was thankful I constructed two prototypes of the swimsuit, one in fluro Lycra (thanks to Max’s fabric donation) and another in black cotton jersey. The nature of these fabrics handled very differently to the wool. The Lycra sewed with ease and the jersey created a lot of bulk. Especially when I was sewing gathers into the centre back.

Detailing: For the side flaps, I experimented with interfacing and foam. I decided the interfacing was too sharp around the edges of the flaps and side seams. It also didn’t sit right on the body. The foam was a winner as it was easy to sew with and it created a nice texture when I sewed onto it…

Toile number one using interfacing in the side flaps

Final piece using foam in the side flaps.

Pom Poms: I tore a leaf out of an old craft book on how to make pom-poms. I used wool yarn, which gave the pom-poms a traditional look. I wasn’t a fan of the wool, so I moved onto plain, black ribbon. For the final piece, the plan was to cut as many 1cm wide strips out of the provided wool. The ribbon was a good substitute for the toile….

Black ribbon is winded around the hole and circumference of the cardboard circles. Once the circles are filled with ribbon, it is then cut to create a pom-pom.

The outcome?

POM POMS

AND MORE POM POMS