Ok, so here’s where it gets real. In order to complete my design brief for the pattern maker, Liz, I had to be absolutely accurate in my drawings of my garments. Liz also requested photos of me in clothes that were similar to what I wanted, with notes, as references. My initial sketches were useful as guides, but the only way I knew how to do it was to draw them on my own shape – so, as well as the reference photos, I had my husband take photos of me in fitted clothing, and then I used them to trace my actual shape. This was a difficult experience, because it’s hard to face yourself at any time, but as a big girl who has lost the weight twice before, and regained it again, it’s even harder, because I was acknowledging my failure to keep the weight off head-on. Still, I persevered, and came up with these.
You’ll notice that the heads look a bit weird – I didn’t take too much time over them, because my focus was on the body shape – but as you’ll see later, the head actually makes quite a difference to the way the clothes look on the body. The guesstimated heads also emphasise my bad posture, and make me look a great deal more glum and slumped than I actually was.
Still, I worked my way through it, using the shape to show realistically where I wanted each garment to sit on my body, so that Liz knew which measurements she would need, and have a diagram to show me exactly where to take them.
Still, I worked my way through it, using the shape to show realistically where I wanted each garment to sit on my body, so that Liz knew which measurements she would need, and have a diagram to show me exactly where to take them.
Next, I used the garment designs to ‘test’ my fabric designs. This is around about when the head started looking pretty weird, especially in profile.
I decided to add my hair back in, and used unnatural colours, because that’s definitely a quirk I like to work 🙂
The upshot of this was that I suddenly absolutely loved the whole look – and I had so much fun playing with the little ‘me’ figures that I realised, this was a great fabric design opportunity!
The thing is, these poses were deliberately boring – they were designed for technical drawings of garments. For a fabric, I thought something more dynamic would be good – and then I realised, what I needed was both technical (aka boring) AND dynamic photos of all the shapes! I could then use them to work out good fits for each shape at a design level, using the ‘technical’ poses, and then test the design on the dynamic poses – and then I would use those fun, dynamic poses to make fabric designs!
So now, I’m looking for some quintessential versions of each of my shapes, in some really dynamic poses.
So now, I’m looking for some quintessential versions of each of my shapes, in some really dynamic poses.
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