Garment Construction Process
The first part of the process is to test and quickly drape the fabric next to other garments of the collection to see if the it will be cohesive. At the same time, a designer would want to do a sample of what the outcome would look like. The right-hand image is the fabric draped next to the Striped Terry dress. The image to the left is a small sample of the shirring technique that I did to see what the gathers look like. Shirring behaves different depending on what fabric is used, so it was important to determine how much gathering occurred early on in the process.
The next step of the process is to lay out the fabric and begin laying the pattern pieces onto the fabric. This was difficult to achieve with this pattern design, because the dress had a lot of added fullness and was cut into separate pieces that would then be sewn back together. It took a long time to finally fit all of the pieces, but there was just enough fabric to cut them all out. This part of the process may take more or less time depending on the complexity of the garment and how much fabric there is.
Once the pieces are pinned to the fabric, the fabric is then cut out from each individual piece. Because of the amount of pieces, and the complexity of the pieces, this portion of the process also took an extremely long time. The video on the left is a time-lapse of cutting some of the pattern pieces out. The image on the right is the result of about half of the pattern pieces when they were completed.
The most exciting part is next: sewing the fabric together. This is the most rewarding part, as the results are presented as the garment is sewn. The entire sewing process, like the other parts of the process, took hours to complete. All of the curved seams that were created all had to be pressed. The image on the right is a close-up of the gathering shown after the sewing is completed. The video on the left is a time-lapse of me sewing a seam of the garment.
The results speak for themselves. This garment was in line with the target market, matched the color story, and utilized textile and techniques that was conducive to the inspiration.
It was decided that the raw seams would go on the outside of the garment, to create more visual interest and draw attention to the arbitrary, curved seam structure.