There comes a time in every fashion designers life where they take their first pair of needles, their first ball of yarn and learn to knit.
My first knitting experience occurred during the autumn of ’11, something I doubt I’ll ever forget. Our Design Brief was “padded sheath“ with a Winter white colour palette and highlights of light grey, flesh or baby yellow tones. This had to be designed in relation to our researched non-western culture.
Hours and hour of research go into the history factor within design. It is important you know what comes from where, and especially how it got there! During my research I decided to choose home, none other than the indigenous aborigines of Australia. In particular I looked at the aborigines of the Arnhem Land, Their art, their history, what their story was, and what they were trying to tell us. Within my research I found that these particular inhabitants had a certain style of art known as Rarrk. Rarrk was the style of cross hatching within their art, usually characterised by a number of parallel lines, and a repeated pattern of different diagonal segments. I gained inspiration from this for my Jacket and Skirt.
So now I knew directly where my inspiration was coming from and exactly what my boundaries for colour and concept were. I adopted the style of rarrk and combined it with the padded sheath theme, and innovative sleeve ideas for my jacket. It took 4 weeks to come up with a complete look for this brief as it was my first time dealing with hand-knitting, padding and wadding. But we all know what that meant – another 4 weeks, to master knitting and finish the garment, as well as doing other assessments like my portfolios and attending other classes and their assessments. Monday through to Saturday I was at college. Waking up at 5.30, getting on a bus for 2 hours with the m2 traffic, being at college all day, coming home and being so exhausted – like never before. I would work on Sundays – a Full shift from nine till six to make up for the days I couldn’t work and sometimes I’d even pull a long 7 till 6 when asked.
I never complained, always did my work, put in my best efforts, sucked up any pain and just gave it all I had, because I had it in me. It was like a live wire, and it still exists. Its this crazy passion that motivates me and fuels my determination. I experienced 8 weeks of a rollercoaster, with my cousin flying in from Los Angeles for 6 weeks, as well as crazy deadlines every week, full time-no rest weeks, playing the role of student and tourist guide was a constant ride. Sometimes I wanted to break down on the ground and just cry and scream for hours to relieve me of all the built up pressure. You get tired with such intense hours, expectations and deadlines. You don’t get a break, no one feels sorry for you, there are no excuses, and you either work till you finish it or you die trying to. This is what you chose not the other way around !
It was my cousin who kept me strong though, her positive attitude and the fact that she was not from here, made me build a wall of strength for myself to lean up against. I honestly don’t know how i did it, but i got through it. It was the greatest pleasure having her and I loved every bit of it. Family is one my first priorities, Cousins from overseas really brighten up your day. It’s different when you live in Australia far far away from them all ! You really start to appreciate things people normally wouldn’t !
Life throws unexpected challenges your way and you just have to deal with it.
What i was yet to learn though was that there was something more to it all – this wasn’t the end – there was no happy vacation for me yet ! If anything this was just the beginning !
Monday – 2 days before Marking and shoot day Wednesday 29th June 2011. 7:30 pm I had reached the final stages of my garment but the design wasn’t going to work and it had to be changed – There was absolutely no way The original padded Skirt layers were going to stay on and work with the knitted skirt. What the hell was I going to do ? An absolute disaster. With only one full day Left to work on it – and that day being a Tuesday which I had a different class and assessment due – what was I going to do ? Luckily my Mentor and I sat down and Re-worked my design and my options. I had picked up crocheting throughout the term break and that is what I decided to use to portray the rarrk on the skirt. There was no other way of working an idea in such short period of time ! Eventually the process of this conceptual knitwear craze would be completed and all I’d have to worry about would be presentation for marking day and the shoot.
I had The Pleasure of having my beautiful Friend AND beautiful Model Marnee present it – The most amazingly kind hearted person I have ever met ! My Best friends Melina Bloc ( a very talented music artist) as the hair stylist and Yasmine Parker ( my lovely besty who captures the finest of moments) from 000 photography taking my shots. My cousin Nicole assisted with the makeup and together my friends and I had a blast !! It was a great day, Marnee was fantastic and patient as was everyone else ! Over 500 shots were taken in just over an hour and they all came out so great !
Watch the video and let me know what you think of it – as well as the Collaged Photos !!!!
Knitwear drove me insane, in fact knitwear made me sick – so sick that I had to have an operation.
To be continued … 2011 – Health – The Emotional Aspect.
RHYversusWORLD
Music – one word, one syllable, many things.
It drives us, inspires us, calms us, motivates us, revives us and defines us.
Music has always played a big part in my life. I’ve always listened to a mixture of things from RNB, hip hop and rap right through to house/electric dance and rock.
I’m really feeling RNB right now and the beautiful beats combined with lyrics that make you take a deep breath and go WOW, not only can I rap to this but I can really FEEL parts of the lyrics have already come alive within my life.
It’s a short story; add the sound minus the visual.
During winter, I always tend to slip myself back into some good RNB. I feel like it has a way of describing my mood very well. Laid back and chill like the weather, the moods and emotions in the atmosphere are just that little bit more realistic with the music in the background.
As we all know I study fashion design and my May to July/August playlist has been dominated by RNB artists such as Drake, Dj Khaled, Lil Wayne, and some Tyga.
However a new favourite of mine is Wiz Khalifa. Checkout my playlist below and if you like any of the songs you can listen to and download them at www.mp3skull.com
1. Drake – I get lonely too
2. Drake – dreams money can buy
3. Drake – Miss me
4. Drake – find your love
5. Dj Khaled ft drake ft Lil Wayne – I’m on one.
6. Drake – Baby come with me
7. Francisco ft Drake, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne – forever
8. Drake – Marvin’s room
9. Drake – trust issues
10. Tyga – Lap Dance
11. Tyga ft Chris brown – holla at me
12. Tyga ft new boyz – crickets.
13. Wiz Khalifa – Chewy
14. Wiz Khalifa – The thrill
15. Wiz Khalifa – The race
16. Wiz Khalifa – Never been
17. Wiz Khalifa ft YC – Racks
18. Wiz Khalifa – in the cut
19. Wiz Khalifa – the statement
Happy Hearing and Stay in tune for my Conceptual Knitwear blog
xxxxx
As we all know by now I am studying a bachelor of Fashion Design!
Sorry that this blog is a little late but I have been quite busy trying to get my head around 2010 SWIMWEAR – an awesome experience…with stress and panic by my side J
Textile and technology class one – Headed to class knowing I had swimwear this term.
Little did I know that for once in my student life I would have a finalised swimwear design along with the fabrication and accessory piece to go with bit within the last hours of the class? Think that’s easy? The hard part is over? I must say… I did. Everyone who knows me, knows for a fact that somehow no matter how easy the design brief may be, I always seem to end up having designed the most complicated garment that I myself from paper think is easy to do.
By the end of the first class I wasn’t freaking out at all, I had two of my most favourite teachers as my lecturer and mentor, I was all sweet right?
Pattern making for swimwear and stretch fabrics class one – I’m enjoying all these brilliant new skills we are all picking up so quickly. Working with stretch wear is pretty awesome! Not freaked out at all yet…
Textile and technology class four along with pattern making class four – portfolios for 3 assessments for T and T and patternmaking your final swimwear design… all of a sudden BAM – I’m freaking out !!
What was going through my head …? Exactly this: “Swimwear – holy crap – I have to make this thing… I actually HAVE TO MAKE THIS THING… swimwear Rhaya they said swimwear not fricken whatever the hell it is I have drawn – the hardest thing on this planet right now!! HELLOO ANYONE SEE MEEE FREAKING OUTTTT OVER HEREEE…. Heeelpppppppppppp” at least at this stage the only lovely part was that my classmates no matter how grounded they seemed they were all thinking the SAME THING!
And Yes I was going through the biggest freak out of all time. My design was super hard, had all these bits and pieces that would stretch and become completely different measurements within a span of 5 minutes of handling, I’d never handled stretch fabrics before, the colours for the brief where nowhere to be found (hello to trying to dye the fabric), the budget was getting out of control and on top of all this I was producing sample after sample after sample and no improvements. There it was… Mister Easy just vanished – that easily!
Two more weeks left to marking trying to juggle this with the 6 other assessments that I had within that period, I had made over 3 samples. I was constantly fixing the neckline, adjusting the crotch area, taking out so much space and every single time just when you think you’ve figured it out and they are the magic patterns for your magical piece, something… ONE THING! GOES WRONG! … ALWAYS! Hahaha !
I had driven myself mad staring at 1 of 1 of 1 or 2 of 3 of 3 pattern pieces and white Lycra. Absolute madness. I had had enough, I grabbed some tracing paper, took my mannequin into the next room, took a deep breath and thought why not start on a “blank canvas”. I started placing the paper on the mannequin, pinning it and simply chopping the pieces out. Within 15 minutes my mannequin was covered in my paper swimwear design with all the different bits and pieces that it needed. Once again, another set of pattern pieces. I went with my gut, took each piece, re-cut it and re sampled it. Voila! I was so close, much closer than I had been the past few weeks!
So the patternmaking part was over, my toile was done and now it was down to dying it, just one more week left. How hard can dying each individual piece and sewing it all together be? Not that hard right? That’s if EVERYTHING GOES TO PLAN… WHICH IS DOESN’T!
Now try finding dye… FOR Lycra … for those of you who have ever tried this one at home would know just how difficult it is when you are trying to dye your fabric in a difficult shade and the only thing stores carry for stretch fabrics are basic colours you somehow have to work around.
Sampling for colours was a complete headache. First I had to try and get the colour right by sampling tiny little pieces of Lycra, and then I had to remember and write down how I achieved that exact colour. Everything with dying is precise; a pinch more gives you a completely different shade! That took me another two days. Finally I dyed all my pieces, sewed the front, and came to sew the back when I realised that I was missing a piece. Quickly I ran and got my calico, came to cut the piece and because I was exhausted somehow I missed the fact that my swimwear was sitting underneath my Lycra and CHOP! My Scissors made a thick noise (pauses and questions self) that didn’t sound right did it ?…( looks at the different layers of fabric she has just cut and SCREAMSSS !!!!!!!!!!)
I had chopped right into the lower half of my swimwear garment!
Was I ever going to finish?
I was under so much stress; I had to re-cut, re-dye, re-blow dry, and re-sew the complete bottom halves of my swimwear. Finally after all that was done it was time for the swimwear lining to go in before I could punch in the holes for the lacing!
So I sew in the lining – “perfect its coming together”.
I’m even more exhausted and guess what happens while I am ironing the lining – yep, you betcha, I burn a pretty hole in it!
At this stage I was so fed up I just left the hole and hand sewed it in reverse so it wasn’t visible from the outside. I swear if anything was to go wrong while punching In the eyelets I would have hung myself with the remaining 3 metres of Lycra that was staring back at me every time I did something wrong !
Marking day is tomorrow, the eyelets go in, my portfolios are done along with the assessments from my other classes, and the swimwear is laced and ready to go.
Anything wrong?
Marking day
Swimwear stretches right? The lacing? Cotton lacing? Not so much.
So I’m trying to put the garment on the model to get her ready for the marking and we just couldn’t get it on, we had to oil the pour girl and squeeze her into it! Finally we get her into it, I try and pull the laces so it’s not so suffocating and the first thing that comes out of the panels mouth is …
Why is the garment green?
Green? I asked myself … Of all the things front of him green was one of the first words to come out of his mouth!? The garment wasn’t green! Was the panel marker joking around with me? He looked pretty dam serious! I took another look at my swimwear and just couldn’t understand. Apparently he thought it looked green when clearly it was light beige, and demanded I get my swimwear professionally dyed!
When I heard professionally and dyed in the same sentence I automatically thought oh helllll noo – Rhaya will NOT BE SEWING THIS GARMENT TOGETHER AGAIN!
Lucky for me, (yes for once mister Lucky shoes up) he chose which pieces were to be what colour, he loved the fit of the swimwear, the design and idea behind it and so I just had to unpick bits and pieces and sew them back on after they were dyed. Nothing too hard, thank god!
Dyeing in Sydney costs a lot – that was expected, I got it back, sewed it back up, relaced it and voila it was finally done?
Well not quite. My life is just filled with lovely little dramas, it’s never boring. Oh no… Never!
Day of the Runway
The day of the runway came, they unloaded the trucks, it was rehearsal time just a few hours before the show and my garment is up! Whoever unloaded that truck somehow tangled all my lacing – it was a mission to get on, along with her leg pieces and arm piece that I had also made. It was even harder to get off considering our model was one of the fastest changes in the show!
Rehearsals over and everyone else is resting before the main event starts and there I am struggling to lace this thing up again, praying that it just works. For the last time, I laced it; put it back on the hanger where it was supposed to go for that model. I Walked away to the bathroom and didn’t look back until I had to come back for the show to start.
I cannot explain the amount of stress that I had gone through for this piece. This beautiful beige piece! I must admit it is one of my favourites considering just how much work went into it.
Everyone loved it, the show went smoothly, and I was relieved!
Happy summer holidays right?
Summer was hot, and so was I 
Hope you all like my swimwear creation – the brief was Wrapped Bandage, colour palette of nudes, beige’s and a highlight of burnt orange.
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RHYversusWORLD
RHYversusWORLD | The Life of Rhy 