Fashion Exhibitions

  

Fashion exhibitions are a great place to practise your illustration skills and learn about garment construction. I created the illustration above in response to a Christopher Kane exhibit I saw last month; more of that later.
Sadly, one of the most compelling fashion exhibition’s closed this month, the V and A’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty exhibition. Unsurprisingly, it became the museum’s best attended exhibition: 493,043 people visited during its 21 week run, a record breaking number of visitors. Don’t despair, there are many great fashion exhibitions that are well worth a visit.
The Museum at FIT is running Global Fashion Capitals until November 14, 2015. As the title suggests, the exhibition explores the global contribution that each fashion capital has made; how each city’s cultural identity and particular economic, political, and social circumstances combine to elevate its designers to international attention. On show are histories of the established fashion capitals—Paris, New York, Milan, and London—and the emergence of 16 new fashion cities.
Best of all, The Global Fashion Capitals exhibition features classic designers, like Christian Dior, alongside contemporary designers, like Christian Kane. If you’ve got time this summer, why not escape reality and spend the day sketching or mentally deconstructing some inspiring creations?

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Inserting a Concealed Zipper

Inserting a zipper into lightweight fabric can be a daunting affair, even for experienced seamstresses. Still worse, inserting a concealed zipper, surely this must feature in the top 10 most formidable sewing tasks. The closure might pucker, the zipper might get caught, little gaps in the closure may appear betraying the zipper underneath. At university, these fears were enough to give me nightmares and caused me to avoid many beautiful lightweight fabrics. Yet there is a really simple trick that will ensure perfect results every time: the humble fell stitch. To learn more about this super technique visit Muse Attire’s main page.

Make Your Own Midori

Midoris are amazing, best of all you can make your own! It took me a morning to finish mine and cost nothing as I used up lots of leftovers. The end result is so user-friendly. I can fill it with whatever I like, this is especially good for art lovers as you can include your favourite artist’s papers.

Supplies to make A5 size:

Material 46cm x 62cm
Medium to heavy weight fusible interfacing 46cm x 62cm
5 eyelets
Elastic cord 1.5 meters
Notebook made from folded A4 card and paper.

Six steps to create your midori:

1. Cut the outside and inside cover with an additional centimetre all the way around, iron on your interfacing;

2. Place wrong sides together, stitch along the half way point, this will mark the spine;

3. Zigzag the outside edges together;

4. Set eyelets along the spine: 2 at the top, 2 at the bottom and 1 in the middle;

5. Thread the elastic cord through the eyelets at the top and bottom of the spine. Tie inside. Using the middle eyelet, create the band to close your Midori.

6. To make notebooks, fold your chosen papers in half and slide into place.