Assistant assignment in Aurelia project

Our two year students are doing a traditional fashion project "Aurelia". The shows theme is Finnish stories and every designer makes their own collection based on theme and they produce three ensembles. Our task as first year students is to assist them.

With my designer, Anni I undertook a job of a patternmaker as I have a Vocational qualification of a seamstress and year lasting studies on tailoring. Anni's inspiration came from sea and she wanted draped siffon, illusion of falling water, effortless looking and simple lines. Little details of the cloths are from cord that indicates sailor rope. I brought my designers vision to life really successfully and it surprises me how well I lead the production process.

Here's a showstopper from the collection "Ahtinna Kolea", Designed by Anni Koskilahti. These photos are from the first show from Matkus shopping center. Model: Tytti Saari, Photographer: Tytti Lakso, Makeup by Make up Store, Hairdo by Alex T. and Shoes by Din sko.

Funny little detail: The braids are fastened by reef knot

Underneath of all the layers

Visual Arts class

Here are some of my first year Visual Arts class croquis. These croquis are very long, (about 1,5 to 3 hours) and the purpose was to capture shapes of the body on two-dimensional drawing and concentrate on light and shadows.

This is the first drawing made ​​with charcoal. As you can see, I have mostly concentrated to get the dimensions right and outlining the model. The shadings are really dim and soft as it is a little challenging for me to create rough lines, but I am working on that!

This drawing was made from torso made with charcoal. Here the purpose was to really concentrate on light and shadows by using rough lines.This was a real learning experience for me to forget light shading and really work that charcoal on the paper! Although my light drawing hand can be seen here also.

So this drawing is from a male model made with wax colours. It is surprising that male figure is harder to draw than a woman's, particularly in getting the posture right. So in this case I had some trouble with getting his left leg in right position. I think the shading here is relatively nice as the shape of human form conveys from the drawing.

Couture sewing - Thesis of my vocational studies

As I was on my third year of Vocational studies in Craft and Design, it was time to put all the gathered knowledge together to begin Thesis. It was very clear to me that my subject was going to be Couture sewing as I enjoy sewing by hand and I like to produce garments of high-quality.

My customer needed a full dress for fine occasions and gave me carte blanche for designing the dress. In the design work I kept in mind the style of my customer that has seilor style and vintage influences.

Final design as a quick sketch and the material samples

The dress consists of corset that extends down below the hips for stabilizing the garment, over the corset there is loose sheer silk chiffon top that has dolman sleeves, and finally there is the dress part made of fine dupion silk. The lining and the interlining of the dress is of firm but light silk. The corset has brasserie part of felt and interlining of linen.

The garment is mainly made my hand but the straight seams of corset and dress, and the french seams on chiffon top were machine stitched. The corset has its own firm zipper and the dress part has invisible zipper.

 The inner construction of the corset

 Sample pictures of hand sewing: The attachment of non fusible interlining using catch stitches

Lining of the corset attached to the zipper by hand. You can see the tiny stitches when gently pulling the lining to the side.

Here I am determined to thread trace every piece for garment(a bit messy there...) 

This project was really enormous. It took all my time to get it finished but I learned a lot from it. At the end I had used over 150 hours completing the dress but the result was definitely worth it.

Studio photos of the look

Photographer: Iris Nuutinen

 See how beatifully a tattoo shows underneath the chiffon.

In the literary part of the thesis I researched history of couture sewing in Finland and Haute Couture. But mainly I focused on examining the techniques of couture sewing. Including other things I used literature in the research such as The art of Couture Sewing by Zoya Nudelman, Couture the art of fine sewing by Roberta Carr and material by Claire Shaeffer.