Rachel Hagen Interview

I met this really cool young designer at a wedding where she made all the decorations and altered the dresses it was beautiful! So when I saw her facebook I had to find out some extra info about her upcoming business and here's what I found.

What does fashion mean to you?

Fashion to me is a way to feel more confident about yourself by wearing outfits that have their own individual touch within a particular style.

How would you define Perth’s fashion style?

 I think Perth has its own little style, unfortunately we don’t have a lot of events or places to go to which require us to dress up. So I think Perth’s fashion is quite subtle and tasteful compared to other states/countries.

How would you describe your labels style?

Vakker Designs is a label you would buy that unique dress to wear to a wedding, festival or even the races. We sell one off designs that are made to measure and styled to suit each individual body shape.

What is your design process for coming up with new garments?

I generally forecast fashion for the next season and mix it with the current trends. I use patterns from the current seasons and play around with it on the mannequin or even during construction to suit the client’s colours and body shape.

Where can people find/buy your clothing?

Online on the Vakker Designs Facebook site, emailing me on vakkerdesigns@hotmail.com or even calling me on 0487199971

Do you buy your fabrics locally or off shore?

I buy all my materials locally

What are you career goals?

For the next 3 years I want my label to be a party plan business, visiting customers houses and making it a lot more unique and personal to the customer, whilst still selling online. In doing this, I hope to build up my cliental before opening my own fashion store in about 5-6 years.

What are your favourite fashion blogs websites or fashion books?

I’m very inspired by a Italian magazine called Collezioni, its mainly haut couture, and a small Perth mag called box magazine. A great little fashion Blog is stylescene.com.au always a great place to get inspiration and keep up with the fashion world.

What made you want to study fashion as a career?

Originally I started sewing because I’m quite tall for a lady and could never find long enough pants or dresses, as I started designing I realised how much better i felt about myself in clothes that fit well and felt inspired to help other that may possibly be taller, shorter, curvier women, that struggle to find garments to suit them.  And that’s why I focus on made to measure clothing as opposed to selling a range of garments in standard sizes to a shop.

What advice would you have for fashion students of today aspiring to be designers?

Be confident enough to enter every competition around to get your name out there. Also before opening a business, always work for a big company so you can learn from them and not on your own money.

Theatre De La Mode

Small scale coutour dolls started being created in 1945 post war. The dolls were made in third scale to real life due to the shortage of materials after the war, designers displayed their ideas and designs by making the outfits for these dolls and showcasing them. They went on tour in 1945 from Paris to San Francisco for a year. Unfortunately when the tour was over the dolls were lost in storage and then rediscovered in 1952 and donated to the Maryhill Museum in Washington where they now still remain on display.

Following this research our task was to make our own dolls using inspiration from our past research. I made an outfit for my doll using the inspiration of Sarah Jessica Parker's character from Sex in the City, Carrie Bradshaw.
Her top is a black sequinned halter neck that is very glamorous and feminine, while this skirt is bright puffy and the shape is vintage. this outfit is fun and stand out just like Carrie Bradshaw would wear.

Images from: http://www.palmerpletsch.com/store/theatrebook.htm

Street Style

Tina rocking the Polka dot dress!

Street Style Blogs

Polka Dot
London Street Style- Style Scout
Face Hunter
The Locals
bonbi forest

Just found these blogs loving the looks!

Cultural Signposts- Celebrity

Celebrity style influences fashion trends in society. Movies, magazines, television, internet all showcase celebrity fashion and pick up on new and upcoming trends. Media plays a major role on fashion influences today. Examples of celebrity trends:

The "Rachael" Haircut

Major hit comedy series Friends hit the scene in 1990's. 1 of 6 main characters Rachael Green played by Jennifer Aniston, made the haircut now known as the 'Rachael Haircut' famous. Worn over the years by many famous celebrities such as Rachael McAdams and Meg Ryan.

Carrie Bradshaw

From Sex and the City main character Carrie Bradshaw was a hit with her impeccable style and wit. her look has continued to pop up though society ever since with stars such as Blake Lively following her blonde bombshell style.

Audrey Hepburn

In 1960's Audrey Hepburn made the little black dress a must have staple for every girl with style! and as far as evening dresses go you can never get more elegant than a slimming long black dress.

Fad, Trend, Classic

FAD: a fashion that is taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period of time ; a craze.

TREND: the general direction on which the fashion moves.

CLASSIC: is the style you see and know immediately that you must have. Classics are items that you can picture yourself wearing for many years to come!

Current fad= Midriff bustier

The mid-drift top fad is part of a fashion cyhcle evolving from the 50's. The fad has changed though as the tops used to be paired with very high waisted shorts to minimalise the amount of flesh showing in the middle. These days mid drift tops are still paired with high waisted shorts but the tops are more reflecting bra's so there is more flesh exposed in the middle.

Current Trend= Military look

Military clothing trend is part of a cycle coming from war times. It is about functionality and utility and started in the 18th & 19th Centuries. Military popped up around 2008/09 as a trend and changed in 2010/11 to neutral colours, army greens and embelished with gold trimmings.

Classic in Fashion= The Blazer

Blazers are a classic fashion cycle stating around WWII and worn as a natural fit for casual wear using less material than other jackets as materials were very rare after the war. This was the beginning of women dressing like men. Blazers are now more of a dressy piece and are style a symbol of power in women.

About Military

Military is the trend that we have chosen.

The reefer or pea coat it first became prominent 1850 as the jacket were worn by sailors and in the military 

It is said that women's fashions of the 1940's were dictated by Adolph Hitler.

In that era fashion follows social trends due to the world economy from World War II and that changed clothing styles and fashion design.

Because the world was at war and haute couture took a back seat due to the global conflict.

The American military affected clothing styles in the US as many women's garments took on a military look that underscored the significance of the war. Women everywhere had to make do with less.

Many women owned Utility Jumpsuits and Utility Dress as they used Less Fabric.

Women brought up during the Great depression made do by recycling by making clothes out of old military clothing and blankets

It has been creeping in over the last few years and this year is a part all the major designers ranges.

Style on the Street

Just some snaps from around the place :)

Loosly Drapped
Styles are very in!

Festival Fashion

Festival Fashion

Another loosly draped dress

Hotttt Shoes!

Emma Ngere Looking Stylish!

Quirky Earings

Loosly drapped skirt-Lovely!

Re-inventing Clothing

In class we had to bring in 3 items of clothing and re-invent them using the environmental designer we researched as inspiration.

Here's what I came up with using paper clips instead of can tabs!

Magazine History

The first proper magazine was called The Lady’s Magazine and was published in 1770. The longest running magazine Harpers Bazaar began in 1861 under the name The Queens Magazine from England, the name changed in 1968 when Harpers Bazaar bought out the magazine and renamed it Harpers and Queen. The name then changed again in 2006 to simply Harpers Bazaar

Some other magazines we researched included The Delineator founded in 1873 lasting until 1937 featuring articles about needlework, dressmaking and millinery. Vogue magazine founded in 1892 for higher society readers. Cosmopolitan founded in 1886 and still running began as a family magazine focusing interests of women how to look after children, kids section and women’s section based on fashion articles, household decorations, and cooking. Vanity Fair started in 1859 to 1863 as a humorous weekly publication and was reinvented in 1983 by Conde Nast as a more fashion focused magazine.

Fashion and Costume Plates

In the 18^th and 19^th Century fashion printed plates to inform people about new upcoming trends in magazines, costume plates however were made to show how clothing was worn in the past and they showcase costumes from different types of national, theatrical, court and royal dress. They were originally in black and white but in the late 19^th century they started hand colouring them.

Two men began to make publications of fashion plates, Jacques Esnauts and Michel Rapilly from Paris. They produced roughly 342 figure plates and about 72 hat plates. Fashion plates were seen a lot in 1770 in The Lady’s Magazine an English monthly magazine, plates weren’t featured in every issue but were in some.

Fashion Plates and Costume plates are great collectable art pieces now days as they give a great look at how fashion was in the past and how magazines and technology has changed since then.

What’s a Zine you ask?

“zine also 'zine (zn) n. 1. An inexpensively produced, self-published, underground publication”- Bird in the hand Zine Shop 

Starting in 1946, Zine’s are non professional/ non official publications made by fans of a cultural phenomenon, like fashion, music, science fiction and art. The word Zine is an adaptation of the words Magazine and Fanzine.

Zine’s are similar to blogs, anyone can make them and they are a smaller version of a larger publication eg. blogs are a version of websites and Zine’s are a version of magazines. Internet based Zine’s are called E-Zine’s, they are different to blogs as they have more articles information and are more art based where as blogs are mainly pictures and thoughts.

Yay or Nay?

Who determines fashions yay's and nay's? 

Here's my opinion on what's in and out this season!

Yay...

Mid Calf Length Skirts

Prints Revolution- Quirky Prints

Hyper Colour- Bold Colours

Lace Embrace

Pant Suits

Hiking Heels

Military

Oversize Frills

Bright & Boxy Clutches

Sports Day Casual Wear

Nay

Jeggings- defiantly out, personally I've never liked them!!!

Knee High Greek Sandles

Pointy Toe Heels

Fluro Phase

Chunky Necklaces

Head Scarves

Oversize Tees

I got majority of these images from:

http://www.style.com/trendsshopping/trendreport/011811_Trend_Reports/

Escama- Environmental Designer

Escama Studio is based in California and Brazil producing a handcrafted range of womans bags using one main material - recycled aluminium tabs. Escama descovered a way to crochet tabs together creating bags, accessories even clothing now, it is a technique used in brazil mainly. A whole 70,000 of these bags have been produced since 2004 and the artist team has grown from 12 to 100!

Escama's inspiration originated from the Pop Top Fashions of the 70's where can tabs were in the form of pop tops and were pulled completely off the can and some people used them to make quirky hats and accessories.

I found this really cool tutorial on how to crochet can tabs together check it out with this link: http://www.escamastudio.com/how_to.html

Images found at: http://www.escamastudio.com/products.html