Coast Live Project : Design and Concept Development : Drapping on the mini mannequin and design variations

Impressionism being the main dictator of our collection , I have chosen to focus into a more specific time era of Impressionism :Post -Impressionism

Being impressed by the scene from the Film Midnight in Paris when Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec sat at the table with Degas and Gauguin , I wanted to directly inspire mu designs form their work.

Given tahat Lautrect did a lot of work for the theater , his drawings , posters , paintings and sketches depict beautiful silhouette from the Golden Age of Paris. A great source of inspiration for my work.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as influencer

Below are my  most successful designs influenced by the Golden Age of Paris.

The design below was chosen today in the group meeting .I am planning on developing it further and transforming it ito a backless jumpsuit

Live Project: Coast:Brand Research-Market and Flagship store

      Coast caters to an international market. Trading in over 290 stores in 21 countries and with a website that delivers to 45 countries, Coast has an impressive global reach.

      The brand's products can be found within their own boutiques from Irland to United Arab Emirates, department stores like Debenhams, outlets in the UK and International stores all over the world. 

      The brand's Flagship store is located on 270 Oxford Street, London W1C. According to an article on Drapers by John Ryan published on the 14th of JULY 2012. 

The store has a Total of 6,000 sq ft ,and the White Box Glamour ambiance was designed by Lee Broom.  

    ''It cost £1m and the idea is to make the shopper feel special. Most of its 6,000 sq ft is in the basement and the ground floor is narrow. However, designer Lee Broom has created an interior that works with the product. The large fitting rooms have semi wraparound mirrors that provide shoppers with rear views.'' (https://www.drapersonline.com/retail/multiples/coast-flagship-oxford-street/5038396.article) 

Image source:https://www.drapersonline.com/retail/multiples/coast-flagship-oxford-street/5038396.article

     This store sells romance and glitz and the staff reflect that with their neat appearance. The store is pretty much out on its own on Oxford Street as a standalone offer but that does not mean that it has no competition. 

    According to  John Ryan in an article for Drapers ''A visit to any of the department stores along the strip, and particularly Debenhams and House of Fraser for this market, reveals the usual Oxford Street scrabble for customers.'' (https://www.drapersonline.com/retail/multiples/coast-flagship-oxford-street/5038396.article) 

Coast Live Project : Design and Concept Development -THE MUSE

Referencing back to my favorite character from Midnight in Paris :Adriana , and how she influenced artist as Picasso , I have researched more into influential women and I have found an impressive list of style icons that changed rt and fashion . 

Drapes inspired by the style of muse such as Iris von Apfel and Jane Birkin. 

Live Project: Coast- : Brand Research- The website

  The Coast official website (https://www.coast-stores.com/) embodies the core value of the brand: Beauty. At a first glance their website is very minimal. The graphics are linear and the use of white and pastel colours, predominant pastel blue, give it an elegant appearance.  

   To make the shopping experience easier and to be sure every customer gets what it wants, the brand has divided its Clothing category into collections. The main ones are : Evening Dresses & Outfits, Race Day Dresses & Outfits,Party Dresses & Outfits,Graduation Dresses & Outfits,Workwear Dresses & Outfits,Occasion Dresses & Outfits,Black Tie Event Dresses & Outfits and Resort. Other subcategories are: Coast Curve, Limited Edition x Weston, Friday, Editor's Picks, Bestsellers, Monochrome, Pastels, Little Black Dress, Jumpsuits and Prom.

   The brand offers: Short Dresses, Midi Dresses, Maxi Dresses, Girls' Dresses, Shorter Length Outfits, Jackets, Coats & Cover Ups, Tops, Trousers & Jumpsuits, and Skirts. 

The products come in a range of sizes from 6 to 16 and a curve line that covers the sizes 20 to 26.  The best seller sizes are 12 and 14. 

Coast Live project: Research Customer profile /Tribe Analysis

                          Our customer profile is made in particular for the Coast Resort client .

Coast aims to cater to a wide range of women , their designs are suitable for women ages 20 to 50+ who want to be stylish in any kind of situation . The cut of the garments tries to bring the best in any body shape and size .

The Coast women is succesfull , married and has a good job . Part of the middle class , upper middle class and even high class , the coast woman wants to enjoy life and make every spare moment of her busy life count .

My favorite part about the Coast target market is that it aims to be ageless .  A contemporary market aproach for the nowadays Flat age Society

              In addition to the existing customer , we are proposing a male customer as well. As a group we think that the brand would benefit enormously if it had a line for men .One of the strongest reasons being that the majority of the brand's customers are married women , and if they would be given the choice they would grab a few things for their parteners on the way to the checkout .At the end of the day , you would like your partener to be just as stylish as you.
           Taking in consideration  that the brand caters to a wide range of sizes and has a Curve line we want to propose  a range of outits that can be sizeless and that make everyone , no matter the body shape , feel GOURGEOUS!!!

Coast Live Project: Print Development-Brush Strokes and Natural Cells

I wanted to propose an new take on prints , doing something interesting that could be transformed in beautiful prints.

The starting point of my print development is impressionist paintings and the brush stroke textures.The multitude of tiny strokes seen in Van Gogh's or Monet's work reminded me of cellular conglomerations. This weird association inspired me to produce a couple of screen prints and hand painted canvases that have been appreciated by my group mates and tutors.

                                     Below is my personal work inspired paintings and cells.

The work is not final , but it is a great starting point for prints to follow

Coast Live Project : Reflection -Week 3

                                                     Week Three Summary
For this Monday meeting we were supposed to bring print and design developments . Some team members successfully did that , while some team members didn't bother to show and we had to face time them . We were supposed to come with 25 relevant designs , the majority of us succeeded into doing that, they had very little design proposals , that looked scribbled in a rush . Whatsoever i was very pleased with the work people that were involved did and i was looking forward our presentation to the tutors on Wednesday.
On Wednesday stuff got shaken a bit . Our presentation to our tutors was not coherent and you could see in the discrepancies in the work that people in the group were not getting along . Because of the entire Impressionism / Surrealism debate we were spending more time into arguing with each other than coming to a point .
I was getting frustrated at the situation as I enjoyed working with my team members , and the entire concept debate was actually just masking a character debate. People in my group have strong characters and everyone wants to take the lead even tho they don't understand what it involves . As a spokesman it got really hard to try to talk to everyone and understand what is going on . Our tutors proposed a split , which i was against , because they didn't have actual insight into what is happening in our group it was hard for them to see that the split its happening because some people worked very individualistic and they didn't care much about group work  and the others we're very dependent and didn't have any initiative. We decided that our resort Collection was going to separate into Resort Evening and Resort Day wear. I was not  happy at all about this . Truthfully the entire drama in our group was generated by one team member and by the fact tht some people refused to work with others/
The solution to our problems was to find a middle ground in the movie ,,Midnight in Paris'' , we hoped  our mix of concepts would be able to recreate the narrative of the movie . We went from proposing an ,,Escape to the Coast'' scenario to an ,,Escape to the Gallery" one .Our tutors told us not to be very concerned about the internal split in our group as the color pallet was going to bring the collection together.The split meant only one thing for me , tht now instead of meeting with one group i had to meat with 2 different ones , in order to ensure that we are all up to date with what is happening and to make sure we are all on the same page . A waist of my time , but i didn't min that much because it meant we were finally working and not arguing
 Anyhow , our intentions were to provide the Coast customers with a collection that is going to make them fell that they are escaping their busy life and jobs and they are enveloped by a sense of freedom and fantasy.
I brought to the table around 45 designs and fabric print developments , pulling my weight and more than that , I have been part of the patter cutting and trouser manufacturing workshops and i have started my Report . Overall , I am happy with my evolution within the group , i didn't think that from all people I am going to be the one that gives in personal opinion and ideas for the sake of the group.

For our next group meting we had to redeveloped design proposals and prints .We were thinking to integrate the idea of animal inspired prints as well.

First Design Proposals