Kate – S A R A H B A R K E R

Kate’s outfit, part 4: a few photos from the wedding :)

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Sarah in separates, skirts, tops

Just thought I’d post a couple of shots Kate’s sister sent me from the wedding!

It’ll be a while before I see the photographers images from the day I guess, but I’m so looking forward to that! To be honest that’s the best bit of the whole process, seeing someone you’ve worked so closely with looking incredible in a beautiful set of professional photos. It’s a real contrast from my day job in mass-produced fashion, I’ll definitely be missing that personal connection when I go back to my normal life next month.

(What a stunner ☺️ 💘💘💘)

Kate’s outfit, part 3: final fitting

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Sarah in separates, skirts, tops

Holy crap, how did this crop up so soon??! It’s only 2 weeks till the wedding now, so it’s the perfect time to have Kate try on the final garments and I can make a few tiny, almost imperceptible tweaks before I drop the perfected package back to her… or at least it would be, in a parallel universe where things work out just peachy the first time around.

But I don’t think I live in this peachy universe, because as it turned out I hit a few issues which meant showing Kate options to choose from, and of course that means I’ll have to implement the final choices after the fitting. Plus, as I was constructing the various pieces of this outfit it became increasingly obvious that the fabric was far too see-through. The facings and seam allowances were glowing through something chronic! But I decided to persevere, get a whole garment together to fit on Kate, and then find a solution to this issue along with any other changes we needed to make after.

So I knew we’d have a few alterations, some alternatives to switch in, and an opacity issue to nail… and I also knew I’d cut my two week contingency plan down to one week by booking a holiday. If I’m honest I wasn’t looking forward to this fitting.

That having been said, the outfit does look lovely 🙂 The design is perfect for her, the overall look of the thing is exactly what we wanted, and the alterations from the last fitting had gone well.

I’d added a dart to the top to control the flare in the hem while keeping the fit at the bust, but I still made up the alternative top option (no darts, more flare). Darts are staying, fit looks nice 🙂 So that’s one set of options dealt with easily.

We’ve got a slight problem with a bumpy texture over the boobs, which is down to the seam allowance inside the corset layer needing a trim and possibly also some securing topstitches. And that’s another fairly simple win.

The skirt is sitting a little too low on the waist, leaving a slightly too big gap between top and skirt at the back. So there we’ll take in a little and it’ll sit higher, which is a wince more work but nothing too scary.

And then there’s the sleeve. I was disappointed to find that the darts felt bulky and left the hem a bit wobbly and chunky. It would be more normal to have a facing at the bottom sleeve, so there would be darts on the outside layer but not on the inside layer, just a smooth panel which attaches to the lining, but Kate really wanted the inside to also be in self fabric with no seams to show through, just an exact copy of the outer layer. So I made her up one sleeve as planned, but I made an alternative sleeve with the shaping from the darts moved into one convex shaped panel, so we have a horizontal seam instead. I thought the look would be cleaner, but maybe it got a little too stark.

After some discussion we decided to continue with the original darted design. Kate felt that it could do with a bit less volume in the bottom though, so we pinned quite a bit away. I’ll update the pattern accordingly and make up a pair of these new sleeves. We won’t see them on Kate for any more test rounds though, so let’s hope the smaller silhouette isn’t too risky at this late stage!

But the biggest issue to my eyes is the transparency. It’s tolerable, I suppose – she can wear virtually invisible pants and maybe in most of the photos you won’t see the facings – but that seems like a bit of a cop out. Up close the seam allowances look super ugly and the facings are not exactly offensive but shouldn’t be a feature! Instead of tolerance I’m going to take action. I’ll get some more fabric, fuse it, re-cut and replace the outer layer of the skirt and the top. For the sake of an extra days’ work I think it’ll be a vast improvement.

Plus it’ll be less inclined to relax into her butt crack.

Quite a few more things to do then, and not such a long time to do them in! I’ve called in my long suffering assistant (thanks mum) and written a list: it’ll be wrapped up and in the brides’ hand by Friday lunchtime.

So the next time we all see this project will be in the wedding photos!! Good luck on your big day Kate, and don’t forget to remove those sleeves before the soup course 😉 xx

Kate’s outfit, part 2: first fitting

Posted on July 11, 2017July 11, 2017 by Sarah in separates, skirts, tops

Last week I drafted the patterns for Kate’s design, made up the first toile, and on Saturday she came over for our first fitting. I was super excited to work on it with her! But to be honest I’d gotten into my own head a bit on this one and was worried it wouldn’t match her expectations. As it turned out, Kate was happy as a clam and felt like I was well on the right track…

This outfit breaks down into 3 main elements: the boned bodice, the sleeved top, and the skirt. I started with the bodice, using the Helen Joseph-Armstrong book, Pattern Making for Fashion Design, to make a fitted top from my basic block. This part won’t really be on show, but it’s job is to provide a strong structure sitting on the hips and holding the top edge of the sleeveless top exactly where we want it to be.

I was worried that the fit on this might not be nice because the curve over the bust is a bit exaggerated and fembot-esque, but I can smooth that out on the pattern and then there are just a few tweaks needed to get that top edge completely perfect. The diagonal boning in the front panels had the desired effect and will the give sleeves a good, solid base to sit on top of.

For the sleeved top layer I draped the body panels straight on the stand. We want this to stand away from the body a bit, so the easiest method for me is to just be hands-on! And then I based the sleeve on a top of Kates’ which she likes the dimensions of, so a nice, quick starting point 🙂

For this toile I didn’t attach the sleeved top to the bodice, because I didn’t want that in the way when I was fitting the underneath layer, but ultimately I will make them into one garment… Except for the sleeves which will be detachable! A brilliant addition to the design which I couldn’t have been more pleased to have Kate suggest.

Also, this toile has sleeves in 2 different fabrics, which is not a permanent design feature! The white sleeve on the left is in a structured silk fabric from Silk Society in Soho which we’d both really liked in the store – it has great body in one direction but drape in the other so we felt we could do a lot with it. But I’m glad we did this trial, because it soon became evident that it just wasn’t working for us! It gives a cowl effect which just doesn’t look as nice as the calico side, so we’re going back to the drawing board. We also like a much simpler cotton silk mix from Whaleys which could be very versatile and give us a lot more options in combination with fusings, so we’ll have a play with that one next.

We hadn’t wanted an opening in the back originally, but this turned out to be the best fastening solution. We can make the corset body with a zip at centre back and then the top part will have a split here. It was actually a feature on one of the tear sheet images Kate brought to me, so it doesn’t feel like a compromise design-wise. Initially my toile had an asymmetric hem, but that just didn’t work, so during the fitting we have levelled it up.

For the skirt, I draped on the stand to make a very simple block version of our skirt design, which I then altered for Kate’s measurements in the flat pattern. We’d left this part of the design pretty open ended, so I just wanted to keep the toile as basic as possible for us to project our ideas onto in the fitting.

Kate liked the wide slit which is necessary if we cut the front in only one panel. We’ll make the top shape rounded to make a nicer finish here, and I think it’ll be a cute feature. And ultimately this split feature has one very important job to do: to flash Kate’s fairly mental shoes.

The size of the train I’d put on here was a total guess, but it suited Kate well and we’re going to stick with it as it is. The skirt will have a centre back panel at the next stage though, which goes to a point towards the top of the thigh.

So my next stage for Kate is to make a new pattern with all the changes and make new garments ready for a second fitting. As we’ve now decided to try out a cotton silk from Whaleys, which isn’t too pricey, I think it’d be great to go ahead and start to make up the next stage in the real fabric! If there are some elements we don’t like and want to remake we can do that quite inexpensively, and if some parts are perfect already then we can save Kate some money by using that for the real thing. I’ll use a 1.5cm wide seam allowance and treat it like a couture garment, altering the garment itself rather than doing a lot of pattern stages.

Kate’s outfit, part 1: design

Posted on May 20, 2017 by Sarah in separates, skirts, tops

So, the start of another project!

Kate and I have been colleagues for a few years: she’s a designer and I’m a pattern cutter, but we’ve never actually worked directly together. She’s great fun with a brilliant eye for a strong look, and I’m confident I’m going to enjoy this one!

Kate is getting married in September. She’s struggled to find a dress she likes; there are a great many Swarovski crystals in the world, also bows and lace and frills and what have you, and that is not doing it for Kate on any level. So she’s come to me with some sketches and design ideas and we’re going to put something together that suits her contemporary modern aesthetic a little better.

She’s brought me this sketch…

… and a few tear sheets of inspiration including these lovely images:

She wants a skirt with a very straight silhouette from the front, a slit to help show off her shoes, and a big, soft pleat in the back from which a short train emerges. We can be a bit flexible here, we might mess around with it a bit when we’ve chosen a fabric, but generally this part is good to go.

The top part is a bit more hazy. Kate likes a statement sleeve, she fancies totally off shoulder, and she’s thinking that from the side the top should swing away from the body. It seems pretty narrowed down to me! But it’s not concrete yet, she’s still thinking about it.

I’ve drawn out a few rough options for her to consider hopefully they’ve been a good jumping off point for chats with her friends and family at home in The North this weekend.

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We’ve already had a quick lunchtime whip round some Soho fabric stores, just to get a conversation started about what kind of things she’s feeling for. As it happens we actually found a fabric she really loved which may turn out to be the one. This silk we saw at Silk Society has a completely different character when draped on the grain or across it, it’s the left hand cutting on the card below. In one direction it has a sproingy body to it which could make an awesome sleeve shape, and in the other it could be a soft and supple train.

We took some other bits and pieces away with us, but to honest they’re a bit boring by comparison. Good plan b’s though.

All that jazz is now collated in my Kate envelope. Next week we’ll sit and pin down the exact starting design, I’ll also take Kate’s measurements and then I can get started on the first draft of the pattern! I’ve got 6 more weeks of work before my sabbatical period, so I’m planning to get the ball rolling on this soon and then really get stuck in in July.