Hi Everybody I want to thank everyone who emailed me here at UsTrendy and let you know that I've finally posted my New Collection "Cirque du Taj".   I would have colored it,  however my computer has broken down and I have to wait to get it fixed,  for now I'm stuck using my brothers computer.  

Also I would like to let everybody know that I've recently completed a special website for all of us fashion enthusiasts who may be suffering from a limited budget,  check it out at this url:    www.squidoo.com/budgetonlinefashiondesignschoolandresources

Please let me know what you think and if there is something you'd like me to ad,  I'd very much love to hear from you.

Have a wonderful day,

Ayisha (Emma)

Don't have enough money to go to fashion design school?  If you're like me and you're still holding on to the dream of one day becoming a fashion designer or at the very least ending up in a serious position in the industry,  youre going to need to educate yourself in all areas of the fashion design arena.   Seriously,  it takes dedication to do this but I can save you a bit of time and direct you to the right books,  I've been through a lot of them  and some are better than they might at first seem and others are a waste of your time.   So let's get started...

First,  an overview of everything a fashion designer is expected to know and do now a days,  the business,  the details of presentation,  collections and how to keep ideas flowing is the most important place to start;  for that I recommend Portfolio Presentation for Fashion Designers by Linda Tain.   Trust me,  the title doesn't nearly cover the wealth of information in this book.

Next book is The Fashion Designer's Survival Guide by Mary Gehlhar;  a must have for any aspiring fashion designer who wasn't born with a silver spoon in his or her mouth.

Julian Seaman is a life saver,  I'll tell you right now,  I've read his decievingly sparsely written fashion design manuals with their sometimes down right ugly illustrations,  but the insight of his books are indispensible like the secrets on how to develope 'new' ideas for a collection,  how to develope a collection and how to prevent and overcome the dreaded designer's block.   And to top that off if you're the kind of fashion designer that has a hard time putting your ideas in illustration,  he lays out a whole variety of visual methods of getting around that problem.   Here are the Four titles I'm refering too:  Professional Fashion Illustration,  Foundation in Fashion Design and Illustration,  Fashion Illustration : Basic Techniques and,  last but not least,  Fashion Design Drawing Course : Principals,  Practice and Techniques: The Ultimate Guide for the Aspiring Fashion Artist.

For any of you who are more illustration inclined,  I strongly recommend ordering the sadly out of print books;  Elementary Fashion Design and Trade Sketching and Intermediate Fashion Design and Water Color Illustration,  both by Maxine Westerman.   Or,  if you can't order them see if they are at your local library.  These books are old but they have a lot of fashion illustration 'secrets' that help create that fashion illustration glamor type depth,  those little details that make a design have that kind of 'pop' that flashy attention getting 'cool',   again must haves or if you can,  must reads.

After you read all these books you'll come to realize that there are definitely 2 things you have to aquire the skills for if you want to take your desired direction into functional reality,  that's 1.  Sewing.   And that is,  all the facets,  not just basic sewing but the techniques used in both industrial (manufacturing) sewing and Couture sewing,  the special techniques used to produce the finest garments and add the finest details to various garments.  And 2.  Flat pattern making.   Now I've personally bought Helen Joseph Armstrong's fashion design textbook,  Patternmaking for Fashion Design.   Now it's strong point is that it's got such an extremely broad selection of creative patterns dealing with different approaches to creating structure,  shape,  that it really opens your mind to a lot of design possibilities in cut and style of garments.   But, in the end, without some guidance as to which pattern blocks are the ones from which all possible patterns can be created from (you need to know which ones these are),  the book really becomes a 800+ page intimidation that sits on the shelf.

The right book to buy with the focus being on 22 master pattern blocks to learn,  that you'll use to create all your future garments from is Connie Amaden Crawford's Patternmaking Made Easy.

Now,  Sewing isn't really that hard to learn.   I took a wonderful SCI course,  Sewing and Dressmaking,  back when I was 15,  it was a $500 course at the time and it had the added bonus of giving me my first introduction to proportion theory,  created by siluette,  interior style lines, color and fabric type.   It was a really good course especially on account of these last details I mentioned.   However,  actual sewing practice wasn't required and recieved nothing but the textbooks.   I'd heard that the ICS equivalent course included a sewing machine and actual projects,   but I don't know if it also includes lessons in the concepts of proportion theory in fashion design.    There is a book that teaches these same basic sewing techniques and even includes a shortened form of the same very important proportion concepts I've just mentioned,  it's Sewing Made Easy by Dorothy Sara and Irene Gora.

Also I have to mention that I already had some experience sewing my own clothes for a few years,  that's why the lack of practice didn't mean much.   You're not off the hook after you learn basic sewing though,  it's just to get you started.   Next read about and try to get some practice in industrial sewing techniques.   To be more specific on why you need to do this is that  these techniques control the 'hang' of professionally constructed garments,  the ones produced in the ready to wear sector.   Professionals in the industry can tell by the hang of a garment,  whether or not it's been constructed under industrial guideline such as seam width differences.   The techniques include a lot of time saving methods and cool design details.  The book where you'll get complete illustrated instructions (beautiful clear color photos,  that is) on these techniques is Susan Huxley's Sewing Secrets from the Fashion Industry.

As for Couture sewing,  it's all to do with perfection.   A lot of it is about special handwork,  expensive and/or extra detailing.   It also includes some time saving techniques believe it or not.   However,  if you're doing couture forget about time because you're going to be putting in a lot of it here,  that's pretty much part of the whole couture arena of absolute exquisite perfection.  You have to be dedicated when you do couture!   The two best books for this specialized sewing are Couture Sewing Techniques by Claire B Shaeffer and Couture the art of Fine Sewing by Roberta Carr.

Last but not least,  is a book that covers a variety of unique fashion design innovations,  things like more detailing,  more time saving techniques,  construction methods used to improve the appearance of hard to sew areas of garments and wonderful tips on putting style in your garments;  High Fashion Sewing Secrets From the World's Best Designers,  another great book by Claire B Shaeffer.

There,  you've got your whole course laid out for you right here and at a fraction of the cost of your usual tuition :),  go for it and reach your dreams.   And let me know how you do along the way!

All the Best,

Emma

Hey Everybody out there,  you know I was wondering,  what's the best fashion show and or trend show on TV?   I watch Fashion File a Canadian show,  but I don't find it 'on time' enough and their always showing reruns.   I think what the real problem is with that show is that I'm just the wrong viewer,  it was meant for shoppers not designers.   However there was this very short running show on W network called Gok Wan's Fashion Fix,   I absolutely loved that show and then it just disappeared,  I mean that guy was having interview session with the Fashion World's top designers and celebrity fashion collectors.   I just found that show to be so inspiring and fun.   Does anybody else know about this show,  it's coming out of England,  very cool?

Hope you're all having a great weekend

 Emma

I was just browsing around rating dresses and things,  this really is a fun site.   Just wish I had my tablet pen again so I could work on some more stuff to post.   I did design another really cool collection,  it's jut not web ready yet.   Instead I'll just check out other people's work for now and maybe post some blog entries.   

I'm kinda wishing that UStrendy would have some direction to their weekly contests,  I think that would be really cool,  nothing like a little focused competition,  like one week do dresses,  one week do casual wear,  one week do costume jewelry or evening jewelry, one week lingerie etc etc.    I think that would be so cool.   Maybe it would be fun to have a toddler's wear contest sometime.

Did I miss it perhaps,  but maybe we could have a makeup artist competion as well with creativity,  beauty, most sucessful makeover,  most glamorous catagories added to entry types.   I think that would be awesome.

On a different note,  I come from an underprivileged background and with the dream of becoming a fashion designer I've had to do a lot of research at my favorite library and online to get ahold of the best info sources there are on all the necessary aspects of becoming a fashion designer,  I'm talking about teach yourself kind of stuff here,  so I'm going to rig up a book list for anyone who's interested in getting a list of the best books,  that is over the next few days so check up on me during next week or so,  I'll have it put together.

 bye for now,  have a great weekend everybody

Emma