:CLIENTS
-Carhartt
-FAD-101 & 490
-Paris/Antwerp
@Aidan.tto[email protected]
YOUTUBE
:AIDAN-ROOF [FASHION DESIGN & PHOTOGRAPHY]
Instructor / Course Creator
I created this class with the express goal of sharing the professional fashion design process to artists, designers and makers who may never otherwise have the oppertunity to attend a full university degree in the subject matter. While the ideal canidate is someone with past garment making/sewing experience, many students came in with near zero sewing experience and left with a strong foundation for approaching the garment design process, as well as quickly growing their stitching abilities.
The learning curriculum was created after my time at Parsons Paris where we created bespoke jeans in a junior level design course. Jeans are a wonderful beginner archetype as they can be sewn at a professional level with relatively minimal machinery. Finishes and appropriate materials are also more readily availaible outside the classroom for further study when compared to more advanced archetypes.
Despite having learned the foundations at Parsons, the curriculum and nearly all learning materials were created entirely by myself to better accomidate my goals for the course. This includes the course structure, technical specifications of the deliverable garment, patternmaking formulas and visual guides.
Kits & Machines: Adapting my existing studio to accommodate having class sizes of 4 concurrent students was an exciting challenge. Balancing budget while ensuring the equiptment students would be using will be of good quality took consistent reserch and testing. Things like metric patternmaking rulers are notoriously difficult to aquire easily in the US, so my search had to go overseas to merchants from China & Japan.
This extended to the machines as well - quality industrial machines can be difficult to source for affordable prices. I began by finding local vintage machines, tuning them up, changing to servo motors and ensuring equal functionality to any other machine. Eventually I ordered 3 additional Juki DDL-8700s so students wouldnt feel like they would have a notably better/worse experience on one machine over another.
Materials: Denim was sourced from online merchants like Nick of Time Textiles and private merchants like FTW Fabrics. Selection consisted of 2x 14oz light indigo, 1x 10oz dark wash, and an 8oz lighter wash. Muslin was purchaed from Fabric Wholesale Direct. All materials were included in tuition cost, so students could be assured they would not have to take on the responsibility of aquiring materials suitable for the fabrication process on their own.
Guides/Packet: Part of the instruction process I wanted to do differently when working on garment design was the workflow when patternmaking. Often pattern formulas give you all the steps at once, requiring you as the student to keep track of one step at a time. This can be very overwhelming especially if you are unfamiliar with the drafting process. I worked to change this by creating a detailed packet with colored diagrams detailing each step. This helped students move at their own pace, and reduced the need for such in-depth live demos as once they were familiar with certain steps, they could use those skills to navigate future instruction.
Syllabus: For the full overview of the course from a student perspective, feel free to click HERE to read the official syllabus.
Outcomes: By the end of the course, all students left with a pair of jeans custom fit to their own measurements in a denim of their choosing, with finishing details like rivets, pocket design and a leather tags as avenues for full customization. Feeling confident in their sewing skills, some chose to add additional details like embrodiery patterns, mixed materials and functional beltloops for holding onto keychains.
First attempts of animation in Blender using a photoscanned model of a Balenciaga Defender sneaker. All lighting, animation, editing and motion graphic related work was done by myself