Thursday 27 February 2014

S/S 14 Design Evolution: Francis Dress

We are starting a little series of the evolution of our designs. Starting from sketch drawing to finished articles. Our Spring/Summer '14 collection is still basking in the pastel loveliness but with more collars and sleeves, following both current trends and looking at vintage styles to make a beautiful modern mix.

Our first design we'll be looking at is the Francis dress, featuring a shirt collar, elasticated waist, box pleats and gathers and decorative buttons or braiding decor.



From this drawing, we decided to put in a short zip in the back so that the shirt collar could be opened for access but the rest of the dress would simply pull over. The skirt has a series of small box pleats as well as it being gathered into the elasticated waist, this creates a wonderful full skirt.


This first dress was the toile/mock-up of the design, checking all the patterns I'd drafted were correct. It all worked out right and for the photo we pinned on some pink buttons to see the effect. This shirt-style dress had instant interest over on our Facebook.





Because we loved the pink toile we made, we decided the first dress had to be a pink beauty. We also had these flowers that were originally in a braid together but we cut them up and put them down the front of the dress. We thought it looked so cute and girly!


The second dress in this style was a more sophisticated take, in grey and lilac with mismatched buttons. We loved this one too and shows the opposite side of the design.

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