To extend my art form of fashion, I have chosen to participate in the annual fashion show run by the school. I have decided to design and make a collection to contribute to this event. I have also chosen the theme of "Identity" to make the collection more interesting and to have a running theme across the whole collection. This is the plan to extend on my current main art form of fashion and textiles. However, to develop on a new art form, I have chosen music and I will create a soundtrack composition to go along with the collection and to be played alongside the collection in the school's fashion show. This will be my first time exhibiting my clothes at the school's annual fashion show so it is a completely new experience for me.

Usually if I make and design an outfit, it is always a one piece such as a dress. In order to extend my fashion and sewing skills more, I am planning on making a collection of two piece sets, so for example a top and a skirt as an outfit. It will be more complex to do as it requires making two distinct pieces rather than one. However, it will be a learning process and hopefully I can learn from any mistakes I make.

I also want my collection to be based on a theme so that I have a common factor running throughout each of the outfits that link to each other. I have chosen to do a theme of 'Identity', it is fluid, something that is constantly changing and I wanted to explore this through fashion. I will attempt to channel this theme through every outfit, so every outfit will be different, however I am also going to make the outfits either black or pink mainly to keep them looking linked in terms of their aesthetic.

I think by participating in the school's annual fashion show, I can exhibit the collection I am making in a larger scale compared to if I was to organise a fashion show event myself.

This will also be a new experience for me as I have modelled before at the school’s fashion show but never actually contributed my work into it but this time I will exhibit my own collection of six outfits and each outfit will consist of two pieces as I have mentioned before; for example a top and a skirt as an outfit.

To further extend my skills, I am also going to make a song to go with the collection which will be played in the fashion show during the showing of my walk. Music is the skill which I will be developing whilst I chose fashion and textiles to be the skill that I wish to extend. I will explain more on the musical aspect further down in this part.

I will design the collection for the school's fashion show first before then moving on to create the musical soundtrack to accompany the collection. The designs of the clothes will help me and influence me in the direction that I want the soundtrack to go in. I am doing it in this order of designing the collection prior to working on the soundtrack as the fashion and textiles aspect is my main chosen art form whilst I am extending on a new art form of music, which I do not have much experience on or knowledge about the subject either. The designs and making the collection, is something in which I have experience and more confidence in, so that will definitely assist me with extending and exploring on the musical side, whilst still learning and extending myself with the fashion and textiles side of this project.

Skills Development (Fashion & Textiles):

During the making process for the collection, I developed various old and new skills. For example, I have never attempted at incorporating an invisible zip in any of my clothes that I have made before. Until on my velvet top design. I sewed the zip once onto the top I made, and I was unsatisfied with the final result, so I unstitched it and went along to a sewing course to get taught the proper method. After going to the course, I was much more confident in sewing invisible zips and regular zips than I was before the course. This aided me a lot as all my garments featured zips so it definitely made a difference.

Another new skill I developed was how to do pleats. For this, I turned to a couple of youtube tutorials and taught myself off them at how to incorporate pleats into a garment. After watching a few videos and doing a couple tester pieces, I managed to successfully add pleats to not just one but two of my outfits, which I was really proud of.

An old skill I developed, was probably working on the sewing machine. I felt with more practice, I became much more confident at using it. I even learnt how to thread the bottom part of the sewing machine, which I did not know how to do before. And I also learnt how to rewind the bobbin through a course I attended.

The last important skill I feel that I have developed is designing. Designing is the part that I struggle with the most. I feel as if though I am better and much more confident at making outfits than I am at producing ideas, so this was a very important skill to work on. I feel that I produced quite original ideas for my collection, through looking at some fashion magazines for inspiration, and experimenting and constantly adapting the designs.

Extending my Art Form (Music):

 To extend my art form further, I decided to merge my current art form of fashion, with a new art form that I have not done before; music. The plan was to create a soundtrack for my Fashion Show catwalk, in this way, I could incorporate my designing and sewing skills with musical skills, that I have never looked into or explored.

To produce this soundtrack, I teamed up with a music technician teacher who came to my school, called Mr Luckett, and we worked on producing the soundtrack for a couple of hours. To produce this soundtrack we used a music software which was similar to 'Garage Band', which I have used before, but it was a lot more extensive and there was a lot more tools available on the software we used. This music software was called 'Logic Pro X'. 

Firstly, we looked at the outfits I had made as inspiration and also looked at several different songs and artists for inspiration. Such as the song '19' by Paul which incorporated a voice over from a film documentary at the start of the song and the voice got put onto a loop. This was to explore different ways of adding vocals to add more texture into the song.

Then we created a bass line which was percussion going on in the background, which we turned into a loop so it would last for a duration of 3 minutes, roughly like a song. Then we kept adding several different sounds and instruments as loops and quantised these loops so they would be in time with the rest of the music. This was mainly based on experimenting with different sounds and instruments and beats to see how everything would fit together. If the sounds would match, then we would drag it into the song and quantise these. We then repeated experimenting until we were happy with the song as a whole.

I felt that the song was quite repetitive so we decided to add vocals. We used vocal samples that we found through the Internet, mainly focusing on Sami and Flamenco music vocals. This is because my theme for the fashion show was 'Identity', and as I come from a dual heritage, Spain and Finland, we decided to include these two aspects in to develop on the idea of the theme. We used Flamenco vocals for the idea of my Spanish heritage, and this comes in half way. However, the original vocals did not fit in with the soundtrack, so we used a software called 'Melodyne' to move the notes into the correct pitch so it would sound and fit better with what we had already produced. We also did the same for the Sami music, which was for my Finnish side, and this music was quite high pitched so we moved it down an octave.

Overall, I am glad with how the song sounded in the end and I appreciate how much time and effort is required to make a song now. I think that the song compliments the outfits and vice versa, and that they both go hand in hand.

To listen to the final soundtrack, click the play button below!

Identity.m4a

Practioner I worked with:

Neil Luckett:

Biography:

Neil Luckett is a composer with a Fellowship from the London College of Music and MMus (dist), singer, guitarist with an L.G.S.M. in classical guitar, arranger and producer.

There are a number of albums of his own material.

Some of the artists and companies that he has worked with or for include:

tvfordogs, Phil Dodd, the ROH soloists and Sting, Vanessa Mae, So Solid, Lisa Scott Lee, Idiotboy, Yve Mendes, Laurie Latham, Kealer, Mavericks Film, Aerostorm, Tom Allalone, Haygarth, BBC, First Search, Butterfly Stitch, Dave Cumming (Akilo), Red Drapes, Mr President etc 

His music is performed by a growing number of classical musicians and has been played on TV, radio and used in a number of short films. His orchestral pieces have been performed by the DSO and LCCO and the string quartets by the Aditi Quartet and the Elysian quartet.
He performs, both in Britain and abroad, with alternative rock band, tvfordogs and acoustic band Rabbit in the Blood. 

He is a composer and musician across a wide range of genres and that is reflected in his varied catalogue. He is currently primarily active in classical composition but he is still working as a session musician, teacher, producer and performer with tvfordogs and Rabbit In The Blood.

Evidence of working with a practioner:

Evidence of  progress:

Skills Development Plan:

By the 23rd of July, all the pieces; whether music or textile garments, were all finished and ready for the fashion show event. 

Feedback from other practioners:

Flora Leo:

Biography:

At 9 years old, Flora was awarded a specialist scholarship to study the piano and violin at Wells Cathedral School before continuing her musical education at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she was offered a full scholarship to study Media and Applied Music (Composition).

As a composer, she regularly conducts, directs and produces her own works in both recording studio and concert hall environments, and although she has a keen interest in music for Film and TV, she also writes and performs classical chamber music and is a prolific pop and musical theatre songwriter.

She is currently writing the book, music and lyrics for 'Triangularity' and 'The Most Beautiful Suicide' which will be performed at the Tristan Bates Theatre in September 2018.

Other original musicals include 'Show & Tell' and 'The Lightning Road'. 

She has also worked as producer/arranger for West End star Yanle Zhong (‘Avenue Q’), and as producer/writer/arranger on ‘The Space In Between’ for singer Jonathan Eio.

Her writing and arranging credits include the documentary 'The Way We Are in London', extracts from the TV series 'Simon Schama's History of Britain' and the US film 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.'

In 2018 Flora was the MD for 'The Last Five Years' at the London Theatre with Seagull and Wolf Productions and was nominated for an 'Offy' for Best Musical Director for 'Free Solo' at the Drayton Arms Theatre.

Her musical 'The Lightning Road' will have its first professional production at The Actors' Church in Covent Garden on 26th October.

Feedback from Flora Leo:

1. Do you think that the song matches the outfits and vice versa?

Yes, I think the vibrancy of the colours and materials used in the collection are also reflected in the upbeat rhythmic grooves and electro feel of the music track.

2. What do you think went well?

The collection works together as a whole and has a fun retro vibe as well as working in a contemporary setting.

3. What do you think could have gone better?

The collection could potentially be extended to include more casual outfits or perhaps some outfits which explore gender fluidity.

4. What would you rate the outfits out of 5?

4.5

5. What would you rate the song out of 5?

5

6. What do you think of the combination of the song and the outfits overall?

Very appropriate - maybe the world music influences of your dual heritage in the song could have come across in the outfits more.

7. Any further feedback?

A fun and well judged collection.

India Copley:

Biography:

India Copley is currently a textile designer and maker who is working as an art technician in Blackheath High School. She studied at the University of the Arts London at the Chelsea School Art and Design, where she did a BA Hons degree in Textile Design, and received a first class honours degree. She also currently works as a studio assistant at One We Made Earlier Studios. Copley also worked as an interior designer and showroom sales assistant for four years at Places and Spaces Design LTD.

Her approach to working involves an application of questionable surface design onto three-dimensional shapes in a state of playful, multi-disciplinary experimentation. Using drawing as a tool to inspire her pieces, her work unfolds and escalates as colour, pattern and texture meet material- and process-focused forms. She is heavily involved in the making procedure of my pieces, using laborious craftsmanship and step-by-step techniques to create my relating shapes. In her quest to form a relationship with her pieces she  uses a very hands-on method to building, mould-making and casting to evolve her work, whilst filling, adding and extruding to perfect a touch-worthy textured finish. 

Copley's work often behaves as a collection of pieces that complement and interact with one another in a lively collision of shape, colour and texture. The position of her work within society is that of an installation context, gallery, interiors or display setting. It becomes almost interactional as my ensembles aim to intrigue the viewer, creating questions regarding the properties and qualities of the pieces. What is that? Can I touch it? 

Feedback from India Copley:

"I think the variety of different fabrics and textures make this a really exciting collection, alongside the contrasting music. The use of different fabrics works well in representing identity, the soft floral lace and crushed velvet gives a very feminine feel and the shocking pink metallic fabric, combined with the black gives more of a punky look, along with an upbeat track with the vocals which represent a part of your own heritage. I think the garments shapes are cohesive across the collection and work well in complimenting one another, you have done a brilliant job in creating six individual outfits using different patterns and techniques - yet make them all look so intrinsic as a whole collection whilst also creating a track to again tie your ideas into a cohesive piece of work for a show.

I speak from my area of expertise of textiles and I think there is a potential to further progress the textile elements of your work, you could maybe have added in some printed/embroidered areas of fabric to soften the contrast between black and pink - these could have been designs that are representative of individuality. Naturally, black is dominating for for the eye, this contrast in colour could have been slightly softened by using a grey or navy blue so that the black does not overpower your lovely designs too much.

I would rate your collection a 4 out of 5. I think this is a brilliant collection, and a very ambitious one to have taken on by yourself, the pieces are fluid and they looked so striking on the catwalk in the fashion show back in February. You should be very proud of yourself, it's a very skilful and well executed collection. I would rate the music a 4 out of 5 as I think there could be more elements added to make it a more exciting piece but again is very skilful for this being your first track composed and experimenting with a new art form as you mentioned."

Sharing my work with others:

To share my work with others, I went on Instagram and posted a link to the soundtrack I made, along with pictures from the fashion show to get feedback over both parts from a larger range of people.

Along with this, I added a link to swipe up from the Instagram story to my Survey Monkey questionnaire to make it easier to give feedback.

The link to my Survey Monkey questionnaire: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FMKFQF

I added a short description of what the song and collection were about on the second slide on the Instagram story, to give people a background knowledge on what the survey was about.

Aside from these two slides, I added more slides of pictures of the collection I made for the Fashion Show to show more of the clothes individually so people would be able to answer the questions.

Screenshots of my questionnaire:

Feedback I recieved:

I managed to get 89 responses from my friends and Instagram followers, which I was very happy with. I found the responses very helpful to know what worked well and what could have been improved. I also liked how I got to know other people's opinions on what they thought on my collection and soundtrack.

As there was quite a large amount of responses, I will add about 10 screenshots of some of the responses, below to each question.

1. Do you feel the song matches the outfits and vice versa?

Out of the 89 people who replied to my survey, the majority voted that the song matched the outfits and vice versa. Over 80% of the people who completed the survey, voted yes, that the song matched the outfits, but just under 20% did vote no, that they did not think that the outfits and song matched. However reading through the responses to the other questions of those who voted no to the initial question, most either wrote that they preferred the outfits more than the song, or the reverse, or that they liked the both but as individual pieces of work and not as a cohesive. 

I am very happy with the responses that I received and took on board the critiques.

2. What do you think went well?

I am very happy with the comments I got about what went well in the project. The vast majority of the comments were about the collection itself rather than the song. It was helpful to know what other people identified as the stronger parts of the project and how people had different views on what went well.

3. What do you think could have been better?

These constructive criticism has helped me to know and identify what the weaker parts of the project were, and in regards to the responses, I think that the song seems to be weaker than the clothes. This is expected as I am a lot more centred at the textiles aspect rather than the musical part. 

4. What would you rate the outfits?

On average I got 4.4 stars out of 5 stars, which I am very happy with. Some comments I got over the clothes in the further feedback section, was that some people found the clothes too revealing and short, so that is why they said to have clicked 4 stars. However there will always be creative differences between people and it is impossible that absolutely everyone will love your collection and are satisfied with it. Either way, I am very content with the score overall as the majority of people did vote 5 stars.

5. What would you rate the song?

On average, in this section, I did receive 4 stars out of 5, for the quality of my song. The majority of votes were placed among 3 to 4 stars but there was a minority that voted 5 stars which did push up the average. I am very happy with this score as I have never been very musical and quite a few people did say that they did like the song as it was quite unusual and not what they have heard before. However on the flip side, some people also said that they did not really like the song as they found it a bit "repetitive" and "random".

6. What would you rate the combination of the song and collection as a cohesive?

Overall I did get 4.3 stars out of 5, which is slightly lower than the rating of the collection and higher than the rating of the song. In the further feedback section I did receive a few comments about how some people thought that the song and collection went hand in hand but others did find that the song did not match the "vibe" of the collection. I take these comments on board and if I was to do this project all over again, I now know what I should have changed.

7. Any further feedback?

The response in the further feedback section was a bit varied but the majority was very positive but I have added both views above. Most of the comments talked about the clothes and were compliments. However there were a few comments about the song, some positive and some were constructive criticism. Both sides of the comments were helpful to see what did work well and what could have been improved.

Final Review:

Overall, I think that I have definitely developed my skills in my main art form of fashion and textiles through making a collection of six outfits. I learnt new skills, such as the ones I have mentioned before, on how to sew an invisible zip and how to make two pieces rather than just making one. I definitely do feel more confident with designing by being more exposed to it during the time I was designing the collection in contribution to the schools' annual fashion show and to try and link the outfits to the theme and link the music to it all as whole, which was something I felt I struggled with more prior to the fashion show and this project. I also feel more knowledgeable and have definitely extended my skills of the subject of music. I learnt key terminology such as to quantise, bass line and loops, and what these actually mean and how they are applied to or in a song or soundtrack. I also learnt a lot more on some of the computer programmes themselves that are used when making a soundtrack, and in this case I used Logic Pro X, so I gained more experience using this particular software and how to use it. I also learnt more about other computer softwares that could be used when making a soundtrack such as Sibelius and Garage Band, which I did not use solely when producing the soundtrack in this project but but have used before in music lessons, so I definitely explored a different and new software which I have never used before and was able to compare this new software to previous usage of the softwares which I have used before. I also learnt a bit more on other musical artists such as Paul who I used as inspiration when creating this soundtrack as the purpose of doing so was to explore different ways of adding vocals to add more texture into the song.

For getting involved in the wider arts sector, I decided to attend a short course that lasted over two weekends. This course was aimed for learning more about pattern cutting and was more of an introduction to pattern cutting. Aside from attending this course, I also attended two events in the fashion industry. These gave me more of a taste of going into the fashion industry and more of a feel of the industry. In this section, I will explore and evaluate my experiences when I attended these courses along with the two events. 

Pattern Cutting Introduction Two-Saturday Course:

Firstly I attended the two weekend course. This course was held at the Fashion and Textiles Museum, on Saturday 23rd February 2019 and Saturday 2nd March, this course lasted all day from 10:45am till 4:30pm each of the two days. This course was led by the creative pattern maker Michelle Lewis, who is currently developing a sustainable fashion label. She has worked in London as a creative pattern cutter and designer for Zandra Rhodes and Kitty Joseph since the year 2009. She has also freelanced as a pattern cutter for influential London Design houses including Alexander McQueen, Nicole Farhi, Erdem and David Koma. Whilst doing this course and teaching at the Fashion and Textiles Museum part time, she also teaches part time at the London Metropolitan University. And since 2014, she has been working in the fashion industry in Bangkok in Thailand and has explored the textile and fashion traditions all over Thailand. She has returned back to London in January 2016 and since then has been inspired by her experiences and connections in Thailand and has began developing a sustainable and ethical clothing brand, which is mainly based on weaving and using natural dyes.

Before living and working in London, she completed a BA of Creative Arts in the University of Melbourne in 2003 and a Diploma of Fashion at RMIT University in 2006 in Melbourne in Australia. After she completed her studies, she launched her own fashion label called Ok Carnivale, that stocked several Australian specialist boutiques from 2006 till 2009. 

She has worked as a pattern maker for London's most renown luxury fashion labels, such as Zandra Rhodes (as I have mentioned above), Alexander McQueen and Nicole Farhi. She has recently been employed internationally to develop patterns for Burberry.

This course would be solely taught by Michelle Lewis but there would also be some helpers depending on numbers at the course. This course was meant to cover the basics and the basic rules of flat pattern cutting specifically. This two day course focused mainly on using fashion blocks to create womenswear garment components including simple sleeves and skirts. This process also included bodice dart manipulations, style lines and how to add fullness through gathers and pleats. We were also taught on how to use a block, identify balance lines, take measurements from the body and how to make basic fitting adjustments, dart manipulation, pivoting and slashing to create style lines and design components such as pleating and gathers, work with seam allowances and sew a toile, pattern terminology and how to use specialist equipment. These demonstrations in the course used size ten fashion blocks to make it all more inclusive by using an "average" size. 

To attend this course, there was no need to have pattern cutting experience, which was very good for myself personally as I have not had much experience in making pattern pieces from scratch but I have used store bought pattern pieces before and I have experimented making my own pattern pieces but have not been taught professionally. Learning how to do pattern cutting is a key skill when trying to get in the fashion industry as it is key for someone to know how to sew but to be even more successful, it is key to learn how to do pattern cutting so that you can design your own designs and so it can be commercialised if you have made your own patterns. This is a subject matter in textiles which I wanted to learn more about and I have watched video tutorials on it but I did think that it would be a really good experience to get professional help along with this, so that I could also ask any questions to a professional in person. This course was advertised for beginners wanting to learn the principles as well as anyone who may have dressmaking experience but who now wants to experiment with their own patterns. The participants were also told to bring our own metric tape measure, fabric shears, paper shears, fine steel pins, fine pointed tracing wheel, HB pencils and felt tip pens. We were provided with calico and specialist equipment at the course. 

The price of the whole course was £190 but included materials and exhibition entry. On the first day, we focused mainly on simple skirts and basic sewing techniques in the morning, to accommodate all the participants needs and so that Michelle Lewis could look at what skills level everyone was at, to then go from there and make sure that the next steps and activities were appropriate for everyone. There were about ten other people there, more or less, aside from me, and they were all university students but mainly older, so there was no one really my age. They had all done sewing before and we were all basically on the same level but of course there was slight differences between everyones skills naturally. The first few activities of the course that very first morning were again mainly so that Michelle Lewis could figure out everyones capabilities and what to do moving forward. And after these activities where we looked at A-Line skirt patterns and just recapping basic sewing techniques by hand and using the machine, we then moved on two looking more into dart manipulation and how to change the shape of a simple A-Line skirt to more body con and tight fitting or even to just have a different silhouette such as a fit and flare. This was really interesting to see in my opinion because you can have a few simple pattern pieces to form one type of skirt and then add lines for gathering and pleats and it changes the whole skirt. It really shows that by using these techniques, you can change a certain item of clothing to a completely different fit. I will definitely apply these techniques used to the next item of clothing I make. We then focused more on adding more shape usong gathering and pleats specifically and just continuously doing this for a few hours. We did have a break in between the start and lunch time just so that we could have a breather between the "topics". After this short five minute break, we then went straight on to looking at the same thing on gathering and pleats but except that instead of doing it on a skirt, we looked at doing it specifically on a top or bodice part. So it was more on how to give the top the form for a woman to wear and to adjust to all the curves of the body on the top half. This was more complex than the skirt by a lot as if there was a pleat on one side, it would have to be most likely repeated on the other side of the top too so it was a lot more complex to make sure that both sides were even and placed at the correct angles and areas. I did make a mistake at the very beginning where I draw the pleat lines too low down on the pattern piece paper, but as Michelle Lewis corrected, I definitely did learn from my mistakes and I asked her how could I know for next time where to place it. She then gave me some advice that there was a certain amount of centimetres that you had to take away from the top half of the top to almost direct you into where you should draw the pleat lines depending on what the size you were making the top was and depending on the size of the person going to wear your top was. This definitely helped as it was more of a one to one discussion and she helped me to do the correct thing using this technique. After this, there was a half an hour lunch break were we were recommended to stay in the museum and have either our packed lunch (if we had brought any) or buy something from the cafe downstairs, as they advised us that there was probably not enough time to leave and come back in time. So I went to the cafe and sat with a few of the university students and they told me about what courses they were doing which was super interesting to me as I again got to find out more about the universities from a students perspective so it would make me more aware when applying. After this lunch time, we then made our way back upstairs to where we started to learn more about seam allowances, this did not take us very long as everyone was very aware on what they were and how to incorporate them into our clothes and for what purpose. The seam allowance is just a couple of centimetres (about one or two centimetres) that you have to add on to your fabric so that the garment does not end up being too tight fitting because you used up the space to actually sew the panels together. So that is why the seam allowance is so important and all of us knew about it so we moved on from that mini topic really quickly after she gave us a few demonstrations. We then moved swiftly on to how to sew a toile. I had no idea what this was as I have never heard of this terminology before and a toile is basically a draft version of a garment. So essentially it is a practice run of your garment and is usually made from a cheaper fabric so that you can test the fit of a particular garment before cutting into your real fabric which tends to be more expensive. She also taught us that a toile can also be referred to as a muslin, so she just wanted us to be aware of this before moving forward. This was especially tricky and I honestly did find this technique very challenging and even a bit frustrating as it took a really long time to actually make it and then in the industry, the next step would be to see if there were any corrections that needed to be made and sometimes to even redo the toile itself before making the actual garment using your final fabric choice. However I learnt the importance of this and why it is actually used so much in the industry, especially in high couture fashion labels. As a whole, this process of sewing a toile (or muslin) takes a longer process obviously, but it saves the company money in the long run as no expensive fabric has to go to waste when experimenting on the fit and the smaller design flaws. This took up the majority of the afternoon and after doing this, we had a quick and short lesson on some pattern terminology. This was a really nice way of ending the day on a more relaxing note after all the work we had to do during this first day. After this section on learning about the pattern terminology, we were free to leave and the next lesson would be the following week. We learnt words such as armscye, which is the opening in a bodice where the sleeves are attached, so this is basically the word in pattern terminology for an armhole. Another word that stuck out to me and that I learnt that day was; "ease" and the "ease line". There are two different types of ease; the wearing ease and the designer ease. This will affect how tight or loose fitting a garment will end up being. The wearing ease is added to allow garments to move with the body. On the other hand, the designer ease is more about the designers preference on what the style of the garment will be. Certain types of garments such as woven garments, will need wearing ease to allow movement and for the person wearing it to be comfortable to be able to move in it. The easing line is a short and broken line with dots at either end which have an arrow to show which direction to mark the area to be eased. I have never heard of these specific pattern terminology before today so that was another really useful thing that I learnt on this first day of this course. However one thing I would have changed was that we could have maybe had the terminology lesson at the beginning so that we were fully aware of all the words that we were using during that duration of the first day without having to ask, instead of having it at the end. However it was a really nice end to the day and we could always apply these words to the next lesson either way. I left this first day with a lot of new found knowledge and techniques which I will definitely try incorporate in my next design pieces in the future.
The following weekend was a step up in difficulty from this first day, as we had to finish off all the topics that we had to get through in this weekend. We got in the next day of the course, the following Saturday, and we had to get straight on with the work, starting off with using fashion blocks again to create garment components such as simple sleeves with the measurements for a female body. This was fairly simple as we did this the last Saturday when we were making the bodice patterns. This was essentially the same process but even easier as sleeves do not require dart manipulations in the sense that bodices and top parts of the garments do to give the shape and structure, so this was a nice introduction "welcome back" activity. After doing this, we then focused on identifying balance lines. When Michelle Lewis introduced this topic I had no idea what was in store for us as I have never heard these terms. She explained what it was and the process of it, and explained that there were two main types of line balancing that meant two different things but that were both relevant to the fashion industry. The first meaning was essential to the total overall design of the garment. And in this meaning, there are three types of balance; the first being formal or symmetrical balance. And this is when two sides of a design are alike on either side of its vertical centre. And the balance in the use of colour is essential to get the best effect. The next type of balance is informal balance or asymmetrical balance, where the purpose of this is to use space, colour and a variety of shapes and components to produce this overall effect. The last type of balance is radial balance as we learnt, it is when the major parts of the garment design, radiates from the central part of the garment, creating almost a sunburst shape and effect. The next meaning of the line balance is in terms of production in the textiles industry. It is an assembly line made up of several work stations and at each station different processes are done. The key to this going effectively with no work pile ups between station is that the lines must be balanced, so hence why this is also known as the balance lines. So work must get through each workstation at the same time thereabouts to work properly and efficiently.

After learning about this, we then moved to a completely different topic on how to take more complex measurements from the body, and we covered this slightly in the previous weekend. And we also learnt how to make basic fitting adjustments through these measurements. This process is key to make tailor made outfits in the fashion industry, even more so in high couture rather than high fashion, as clothes are expected to be of the best quality in high couture whereas fast fashion is all about the speed that new collections come out at. We received so many tips about taking measurements from the body as this is the first initial step in making a garment, and if this goes wrong, then the rest of the processes needed to be done in order to make the garment will all go wrong. So she gave us lots of important tips and even gave us a handout of the importance of making the correct measurements and tips along with advice. Some of advice was even on how to stand the person who you were tailoring the clothes for, for example, the person being measured should stand up straight on both feet and their feet should be about fifteen centimetres apart from one another, this ensures the body is at its best posture so that in this way it is easier to collect all the measurements. She also gave tips on what the person should wear, for example, it is really important that the person being measured should wear tight, fitted clothes as if they were baggy clothes, this will give you the wrong measurements. However, wearing lingerie is better as it will leave no room for errors when taking the measurements. Then she went on to give tips on the tape measure, such as to keep it level and parallel to the ground at all times that you are making horizontal measurements. She then also said that if you are taking measurements of a person, that you should always stand on the right side of the person. These were among a few more tips that she gave us, which were definitely very useful to learn about. Then the last thing we looked at was more on dart manipulation and more terminology specific to this. We learnt what dart manipulation actually is, which is when you move darts around the pattern block to where ever you want, and this is done for both a better fit of the garment or because of the design and the preference of the designer as well. As this course was more specific to flat pattern making, we learnt about dart manipulation in terms of this specific area. So dart manipulation in flat pattern making basically lets you move a dart from its original area to a new area on the pattern. Moving a dart is designed by choosing a pivot point and shifting the dart to this new area. I learnt that this is useful in order to get a better fit on the garments and it changes the whole look of the garment. We also learnt more about darts themselves which are a feature on woven garments especially to make them fit the body better and are also used on knit patterns too, especially to give the garment made by these materials a form and moveable. There was someone who was not quite sure what a dart was so she asked Michelle Lewis, and we got a brief recap on what it meant, so darts are wedge shapes in a pattern that are used to control the fullness and to shape a garment to the body. She then gave specific examples of where they can be used, such as on the bodice of a garment and the purpose of the darts on a bodice is to shape the fabric around the curves of the bust. And these are mostly commonly positioned on the side of the bodice and also at the waist, but of course it is the designers choice on where to place them in their designs.

After learning and experimenting with pivoting and slashing techniques in pattern making and drawing and positioning darts on our pattern blocks to experiment with these new techniques that we learnt, it came to the end of the two weekend course. This course was so useful in finding out so much more about pattern making and cutting and I found it very helpful learning all the techniques and top tips from an industry expert. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and would have loved if maybe there was an additional day where the participants could use these techniques and maybe even design and make a garment using some of these key techniques under the guidance and expertise of Michelle Lewis in case we needed any help applying the knowledge we learnt at the course. Overall, I really recommend this course and the teacher was amazing.

Comments from practitioner leading the course:

After attending the course, I emailed the course leader; Michelle Lewis, to get a few comments about my work and progress overall in the duration of the two weekend course. I gave her a few points on where I wanted some feedback on specifically such as for example, I asked her for feedback on how well she thought I did on the course looking specifically at learning new skills. After sending her email, she replied a while later and gave me a few comments which I will attach below: 

"You were very hard working and work ethic was good especially when tackling new skills."
"Occasionally you had a few gaps in your knowledge of the fashion industry but were quick to ask inquisitively to better your knowledge."
"I was very impressed with your work, you always tried to complete all the tasks to the best of your abilities."
"Well done on completing the course!"

Reflection on the weekend course:

Looking at the course, I learnt so many new techniques, which I have gone in depth on above. I also definitely feel as if I was out of my comfortable zone in this course, which definitely pushed me with the textiles elements in the course along with building my communication skills. Being out of my comfort zone was definitely a good thing, as I pushed myself to my full capabilities at the moment to power through all the activities in the course so that I could learn as much as I could possible do from the course. From this course I gained a lot of knowledge, skills and techniques which I will definitely incorporate in my next designs and work. It was a very useful experience and I am very glad I chose to do this to extend my knowledge on the fashion industry outside of what I already know.

Media and Fashion - Celebrating Diversity Event at City Hall:

Aside from attending this course, I also attended two events in the fashion industry.

The first event was hosted at City Hall for career progression and networking. This event was also to give participants more of an insight in to the industry. The event was titled; "Media and Fashion - Celebrating Diversity." They also held this event last year which was highly successful, which I unfortunately did not attend as it seemed like an incredible opportunity. I was invited to attend this event from one of my contacts that I made through one of the workshops that I did at the V&A Museum. This event was invitational only so I was very fortunate and grateful to have been invited by this contact. The event was organised with the D Foundation, in association with Asbo Magazine and the Mayor's Peer Outreach Team. It has been organised as a follow up seminar to the highly successful event the year before. This event was hosted by Swarzy Macaly who is a radio host at Kiss FM Radio. This seminar ran from 6pm till 8pm on Monday 25th February at City Hall, in the Queen's Walk in London SE1 2AA. The evening started with registration at the reception of city hall, followed by refreshments and networking. This when then followed by a panel of experts sharing their experience in diversity and inclusion in the creative industries. After this, participants like myself were offered the opportunity to meet mentors who will help them create practical career development plans including hints, tips and advice on how to breakthrough in the creative industries.

The screenshots above are of emails exchanged from myself, the organiser of the event and the contact I have who invited me. I made this contact through a workshop course in the V&A and she very kindly emailed me inviting me to attend. After receiving the email, I was very thankful and sent an email in reply thanking for the opportunity and the invitation and that I would be attending. I then emailed the email address that was written in the original email sent to me, to RSVP and confirm my place to attend. On the second image above, that is a screenshot of my email to the event organiser asking to attend and the following screenshot is of the event organiser's response. 

I found this event incredibly helpful and an insight into the world of fashion.

When I arrived to City Hall for the event on the day, the first thing we had to do was to get registered by the people at the door and have security checks. After this, we were allowed to enter into the event hall and into the building. We were then ushered into the correct event room. There was a time period from about 6pm (which is when I had arrived) to 6:30pm where the sole purpose was to get everyone on the guest list registered and when you were in the event hall, there was a chance to grab nibbles, snacks and refreshments. There were tables and chairs set out, there was a whole row of tables at the back full of delicacies and refreshments. There was also a table with microphones set up for the panel, and a main staging area where there was a microphone and stand. After the registration had been all done, the event commenced and the first thing that happened was an introduction and a general housekeeping announcement from the host, Swarzy Macaly, who as mentioned before, is the host of Kiss FM. She was a brilliant host and really knew what she was doing, she was so confident and made the event really enjoyable. After her introduction, where she introduced herself and other members of staff working, she also outlined the timings of the event and what the seminar agenda was for that evening. This was then followed by a performance from a lady called Malunga. Malunga is a singer/songwriter and has written her own original songs (two of which she performed yesterday for us) and they were really well performed, sung and written. She also told us that her songs are available to listen on all major streaming sites such as Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes and Soundcloud. This was a really enjoyable performance as she also really got the audience involved in her performance whether it was getting everyone to sing her chorus at some point to even getting people to clicking or clapped to the song. After this performance, there was a panel talk and Q&A session for about half an hour. There were four women on the panel and then Swarzy lead the questions for them. The four panellists were called; Natalie Worgs, Fatima Timbo, Maria and Obwawe. These four women were from different sides of the fashion industry and doing completely different things in the same industry. I thought this was really interesting and really good to see how different the jobs can be in being in the same industry. Natalie Worgs is a fashion facilitator, events organiser, stylist and photographer. It was really refreshing to see that even if you go down the route of fashion and do a very specific degree or course whether in university or as an apprentice (or even down another route to secure a qualification) that this does not mean in any way that you will do the same exact thing for your whole career and that you can always branch into different aspects of the creative industry. She explained about herself a bit more in detail at the beginning, when the host; Swarzy, asked all the panellists to explain a bit more about their careers and what they do now along with how they started off. She explained how she went to university to study a marketing course which did cover editorials and more fashion related content, but that it was more aimed and focused on the marketing and advertising industry. After doing this, she went to secure a job as a freelance visual merchandiser which again was what she did go to university to study so she did know quite a bit about the industry already.This was her first job and from there she went on to work behind the scenes in fashion and used her industry expertise, knowledge and experiences from her work over the years to help and support emerging fashion designers, brands and labels. Currently, she works as a freelance fashion facilitator and consultant, and also has founded both Fvshion Dvting and Girls About Peckham. Fvshion Dvting is more of a blog and movement and a business for her love for styling and photography. Most of this has gone on to their own public instagram site where she posts pictures from when she has styled garments and outfits along with accessories, and also about their purpose. It is mainly focused on the images that she has styled and actually directed along with photographed herself. Her other business venture; Girls About Peckham is also more of a blog initiative, which she has posts all the images on to her instagram on @girlsaboutpeckham and there's a hashtag that she came up with #girlsaboutpeckham. The purpose of this initiative, is about the girls and teenagers and women growing up in Peckham and about their identity, style, power and about the environment.  Natalie Worgs styled all the photos again and she takes the photographs and leads the movement campaign. She finds people in Peckham who she thinks has a really unique style or just someone that she believes could work on the campaign, and asks them about it along with telling them more about what type of things they would do if they agreed to work with her. If the people agree to do it, she finds about them as an individual and their background, then she experiments with style and looks with photoshoots and posts it on the site. It was really interesting how she built a platform for herself not just once but twice and how she uses it to empower others who don't have a platform like herself and to make as many people feel like they can express what they think and that their voices are heard. More in the panel, she talked more about social media itself and how it can be a powerful business tool but there is such a harsh light on it by many of the general public and how she wants to change it to be in a more empowering and positive light because she did even say that without social media sites such as instagram, she doesn't believe that she could have built two successful labels without the attention that she received from her followers. The next panellist, was a lady called Fatima Timbo, who is a social media influencer, model and YouTuber, along with working in fashion. She first started off as a finance trainee but then moved to work in the creative industry as she felt that it was her passion and that it was really what she wanted to do with her life. Fatima shared her struggles with achondroplasia, which is a bone growth condition that causes disproportionate dwarfism and how impacted her entry into the creative industry. She said that it was important for the industry to become more acceptance of people who are different and more acceptance on disabilities without judgement. She still feels that some fashion organisations are solely looking for a more white based and non disabled people to work for them, but since her entrance in the creative industry scene, she has been confident in herself and spoke out about these issues so she definitely thinks that the industry has changed in the few years that she has worked in it to become slightly more tolerable to her as a black, disabled woman. She has also taken to online sites such as youtube and instagram to share her story and to try to empower other disabled women in particular, but to anyone who is slightly different to be more confident in yourself and to show that she has become so successful and that everyone else can do what she's done too. Her message was very moving and it was so interesting to hear how her experiences and herself as a person has changed so much over the last couple of years. The next panellist was called Maria, who is also a stylist and designer, however she did say that she wanted to open up a new business venture in the creative industry and open up a new designer label. She has her own small boutique open in central London and wants to expand this label while also opening a new business venture. She explained to us when answering the first question that the host asked, about finding more about what her career has been about and what she has done so far in the industry. She did an internship in fashion in a small boutique and since then has carried on with the boutique and then went on to do an accounting and finance course and then opened up her own label boutique. This was really interesting to see as it showed that to get in the fashion or creative industry, you do not always have to go in a more traditional route and have to go to university, and that you can actually go through an internship or apprenticeship. It showed me that there are more options to get into this industry. The last panellist was another lady called Obwawe, who again was more in the fashion industry rather than media. She explained how she went through the more "traditional" route by going to university and studying a finance course again but with fashion on the side. However she soon realised her passion for fashion during the side course and realised that she wanted to dedicate her career or at least the start of her career in fashion, so she went on to do a mini internship after university to gain some experience and she did admit that she had to do a lot of free jobs at the start to gain the experience that she needed to secure herself a job in a really competitive industry. She then received a counter question from the host Swarzy, to ask her when did she stop doing free jobs and start asking or looking for paid jobs. She then answered that there was a point that she got to where she realised that she did have the passion, the drive and the sufficient amount of experience so then eventually she started to look for proper paid jobs. This lead to what she called the "real start of her career". There were a few more questions asked by the host before opening questions up to the floor and getting audience members to ask the panellists questions. There were only about three questions asked in total because each of the four panellists gave really long answers to each of these questions so it took a while to get through, but it was really interesting to see how each panellist answered and responded to each question differently. The first question was about what their dreams were for the future in terms of their careers in the creative industry. Most of them answered how they want to gain more of a following in their label or boutiques and went on to how they will go about doing so and actually achieving this, to show the audience that if you have a dream, and you really want to achieve it, that it takes a lot of planning, perseverance and commitment to follow through to actually achieve the "dream" that you want for yourself. I thought that this was a really helpful way to look at this and that it was useful to hear this point of view. They did each say their own personal plans moving forward and that they will either work more and do more styling and photoshoots and create more content to upload and post more frequently for example. The next question was about what their proudest moment of their careers were. Fatima who was the model and social media influencer, said that her proudest moment was after attending so many casting calls, that she finally got signed by a modelling agency. She said that it took a lot in her to actually go every time to all these modelling cast calls and to not give up hope on getting a call back to model. She also said that after going viral in a video on holiday, she also said that that experience was also one of her proudest in her career. In the video, she is on holiday in her home town and was dancing next to the pool while her friend filmed her as a joke. She was not going to post this video on to her instagram as she felt that she looked "fat" and was not wearing any makeup so she felt insecure, however she still posted the video and it went viral basically overnight, and she received so many comments about how people were inspired by the video and it showed that people with a growth disability can still be "beautiful" as many people disagree about this in our society. This really was inspirational and I learnt that even the work or content that you think is the worst might be considered the best by your followers. It does not directly link to fashion per se, but it inspired me to also consider designing more inclusive clothes for all women of different heights and body shapes. There is a really big market of targeting clothes to all bodies to be more diverse in fashion in current day, but what is not seen very often is actual diversity. For example, out of all the fashion shows I have attended, there has only been one occasion that I have seen a disabled person walking on the runway. This shows that fashion still can be more diverse with the clothing itself and who labels portray to be their target market. The final question before the end of the Q&A was about what their biggest disappointments were or biggest regrets in the industry. They each went on to answer the question and it was so refreshing to see what they all thought looking back on their mistakes or regrets in the fashion or media industry. The first regret was about starting "too late" but she then went on to say that it is never too late to start on something, whether a new career path or switching jobs or even taking up a new hobby, whatever your age, but she did regret not doing the work experience or internships when she was younger as she felt as if this held her back and made her have to do a lot of free and unpaid jobs to catch up her lack of experience once she got out of university. She strongly encouraged the audience members who wanted to go into this industry or any other industry to get their work experience and internships done before university or apprenticeships as she felt that there is not always the time to do it during your course. Another regret was about not being confident enough during a styling photoshoot, as the panelist explained that she had been an assistant during a styling photoshoot right at the start of her career and she had styled all the outfits in the photoshoot, and when asked when she got back to work the next day who had been in charge of styling, she allowed the head of the photoshoot to take the credit instead of her, and the individual who actually stole her credit about doing the work, actually got promoted significantly in her job. Since then, the panellist admitted that she had regretted it for a long time regretting all the benefits she could have reaped from this promotion and how much she would have loved the work and doing it. But she did admit that she also over time, has gotten over it and took it as a learning curve and that she learnt to be more confident and to always take credit for her work. 

After the panel talk and Q&A, there was another performance for the audience. The performance was from a girl who was actually twelve years old and who was really successful in what she was doing. Her performing name was "Diamond" and she had written a couple of songs herself, went to get them produced with a label who had her work through when she uploaded her songs on Soundcloud. Her songs are now also out on iTunes and Spotify to stream. It was unbelievable to see the amount of success this young singer had and everyone was in awe with her songs and also with the fact that she was only twelve. She was.a great performer and she performed two of her own original songs which were really good. After this performance, it was around 7:30pm and it was the time for the breakout session to meet the mentors. One of the two event organisers, Andrew, went around before everyone was allowed to go off to network, to explain who the mentors were and what they were doing in their careers. This was helpful to actually pinpoint who the mentors actually were and for me to see who I was more likely to go to considering there was a finite amount of time to network before the event was over. There were about ten mentors in total and there was about a bit less than two hundred guests so it was quite hard to secure a chance to go network with one of the mentors. However as soon as Andrew had introduced everyone and said that everyone was free to start networking, I went straight to talk to one of the mentors who worked in Asbo Magazine, this was the magazine that was actually sponsoring the event. I went to him to find out more about fashion journalism and to find out more about how the magazine works and to find out more about how he got into fashion. He originally went to university to study finance (much like some of the panellists at the event) and then discovered and went into the fashion industry by "accident" as he said. However he said that he does not regret ever joining the fashion or media industry as he says he absolutely loves his work. I also asked more about fashion journalism as I want to keep my options open for the future so I wanted to know more about what they do and what it was like to work at Asbo Magazine. He gave me lots of advice and tips and he told me to definitely apply for an internship at Asbo Magazine and gave me the contact information. This network opportunity was really helpful as I got an opportunity to perhaps internship this summer with Asbo Magazine and contacts. Then I talked to yet another worker from the same Asbo Magazine, to find out about his work and more about the Magazine from a different perspective. I also received lots of different advice and contact information from this fashion journalist. Again he told me that I should apply for an internship at Asbo Magazine but he did say that it was highly competitive so he gave me some tips on the application process and also encouraged me to start a fashion blog to build a "platform" for myself, especially to get into the fashion industry and fashion journalism. This makes you stand out from the crowd especially in the application process to the Asbo Magazine and even university or apprenticeships. From talking to both these workers from Asbo Magazine, I received so many tips and pieces of advice which I found really helpful and will definitely listen to. The last person I had time to talk to was one of the panellists in fact, who was Natalie Worgs who again was the stylist and photographer, along with other jobs in the fashion industry. I talked to her about the panel and about her work, and she asked more about myself as well. I told her about the fashion show that I made a collection in for a few years in a row and I showed her a few pictures of the clothes. She told me she absolutely loved them and she told me that she especially loved one of the fur jackets I made. She asked me a few questions over the jacket and asked me what price I would sell the jacket for if I made it again for her in a different colour such as hot pink and a bigger size. I was really surprised that she wanted to buy a jacket from her and I was really taken aback so I did not know what to charge but I was super flattered over this. She then gave me her phone number and email address to contact her to arrange over the jacket as she said she was super obsessed. This was absolutely amazing to me as it is such an exciting opportunity and I am really happy that I did approach and talk to her. Without this event, I would not have gotten so big an opportunity at this stage. She also then asked me if I was interested in styling which I said that I was, as I love styling outfits and also again I am not sure what part or aspect of the fashion industry I really want to get into just as of yet, so again as I said before I want to keep my options open. She then asked if I was interested in doing a few bits of work experience from her; doing styling and helping out at photoshoots. I said that I would love to do this and she had already given me her contact information so she just told me to contact her and she would arrange the work experience. I was really pleased with the overall outcome of the event as I received so many tips and pieces of advice from so many industry experts along with being invited to doing work experience and also being asked to apply to do an internship at a fashion magazine. After this networking session, there was a closing speech from the host Swarzy and then a final closing poem/spoken piece from a lady called Mwila. This spoken piece was about diversity and equality which was very fitting as the whole event was about diversity in the fashion and media industry. Most of the event was about fashion so by ending on a speech about diversity really tied the event together. After this closing piece, the event was over and there was another opportunity to network more or to just go straight away. I stayed for a while to talk to some more people, not just to the mentors and panellists, but to also talk to some other participants, and I met a few university art and textiles students and I found out more about the courses they were doing and their thoughts on it in their personal perspectives as students. This was also really helpful for me to see different students thoughts on different art universities and the courses. After this, I did leave the event and by that time it was about 8:30pm. Overall I found the event super useful and gained so much from the event, I would definitely love to come to the next one if they organise it again next year and would definitely recommend to anyone interested in the industry to have come along.

Depop Fashion Styling and Buying Event:

The final event that I attended was also invitational only through the app Depop, this again was very exciting and again I am incredibly grateful to have been invited to the event. This event was held on Sunday 24th of February 2019, from 2pm till 4pm at 317 New Cross Road. The main aim of this event was to join the community leaders of the app Depop and to get selling tips and more advice on how to sell your own handmade clothes on the site and how to be successful and draw attention from it. This event was held in Pandora's Box in London and there was also a styling session where you could bring something you made and they would help you to style it into an outfit as there would be an opportunity to also go thrifting and pick out some clothes to pair up with the look to give you more inspiration on what to pair with the piece of clothing you made, so when it came to taking pictures of the piece you made to sell it, you could show the diversity of what could be worn with it to attract more buyers to actually purchase it.

I was emailed about the opportunity straight from the app Depop team. Along with an image of the poster to advertise their event. It really caught my attention and I wanted to find out more about it so I read through it and thought that it could be an exciting opportunity to attend and find out more about selling clothes on the app, along with meeting two of the most handmade clothing sellers on the app in the area. I then RSVP to confirm my place, along with a plus one so that I could attend with one of my friends. I then received a confirmation email which confirmed my place to attend the event. 

On the day, I arrived to the event location, which was really close to Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art along with Goldsmiths, University of London. This was nice to pass through and see the Goldsmiths as it is somewhere where I am exploring the possibility of applying to attend for a fashion course at University level. So it was also nice to pass these places and get a feel of what the facilities hold from what you an see on the outside. When we reached the event, we got registered and ticked in to the guest list that the worker standing at the door was holding and after that we were free to enter the venue. At this point, the event organisers were mostly waiting for everyone to come in who was waiting to get ticked it and to settle down. Whilst we were waiting, we had an opportunity to get some refreshments from the side and to network and talk to some of the other people who attended the event. I talked to a couple of people, some were my age but most were slightly older, and I got to know more about what they sold on the app and how they balanced making and sewing with other commitments such as going to school and having a well balance of everything. I also learned more about what these people sold and had photos shown to me of their "online shop" on Depop. It was very exciting to see how everyone had very different clothes that they made and sold so it was also very interesting talking to them to find out more about their concepts and how they came up with these ideas. After talking for a bit, the event organiser came out on to the floor and announced if she could get everyones attention. She then went on to introduce the two community leaders as they came on to the floor. The community leaders explained themselves and what they did a bit. The first community leader which her handle on Depop is @minisworld, explained how she achieved all the attention she received on the app and how she reached 11,000 followers on her site and how she sold over 500 items on her shop since starting. She said that it did take her quite long to reach such a high number of a following on her clothes on the app, but she gave a strong piece of advice on how she did it. She went on to say how yes it did take long for her to achieve all she received from the app and to be titled a community leader for the app, but she said that it was important never to give up why you started selling your clothes and to always just envision what you want to take away from the experience; either if its gaining a name for yourself and your clothes or just doing it for fun. She said that it is incredibly important to dedicate a certain amount of time and dedication to the app and to customers, whether someone liked a piece of your clothing on your site and you message them first asking if they are interested in that piece of clothing to try get a sale, or if its just taking the time to make and upload all the photos on the site. She also mentioned that customers were the number one reason for your success and the followers, so you always had to make sure to be the loveliest version of yourself on the site to promote yourself and the name of the shop. She said that making sure customers are happy is an extremely important part of the selling. If the customer is not happy with your communication with them or not happy with the quality of the product for example, how it could ruin the chance of that customer shopping again and leaving a good review. Aside from selling her handmade clothes, she has since then bought and sold vintage clothes to her sellers to be that bit more successful. She said that there was a huge market for vintage and recycled clothes in the market in this day and age. Her last point, was about how everyone who wanted to make it big, needed a vision for their store and a unique label about themselves as there are so many people selling on this site, so it is really about why customers and consumers should buy from you instead of the next Depop seller. She said that personally, she focused on having recycled clothing to sell and that she used to recycle materials and fabric to make her garments before she went on to the world of vintage. Her comments and advice were extremely helpful and I definitely took on board what she was saying. The next community leader's handle was @gracecullinane, and she was again very successful on the app, having reached 41,000 followers and nearly 900 clothing pieces sold on the site. She focused particularly on photos and how that can make or break a sale, and also focused on her unique label as the previous community leader mentioned. The first point she went across was about the photos and how if you are ever online shopping, your sale massively depends on the photos you see on the site. She said that in some cases it is also very helpful to also add a video on the clothing when selling to show potential customers how the clothes sit on the body and how they actually look like with movement and when actually wearing it. She said how it was incredibly important on background, lighting and the quality of the photo itself, along with the pose, and condition of the clothing. If the clothing was wrinkled and on a hanger, it would definitely not attract a lot of attention and customers to buy. She said that she always models herself and takes her pictures on her phone which is really good quality. She said how this is not about getting yourself the biggest and best and most expensive camera on the market, but to actually just use even your camera on your phone but to make sure that it is good quality, for example she said that she used an iPhone 8 to take her pictures and that is was fully capable to do so. She said that pictures have to be clear and to always have a clear background so to not distract sellers from the clothes themselves and to also represent yourself in the best light possible and to make it look like you are a clean and organised person, so that they can trust you more on the condition of the clothing itself. She showed us a short clip of behind the scenes of her taking one of her pictures which showed her opening the curtains for natural lighting, decluttering the background, ironing the clothes and then her making different poses so it shows the potential customer how the clothes sit on the body to make them more likely to buy. 

After the two community leaders had finished their portion of presenting and talking, they opened the floor to questions. There was a lot of people who asked in terms of their own online shops on this app and one specific question asked how to gain more followers and attention, and to this one of the community leaders responded that it was all about giving the consumer what they wanted, which was attention, a good offer, and good communication; always being friendly etc. And that you could be incredibly successful and have sold a lot of items of clothing, but not have a huge following, which was also just as fine. They did say when you have sent your clothes over through the post to the customer, to maybe even attach a small business card or printed note (something that looks professional, not like you've spent a few seconds scribbling something down) which promoted your shop, and to thank the customer for their purchase and to encourage them to follow your shop on Depop. I asked a question on more about a unique label for your shop, so I asked more about there can only be so many things that entice and encourage buyers to buy more, but there is such an increase of saturation especially on making sure clothes are eco/environmentally friendly and how you can use this label among the sea of other buyers who also label their clothes in this way, and how to stand out from these sellers, just as the first community leader did. The answer I received was from the first community leader as this question was more focused on how she became so successful in her own retrospect. She told me that the label will just push you forward in a direction and market but then it is up to you that your photos, your communication and your clothes stand out from the crowd. She also said that recycling clothes had been something she had been passionate about and spun her little online shop on the app from her passion, and that it will be obvious for customers and other sellers who is actually passionate about what they are selling and who is not. She then went on to say that although there is a large gap in the market which is filling up quickly and is becoming very popular over recycled clothing instead of fast fashion, she said that it was important to also have your own unique selling point as it were on what the products you are selling are. She said yes if you're clothing is recycled or the fabric and materials have been recycled, advertise that as it is a unique label and popular at the moment, but then also maybe find another label such as vintage (of course only if you're selling vintage) or retro for example. I thought that what she said was very helpful and the importance of having a unique selling point for your shop to attract more customers. They also answered questions on Depop itself (the app) and some tricks and tips for getting more out of the app itself. 

After the floor was open to questions, and there was a lot of questions asked from participants, here was an opportunity to network more with these two community leaders and to actually meet them and ask them any other questions face to face. It was so lovely to meet them as they were both so nice and so welcoming on answering your questions on how to be successful with your own "business" on the app and how to grow. They also made sure to try include everyone and to talk to as many people as they could which was so nice of them to do so and go round talking to everyone. 

After this, there was the styling session, where the two community leaders gave a little tutorial on personal shopping and styling to then use in your shop. They said that there was nothing wrong if you wanted to venture more than selling your own clothes on the app, and also selling other clothes which you don't use anymore or have hand picked to sell on your shop. They both said that they sold their own clothes for a while before hand picking vintage pieces to sell on their site. They gave tips on knowing your customer base and your followers and knowing what to pick out for your store. They said that buying clothes to sell on your shop was an investment in itself because there is no point doing so if no one buys it and you are left with a hole in your wallet. They gave tips on starting out with smaller quantities of purchases and not starting at the more expensive side of clothing to sell, as most people are looking for basics that are cheap. She said that this was always a risk you had to be willing to take a there is no guarantee that the clothing that you hand pick from your shop is going to sell. She said that being proactive with sellers makes it easier to sell the clothes and to always message those who pressed like or save on your outfits to start a conversation with the potential customer. They also said that this gives you an insight of being a buyer as a job in the future, but obviously at a much smaller scale, and that if this part interested you that it could always turn out to be a possible career choice if you are interested in going into the fashion industry but are still unaware on what path to take.

In this styling session, both community leaders had picked out a couple of clothing items from their shop and there was a clothing rail full of clothes to pick out and give advice on what goes best. They gave some tips on styling such as how if you are trying to sell a certain pair of trousers on your site, and you need a full outfit picture and obviously you would need to wear a top half along with the trousers you are selling, but you aren't selling the top, it is important to choose a basic top that goes with the trousers but does not distract the potential customers from the trousers themselves. They said that choosing muted colours to go with the piece of clothing that you are selling is best as the muted colours of the other clothing pieces (which you are wearing in the picture but not selling) will kind of blend and go into the background so potential customers only focused on what you are selling, in this case the trousers. They also gave some more overall styling advice and invited members of the audience to go up and show one piece of clothing from their own shop (which we were instructed to bring) and to get the participant to show them how they would personally style the piece of clothing and then receive advice on how the two community leaders would style the clothing themselves and give the participant more advice. I personally brought a top that was on my Depop that I was selling, and I received advice how as the top was quite loose and oversized fight, how styling it with some tight leggings or leather pants would be the best way to style. They showed me the finished look of how they would have styled it and it looked so good so I definitely took that point that there should always be a contrast between tight and loose aspects in an outfit. 

After this styling session, there was an opportunity to ask any final closing questions before the event wrapped up and the host gave a little summary of the day as a whole and thanked us and the community leaders for all attending. After this, we were all free to go.

I definitely did find this experience, very different to anything I've ever gone to do or see but I did think it was definitely very interesting and found the advice very useful. I thought that the styling session was my favourite bit and I do think that I definitely want to explore that area of fashion a bit more in the near future and have already done some research and looking into a Fashion and Styling course that is held by the University of the Arts London in the summer for a week which I am looking into doing. This event gave me more of an insight on selling tips to sell clothes on an app and also different sides of the fashion industry at a smaller scale. I learnt more about the role as a buyer in the industry and more about styling.

However, one thing that could have been better in my opinion, was to have more community leaders present as when it came to meeting them and talking to them individually, as there was only two of them and certainly a lot more participants, it did take quite a while to get through everyone and the event did run over slightly by about 30 minutes.

Overall, I found this event very interesting and would definitely recommend and was definitely worth the visit.

Before I went to these events I researched a bit more on them, and I originally found out about the first event through an email subscription that I have with the Fashion and Textiles Museum about a new course workshop. I then went on to their website; https://www.ftmlondon.org/whats-on/ to check out the course details a bit more. I then wanted to find out a bit more on the course leader and I researched Michelle Lewis to find out more of her role in the textile industry and what area she was specialised in using the website; https://londonsartistquarter.org/artist-hub/users/michelle-lewis/profile and https://uk.linkedin.com/in/michelle-lewis-137a9241. I then found out about the second event through a previous connection in the industry as I have mentioned and to find out more about it I looked more into the magazine that was sponsoring the event; Asbo Magazine on their website; https://www.asbomagazine.com. This gave me more of an insight as to what the magazine is about and what the direction of the event could possibly be and gave me more of an overall idea on the event itself. The final event, I found out through an email from depop (the online selling app) and I then read through their flyer and googled more information of the event using their website; https://www.depop.com/events/.

Essay:

How is the fur industry killing off the environment?

The fur industry takes advantage of animals on a daily basis and uses their fur for our leisure which has already become a huge problem in our current world and society.

Animal fur has been used as a part of fashion for many centuries now, the usage even dating as far back as the Stone Age, when materials were scarce and temperatures low and thick clothing was a necessity to survive.

However as our society has developed, many more materials discovered and are so easily accessible to all, why is fur still being used in the name of fashion?

Using fur means skinning animals in unimaginable cruel ways, making them go through a whole painful ordeal for the sake of our clothes. This is all completely morally wrong and apart from this, harms the environment in which we live in.

I have chosen this particular topic to discuss because I am very against using animal products for our leisure. It is not fair that another living being is tortured for another beings looks. It is completely immoral that this issue still takes place today.

Over the last few years, the fur industry has received more and more backlash over the use of fur in the products and items of clothing. More people are now realising how much abuse animals are going through daily for the sake of fashion. This has turned some people into becoming animal activists to raise awareness for these animals and the rise of animal activists have risen quite steadily over the years to hopefully end animal cruelty one day which has inspired me to talk about this highly important issue we are facing today. By writing this essay I hope to raise a bit more awareness on this matter.

The first key issue caused by the fur industry is how it harms the environment. About 85% of the fur used in clothing comes from the suffering animals which live on fur factory farms. These farms can contain thousands of animals facing very bad living conditions. These farms as well as other factory type farms are built in mind to collect as much profit as possible without the environment or animals’ welfare in mind.

Each animal which is skinned by fur farmers makes about 20 kilograms of waste in their lifetimes. Which adds up to about 450000 kilograms of animal waste made by US fur farms each year. This waste has dangerous components inside such as having 1,000 tonnes of phosphorus which pollutes and destroys wildlife in rivers and streams. For example, a fur factory farm in Washington was charged with polluting a stream nearby as the waste and pollution levels measured in the water were about 5,000 more times more than the legal limit.

This process is all completely unnecessary as there are other available alternatives instead of using animal products, for example, using faux fur which can be locally sourced and is cheaper than animal fur.

A fur industry publication that I looked into, Sandy Parker Reports, says that “tougher anti-pollution rules and stricter enforcement by government agencies are causing increasing problems for fur farmers in parts of the US. Nitrates, phosphates and other substances running off with rainwater and polluting local water supplies are increasingly coming to the attention of environmental protection agencies.” This means that this problem has been recognised and action is being done but a lot more has to be done to stop this issue.

Raising these animals for their fur, pollutes the nearby area but also heavily pollutes the air. For example, in Denmark where over 14 million animals are killed for their fur annually, more than 3,000 kilograms of ammonia is released into the atmosphere each and every year.

PETA also published an article and a video which claims that the animals which are trapped from the wild by the hunters suffer for days on end and suffer from “blood loss, shock, dehydration, frostbite, and gangrene”. These animals may be caught in “steel-jaw traps that slam down on their legs” which more often than not cut these suffering animals right to the bone. Another common way of killing these animals for their skin are by using “conibear traps which crush their necks with 90 pounds of pressure per square inch” which will put these animals in agonizing pain before their deaths. And lastly, “water-set traps, which leave beavers, muskrats and other animals struggling for more than nine agonizing minutes before drowning” are used, too. All these cruel ways of murdering animals for their fur are slow and immensely painful, which just goes to show how inhumane the hunters and workers in the fur industry must be, as they do not even show the slightest remorse to kill these animals quickly and painlessly.

According to cryoftheinnocent.com, 100 million animals per year in total, are slaughtered all around the world for the sake of the fur industry, not including the 1 billion rabbits killed annually for their skin.

Thankfully some big brands such as Gucci, have taken note of these figures and have therefore ditched using fur in their high end products to reduce these numbers and to encourage other high profile brands to do the same.

Along with the obvious underlying issues of the negative impact the fur industry has on the environment, there are also many health risks caused to humans from wearing the fur.

Various hazardous chemicals are used in the process of bleaching and dying the fur, and after tests made all over the world, results prove that these chemicals are extremely toxic to humans and pose a very serious threat to human health.

Chemicals such as formaldehyde and ethoxylates are used in big portions and are found in the majority of fur trims which cause health problems ranging from minor issues such as allergies to severe health risks such as cancer and hormonal imbalance.

The toxics found in fur are absorbed very easily through the air or skin and these toxics remain in the body for over 20 years, damaging the body.

Studies based in countries in Europe such as Italy, the Netherlands and Germany, have found significant harmful amounts of toxic substances in fur clothing in childrens clothing in popular brands such as D&G and Nickelson.

In conclusion, clothing should not be made from animals’ skin or fur as this is cruel and causes too much suffering in an animals’ life. Adding to the suffering and deaths of millions of animals annually, using fur for clothing contributes a number of problems towards pollution, water contamination, land loss and climate change. After reflecting on my research, I can say that my view on fur production is that it should not happen as it has more negatives than positives and should be stopped.

However, using fur is still an issue today, the use of it even dating back to the Stone Age. So why are the public still using it to this day?

I was reading an article on ‘BoF’ which according to the director of the British Fur Trade; Frank Ziberkweit, fur is not only “beneficial for the business of fashion, but also for the environment”.

 Ziberkweit claimed that by producing faux fur, “you are making a petrochemical product that is not biodegradable” and that the fashion industry is “about raising animals in a natural way”. However, the latter statement can be argued to be false as there are reports of animals experiencing “death by anal electrocution” and “days long torture” for the sake of fur in fashion. Which reinforces the point I am trying to make.

Nevertheless, it can be argued that using fur is no different to eating animals for their meat or using leather for fashion. They all end in animals being farmed and killed as well.

Which brings me onto my next point about using leather in fashion. Leather can be argued to be more ethical due to it being a byproduct of the meat industry, but it also contributes dangerous toxins into the environment. For example, the Buriganga River which runs through a leather production zone in Bangladesh has been declared to be “ecologically dead”. This shows that using any animal in the name of fashion has devastating second hand effects on the world and the environment in particular.

Although the use of fur has devastating effects, it can be argued that the good trumps the bad, in some cases. For example, in some remote nations, some people have to wear fur to keep warm and to keep healthy, due to the weather and lack of resources surrounding them. This is reflected through the Stone Age, where people had to wear fur due to the immense lack of possibility to wear anything else.

Overall, I believe that the animal use in the fashion industry should be prevented due to the shocking and horrifying treatment towards animals, and the damaging effects on the environment. However, in certain cases such as in remote nations, the people there should be permitted to wear fur as it is for their own survival and they have no choice.

Feedback for my essay:

To share my essay and to collect feedback on what people thought about my essay, I used the site: 'Survey Monkey'. 

Link to the survey site I used to collect feedback for my essay:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/BHRJS7V

Screenshots of feedback I received through 'Survey Monkey': 

Sources I used for my essay:

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/video/the-great-fur-debate

http://www.furisgreen.com/renewable.aspx

https://fashionista.com/2018/04/real-faux-fur-sutainability-ethics-debate

http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-people-wear-animal-fur

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/oct/19/fur-coat-recycle-ethical-dilemma

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/15/is-wearing-leather-less-moral-than-wearing-fur

http://www.ad-international.org/fur/go.php?id=17&ssi=19

http://thefurbearers.com/the-issues/fur-farming/what-is-wrong-with-fur-farming

https://www.peta.org/features/nine-shocking-fur-facts/

https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-clothing/fur/environmental-hazards-fur/

Reflection on Research:

Through writing this essay on fur, and researching so much around the subject, I learnt so many new pieces of information which I would not have done so if I had not done so much extensive research leading up to write this essay. The information which I have learnt about the subject of using fur in fashion, definitely has shocked me and I am more educated on the chemistry, ethics and processes that go on behind the fur production trade which I did not know prior to doing my research. Finding out about the fur industry, has definitely encouraged me not to wear any fur products myself and also not to use any fur in my designs or work as the fur trade is not something which I stand for or wish to support, which I would be doing so if I wore or used the fur, and promoted it in my fashion. If I was to use fur to wear or in my designs, I will only use faux fur so that it is friendly to the planet, environment and animals themselves. This essay and research behind it has most definitely influenced my views as a fashion enthusiast and will definitely be using my newfound knowledge when planning on my next collections and fashion choices.

The cost for the fashion show would be covered through members of the audience buying their tickets, which would need to be priced at a fair price so that it would not be too expensive for potential audience members and would attract more people. The pricing of the tickets would also have to be enough so that the event could be budgeted and so that costs would be covered. As this is an in school event, most resources are readily available to use for the event with permission. Things such as using the school theatre for the location of the event, and the school's "Wollstencraft"room for the after drinks and nibbles, would not need to be included in the cost as these locations are free to use for our in school event. All that needs to be done with these halls themselves are to be decorated and set up accordingly. The staff needed for the technician team for example, and all the lighting and equipment needed would be school equipment so again we would not have to pay for these resources and would not need to be included in the budget. However, resources such as refreshments and dinner for the models before the actual event starts on the night of the show, would need to be paid for using the budget as the school would not cover theses extra costs. Refreshments for the after gathering would need to be covered through our budget but of course some of these drinks will be alcoholic so our team is mainly made out of under 18s so we would not purchase these drinks, a member of staff or member of the school's kitchen staff would have to make an order and supply this. However the cost will come out from the budget. The nibbles for the audience members and the after gathering, would be supplied by the school's kitchen staff and they would be making these delicacies themselves, so it will not have o be included in the cost, aside from the things that are not made by them. For example, some of the snacks for the show itself, are things like crisps, popcorn and those type of snack foods so we would have to place an order and cover the cost through the budget.

It was decided that the prices would be priced at £8 for an adult ticket and £5 for a children or student ticket. These ticket prices are reasonable as the show is quite a substantial amount of time and it is raising money for a good cause. It was chosen to have a difference in prices for both adult tickets and children or student tickets because in the majority of public events, there is always a discount for children and students as they are studying and will not have as much money as their parents, and do not have jobs etc. It is also fair to give the students at the school be able to have the experience of watching the show for less to get inspired and maybe even sign up to do it in the next year. 

It was estimated that there would be about two hundred paying guests coming, as that was shown through statics of the previous shows and the average was calculated of how many guests came each year. The number of guests always increases as the show becomes increasingly popular and more well established in school. With this information, the minimum raised would be £1000 raised from the one night show, assuming that everyone bought £5 children tickets. Of course this number is too low as there will not be three hundred students coming, but instead a mixture of parents, staff, other family members and students. 

With these numbers, the budget for the model's dinner would be around £200-£300 in total. The other nibbles would have a maximum spending amount of about £80-£100. There would also be around another £100-£200 dedicated to drinks. Of course, spending less would mean that there would be more money raised for the sixth form ball and art department but it is better to estimate the spending to higher than to estimate the spending to be less and exceed the spending limit and get muddled and wrong calculations. This would come to about £600 in total of spending money maximum on food and drinks. If this was the case then there would still be a massive £400 in profits from the show. Of course bearing in mind that the budget is over estimated and the ticket numbers and total revenue from ticket sales is underestimated. 

Other resources such as printing tickets and posters would be free and the school would cover those expenses and print them out for us in the school office. All the people involved would not be paid (staff involved would obviously receive their normal salary but with no extra payment for the extra work), the models, designers, performers, host, hair and makeup, technicians and anyone else involved are doing it for free so there is no need to budget around this.

The last thing needed to add into the budget would be the flowers and presents for the art department for hosting the show and for inspiring all the students at the school in textiles and fine art. The flowers would have a budget of £25 for one bouquet of flowers for the head of textiles.

Reflection On Developing Skills:

During the fashion show committee meetings, I have developed on key leadership skills, such as being more confident and organised. I have become more confident in leading and presenting ideas to further improve the event, for example, I suggested that there should be a few more rehearsals specific to different walks so that when it gets to the real rehearsals, no other walk has to wait excessively long for their turn in presenting their walk if a previous walk made lots of mistakes. I thought that this was really unfair, especially if that certain walk was placed last in the running order and had the in initiative to rehearse before already and knew what they were doing and still had to wait a substantial amount of time due to another catwalk being under rehearsed. That was a key issue last year that caused a lot of bitterness between catwalks, so I definitely did not want a repeat of the mistakes so I did set this idea out. I also developed organisation skills, which again as I have said before, is the skill that I feel the most confident in already, but I did feel as if I had to be turn it up a notch and be even more organised during the planning and execution of the event, because if I did not do a task on time, everything else was delayed, so it was imperative to keep on top of the planning. I also feel that I improved on my emotional intelligence and motivational skills. According to online sites such as thebalancecareers.com, some of the most important leadership skills are as followed;

1. Communication

2. Motivation

3. Delegation

4. Creativity 

5. Emotional Intelligence

The fact that emotional intelligence was in the top five really struck me and I wanted to find out a bit more on the meaning so that I could apply it into my role in organising the fashion show. According to globalleadershipfoundation.com, half of emotional intelligence is down to your own self, so self awareness, emotional self awareness, accurate self assessment, self confidence, along with self management; self control, transparency, adaptability, achievement drive and initiative. The other half of emotional intelligence is down to social and everyone else that you have to work with. Those skills are social awareness; empathy, organisational, awareness, service orientation, along with relationship management; inspirational leadership, developing others, influence, change catalyst, conflict management, building bonds and teamwork and collaboration. I really did want to improve on this really key leadership skills through my role as an organiser, designer of a walk and fashion show society helper, in preparation for the event itself. First of all, I focused on the self aspect of emotional intelligence, so I made sure that I was aware of what I had to do and the role that I needed to play in this part. I also needed self confidence when explaining to the models the routine along with when putting my ideas and suggestions across as I had to stand with the ideas and be confident whilst presenting so that other people would also be confident in what I was trying to put across and to accept my ideas. If I did not seem confident with the routines of the walk or with my ideas, it would be basically impossible for others to believe and have good faith in how my plans and ideas would turn out. I also had to have a lot of self control to make sure that myself as an organiser, helper and designer was doing all that I could be doing leading up to the event. There needed to be a constant chain of work and effort being produced from my side or the things I needed to do in relation to the team would not work out. I also had to take initiative when ordering the pizzas for example, as to how many to order and what to actually order. This might seem as a little thing, but if the models and people involved in the team, don't all have enough pizzas or don't get any at all, when other people did get more than them, these people will not be happy. It was also important to order gluten free pizzas and most, if not all be vegetarian as that would be inclusive to the majority of people. It was also important when working out things like the budget and how much could be spent on the pizzas and also the flowers for the teachers in the art department. 

I then developed on the social aspect of emotional intelligence and made sure to incorporate everyone involved and to help those who needed it in preparation to the fashion show and even during the event. For example, I motivated the models during rehearsals to get them to see and envision what the final product would be and how amazing the catwalk would look if it was well rehearsed. There was quite a few rehearsals to attend to make sure that everything went smoothly in the real performance, so it was imperative to keep the models very motivated to actually even attend these rehearsals in the first place, and to not drop out after figuring out the amount of work even as a model would require in preparation for the event. I had to build bonds with these models, most who I had never spoken to before, and it was really important that I got on with them so that we could work together as a team to produce the best catwalk possible. Communication skills were imperative when building bonds as it was also important to transfer the ideas to the models. 

It was very important to inspire and motivate these models so that they could produce the best possible walk as I said and so that they would feel good with themselves with the work they put in. The catwalks were a very two sided thing, both models and designers played important roles when trying to get the best possible catwalk, as the designers actually designed and made the physical clothes but then the models were the ones going out on the stage and displaying and showing off these garments. If the models themselves did not look confident or comfortable when walking around the stage during the show, it would come across as though the clothes themselves aren't good and comfortable. I tried to do everything in my power to make sure that the models were inspired and motivated with the show, by congratulating them after each rehearsal, trying to get them to envision what the end product would look like after all the endless amounts of work of them rehearsing would look like, and how to be more confident with their walks on stage. There was one rehearsal where it was really close to the actual event and everyone was particularly more nervous and it was more of a talk rather than a rehearsal to try motivate the models to just do their best and that this event is just for fun and even if someone trips over, no one in the audience would be nasty or remember it. There was also a rehearsal aimed at one singular model who was in my catwalk, who did look really miserable and not confident when rehearsing our walk, so this rehearsal was not about making her be a target or make her feel bad, but more about getting her to be confident in herself and enjoy the process. This was about a twenty minutes trying to rehearse with her separately and to motivate her into confidence. There was also another rehearsal which was solely on getting everyone more confident in their walks which seemed beneficial as the end result was worth it.

Along with inspiring other models, I also tried to motivate those participants involved in fashion show society who were making their own garments in contribution to the fashion show society catwalk. I helped with the actual making and designing (most were more than capable of designing amazing garments, but however just needed help when actually making the garment) with these younger students, but I also encouraged them to push their ideas and designs more so that they could get the best version of their work that they could possible achieve. It was very important to encourage these participants to actually get them to continuously come to fashion show society club every week and to turn up and get on with their work. This fashion show society club started in the middle weeks of September until the week of the actual fashion show itself. This was a whopping six months in total of having to attend one lunchtime every week and just working on their designs and garments, so it was imperative that they all stayed fully motivated to carry on with their designs so that it was the best representation of work to show off in the fashion show. When helping out with these students and their making of garments, I did ask them when I helped them, how they were feeling about modelling their own pieces and how they felt about the fashion show as a whole. I did get a lot of students saying how nervous they were for modelling itself or not finishing in time and I did all I could to try eliminate these fears and focus on what they could be doing instead. I thought that it was so much more important to show them that instead of stressing for the show, that they should just enjoy the process or it really is not worth doing if you don't enjoy it. It is also much more productive to get on with the workload rather than thinking of how much there is to do. There are only 24 hours in a day and it just isn't possible to do more than what is possible to do in that time scale. It was little things like that which I kept trying to motivate them to keep going with the show and not to worry about it.

Messages & Communication:

When it came to messages and communicating with all the participants involved with the show, the most easiest ways to communicate and to get messages across to all participants, was to send messages out in assemblies, emails and to give out messages in set form times in the mornings. In my school's assemblies, the protocol is to write a message on a piece of paper or print it out on to a piece of paper and just before the assembly starts, you hand the piece of paper to the head girl of the school who sits on the front row of the assembly. At the end of the assembly, she then reads out all the pieces of paper she has received that day to all the students and staff before everyone leaves to go their lessons. There is also a chance for staff to give out any other messages in case they forgot to write a note or if they want to address the whole school. There was several assemblies where notes were written and given to the head girl about the fashion show, for example there was a reminder every assembly when there was a rehearsal after school and who needed to attend that day, as tech team did not need to attend every single day for example, so it was important and very convenient to let everyone involved know what was going on. As the textiles teacher at my school, Mrs Gilbert also gave out messages when it was the staffs turn to say any messages so again this could be more about the rehearsal itself or any other messages such as getting the organisers to make sure to tell the hair and makeup team what hair and makeup they want the models to have. If there was not an assembly on that specific day and a message needed to be communicated, it was also our responsibility to print out the messages and place the message into each forms' form folder so that the form captain could read the message out to their form in the morning during their form time. Another key way of getting messages across about the fashion show that we used especially was email. There was a lot of emails sent out from us to other organisers, to Mrs Gilbert herself and other participants. I also sent out messages on social media sites to my models, as did many other designers as this way the models would reply quicker or see your messages quicker than if I sent them an email which they only checked during school hours. This was an effective way to communicate with all the other participants when it was out of school hours.

Resources:

When it came to dealing with resources, it was fairly easy to manage everything needed as that was something that I looked very closely at under the "Implementing" section of my Gold Arts portfolio. Once again, the main resources we needed were the actual place we could hold the event, which we booked the school theatre for, the models, tech team, hair and makeup team, designers and any other participants needed to run the show were very crucial aspects for the show. This was easy enough to get as many messages in assemblies and form times were given to encourage people to sign up to this. The rest of the resources we mainly needed were the technology, which was already available through the school lending it to us, the food and drinks were also needed. This would have to be bought and budgeted by the team which is something we had to manage which I have already explained previously.

Challenges:

When dealing with challenges and bumps in the road, it was very important to realise that there was always a solution to whatever the problem was. There was always Mrs Gilbert to ask as the main person in charge of the fashion show and also as being the main qualified member of staff involved, which we could ask if we needed help or her input with something. As the fashion show committee, it was also very important to discuss with the team if there was a challenge and how to find the appropriate solution for it. The main challenge we had was on the day there were about two people who were meant to be modelling who were off really sick for that entire week, which was an issue as the models were a crucial aspect on the day of the show. So there was now two outfits which were tailor made for their size which now had no model to actually wear it. The solution we found for this problem, was that we found two other people with a very similar sizes to those models off sick so that they could step in and model instead. It was just the issue of finding models willing and that would fit into those two outfits, along with learning the whole choreography and making arrangements with home and parents on how they were getting home later on and who was coming to watch etc. The other challenge was trying to order the pizzas as it was difficult to pick out which site to order from that was; of a really good quality, was reliable so we knew that we could trust that everything would come in time and of a good quality, along with which had the best price and reviews accordingly. We figured which site to use after quite a bit of research into the local places to the school as if anything went wrong, we could send someone and delegate the task of running down the street (if we chose a local restaurant) and picking up everyones orders, if worst came to worst. In the end we chose to go with Pizza Hut as it was local, was a name brand that is known to be reliable and is of as best quality that fast food can possible get. Another main challenge we faced was turning down lots of models who really wanted to do it but there was just not enough spaces for every single one who came to the casting to actually use, so it was a big challenge to tell those who didn't get the role that they didn't make it. There was definitely a lot of disappointed people but we turned it around to say that they would probably get it next year and that they could volunteer on to the hair and makeup team, or as a runner, or even on the tech team. Another challenge was designers not making the deadlines set, for example if videos were handed in late or the blurbs for the catwalks handed in late. This caused a delay on the time scale and delayed the tech team from actually seeing the videos and seeing what lighting goes best with it and getting on with their duties and roles. With the blurbs delayed having received some late, it caused the hosts of the show to delay writing and learning their scripts till they have received everyones blurb. This was quickly fixed by chasing up those designers with emails and at school to see why their videos or blurbs were late and what the next steps were. Those designers that handed it in late, were mainly due to technical issues when uploading as the videos could not upload as the file was too big, so to fix this, they airdropped the video so that there was a record on the school system so that the tech team could easily find it and open it. The last main challenge that we faced as a whole was that it did not look like enough tickets were being sold. Early in the morning on the day before the fashion show event, I went to ask how many tickets had been sold and there was only about a hundred tickets sold which is about half of what we were expected especially in terms of budgeting around this. However there was a massive turn around and during the day there were about sixty more tickets purchased and late comers on the night were able to purchase tickets at the door, so it was a very good turn around in the end and all the seats were completely full.

Ongoing Feedback:

To collect feedback of how people thought the project was going (planning/rehearsals etc) and how they thought my leadership abilities were during this process, I made a questionnaire on Surveymonkey.com, to see how I could actually improve for the next rehearsal or for the next meeting. It was instant feedback and I used an online questionnaire so people could feel like they could be 100% honest as it was completely anonymous. This would mean that I could try to improve with their feedback even during the process of planning and organising. 

I created the online questionnaire early on in the beginning of the project and after a meeting or rehearsal, I asked those who I had an encounter with to answer my questionnaire to see how I was doing and what I could improve for the next meeting etc. I made a short questionnaire of about six questions in total, five of which were rating out of five stars and one had a comment box. The idea was for it to be a quick, short questionnaire so that people could answer it really quickly and motivate them to spend about two minutes doing me a favour of answering. If this questionnaire was longer, I truly believe that I would not have received as many responses as I did. These questions were mainly based around how I was doing in a position of leadership and about my leadership skills, this was to show me what I needed to work on and what other people actually thought of how I was doing. There was also a question on how people viewed the project as overall and their ideas on input on it. Below I have added some of the responses that I received from my questionnaire and I have then added my own thoughts on the feedback and how I moved on from there. I titled this survey money questionnaire; Ongoing project and leadership feedback survey as I wanted to differentiate what stage this survey monkey was as I knew that I was going to make another survey after the fashion show was over to get everyones responses and feedback to see what worked and didn't work so well. The link to my survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SFXRF6X.

The questions which I chose to incorporate in my questionnaire are as follows:

1. Out of 5 stars, please rate my communication skills based on any meetings/emails/rehearsals or any other encounters related with the fashion show that we have had. If not 5 stars, please let me know what I could do to improve for the next time.

2. Out of 5 stars again, could you please rate the level of my organisation skills that you could observe from any meetings or rehearsals etc. If not 5 stars, do you have any suggestions on what could be improved?

3. Out of 5 stars again, what would you rate my level of motivation to other team members and participants in the fashion show? If not 5 stars, how could I be more motivational or inspirational to other participants and team members in your opinion?

4. Out of 5 stars again, could you rate my teamwork skills as a whole, whether it be when listening to other peoples ideas or completing my side of the work. If not 5 stars, could you please explain what I could do next time to improve.

5. Overall, how would you rate my leadership skills, whether in rehearsals or during fashion show society club? If not 5 stars, what could be improved next time in your opinion?

6. Overall, how do you think that the fashion show planning and organising is going and how the project is going as a whole?

Below are screenshots of the average ratings out of five stars to the first five questions.

1. Out of 5 stars, please rate my communication skills based on any meetings/emails/rehearsals or any other encounters related with the fashion show that we have had. If not 5 stars, please let me know what I could do to improve for the next time.

For the first question regarding my communication skills, I got an average of about four stars in total, which I am very pleased with. I received mostly five stars but I did receive four stars too from some people so the average went down to four stars. However I did receive a few comments from those that did give me four stars on what I could do to improve. I added about ten quotations directly copied from the answers and suggestions I received from participants from the fashion show that replied. I did receive around the twenty mark of replies but I thought it was more beneficial to pick through ten of them and display as some of them were quite repeated points so it was helpful to read through these comments and notice and pick out what other people thought of my leadership skills.

"I think listening to other peoples suggestions a bit more and incorporating those ideas more."

"Maybe suggest more ideas?"

"You do listen to everyone but maybe add the ideas you've listened about."

"I think you do a really great job on emailing everyone and keeping everyone on the right track but there is always a chance to improve."

"I think sometimes when you are explaining ideas, you don't always go about explaining them in the most clearest way, so maybe try think of ways when explaining something in a short easier way."

"I think maybe raise your voice when there is group rehearsals as people do make noise and talk and it is sometimes hard to hear when people sitting behind me are whispering."

"I think your ideas are great but maybe also really more on other peoples ideas."

"I like how you are really friendly to all of us in fashion show society but maybe talk a bit less when we know what we are doing. Don't get me wrong I think you are lovely and so helpful, but there is not a lot of time to work so sometimes it can be a bit distracting, but I only speak for myself I don't know if it is distracting for anyone else."

"Suggest ideas in a more straightforward way."

"Hi! I'm from fashion show club and I just think that you could talk more to me but other than that I have nothing else to suggest."

Looking at these quotations, I can definitely see what I need to work on more. I can definitely tell that I need to be more clearer with my ideas, so to try do this, I think that I will plan my idea more before the meeting and see what the shortest way of explaining it will be so that when there's the next meeting, it can be clearer for everyone as that was the main point I got. Incorporating more peoples ideas was another comment that I received a few times, so I think that I will actively ask everyone for their own opinions, ideas and thoughts and make sure to incorporate all of them or as many as possible. I think the last point that I am going to try to improve on is to talk to everyone equally at fashion show society club, which I did think I did but the feedback suggests that I spent a bit too long with some and too little with others, so the next fashion show society club meetings, I will try to be more equal with who I spend time with. This is something I was not aware of myself so it was very helpful to hear this feedback.

2. Out of 5 stars again, could you please rate the level of my organisation skills that you could observe from any meetings or rehearsals etc. If not 5 stars, do you have any suggestions on what could be improved?

I received a full five stars for my organisation skills so there was no comments left on what I could do to improve this aspect of my leadership. I know that I still have to be consistent with my organisation skills and to not be too confident with this now that everyone has rated five stars. I have to keep working hard at organising so that people still think that there is a constant five star of organising throughout the whole project.

3. Out of 5 stars again, what would you rate my level of motivation to other team members and participants in the fashion show? If not 5 stars, how could I be more motivational or inspirational to other participants and team members in your opinion?

For motivational skills, I received an average of four stars, which again I am very pleased with but I really do want to improve and will try to take onboard all the comments I received as a whole. The majority of votes were a four but some were a five star but it rounded to about four stars in total. The main comments I received were about how I spent too long focusing on motivation or not enough, which really makes it harder to see if people want me to continue trying to motivate them in the way that I am currently or if I am being almost "too" motivating and encouraging and spend too long on that. I added some comments of direct quotes that I received below to show what the majority of comments consisted of and so I had a record of what I could try to do to improve from the feedback.

"Really motivating girl but some people need it more than others."

"Have more of those encouraging little talks with us."

"Pick out certain people to motivate more."

"Find it really helpful but there are times when it is better to just leave it in a sense?"

"I really struggle with modelling and I really find the mini speeches helpful so maybe you could do a one on one with me. I'm sure you can tell who I am."

"Maybe less motivational chats."

"Spend more time on rehearsing."

"I deffo think to have more of those talks I really find them beneficial."

"Me and my friends really like when you try to encourage us and make us feel good about our modelling skills."

"In fashion show club, we aren't really that stressed about finishing the work, so maybe don't encourage us as much because we know that we can do it."

I think that these comments are 50-50 so some people want me to be more motivational and encouraging, whereas the other sort of half of participants want less of my encouragement. I can definitely see from this that in fashion show society club I should focus less on encouragements and more on helping out when making. I also can see from these comments that a few people think that there are certain individuals who are struggling with the modelling side and they should receive more help instead of them. Now this is harder to do as I do not want to make anyone feel targeted and ask them to stay behind. The last thing I want to do is make someone who is already insecure about their modelling, feel even worse about it. However it is noticeable who is more confident and who is less confident so I do know which individuals need more help. I was trying to give everyone the same level of support to make it fair, but I do think that maybe even the participants know that I should spend more time and energy on those certain people who need more help. In the next rehearsal with the models, I will try to specifically try to help those who are less confident to try feel more confident. 

4. Out of 5 stars again, could you rate my teamwork skills as a whole, whether it be when listening to other peoples ideas or completing my side of the work. If not 5 stars, could you please explain what I could do next time to improve.

For teamwork skills in general, I received an average of four stars, however the majority of ratings I did receive were five stars but there were a few four stars which did bring the average to four stars. The majority of comments that I received on this question was again about listening to everyone but apart from that, it looked like my team work skills were relatively good. I am glad that I did this survey so that I knew exactly what I needed to work on and what to do about it from the direct feedback from everyone involved who answered my survey. Below are some of the comments I got in regards to this question and what to improve on, along with what I am lacking in.

"Really good team player and does work on time every time. Maybe you could check in with how everyone else is doing with the work sometimes."

"Listen to other peoples suggestions more like I mentioned before in this quiz."

"Get everyone involved."

"Everything can be improved slightly but you are doing very well."

"Ask for everyones thought when you explain a new idea."

"Sometimes a few peoples ideas clash, maybe try break it up a bit. I know you did that that one time but there was another occasion when those two didn't see eye to eye and you could have tried to resolve it?"

"Negotiating what ideas to use could improve."

"Listen more."

"I think when we have group decision making, maybe listen a bit more to everyones ideas but that's the only relatively bad thing I can think about."

"Add more ideas in."

Overall, there was quite a mix of what different participants thought on my teamwork skills. In a generalisation, they were all relatively good but I do see that a few people think that I should listen a bit more and involve every single person a bit more. I find this a bit challenging sometimes because the committee has such different people in it who don't usually mix so sometimes there can be someone who doesn't really want to get involved, so I try to make up for it. I do know now that people just think that I should just maybe try to get these individuals more involved, so that is what I will try to do for the next time.

5. Overall, how would you rate my leadership skills, whether in rehearsals or during fashion show society club? If not 5 stars, what could be improved next time in your opinion?

Overall I got a mixture of both five and four stars but it did round down to about four stars. Most of the comments I did receive on what I could do to improve were mostly the same as I have received before as this question asked about my leadership in broader terms whereas the other questions covered more specifics of my leadership skills. This question was mainly to see how all the participants felt about my leadership qualities as a whole and in general. Most of the messages of the comments were kind of repeated and reiterated in this question so for that reason, I will add fewer quotes of comments that I have received for this question as it is quite repetitive and from the feedback, I can see what I need to work on more. I have added about five comments below which I received for this question.

"Be more harsh and stricter so that everyone does what they are meant to do."

"Involve everyone in the group."

"Listen more to everyone."

"Talk louder when there is a large group of us."

"Get everyone to join in and participate more in the meetings."

Most of these comments again as mentioned before were about actively listening more to every single participant. So I definitely know to do that next meeting or rehearsal and to get everyones ideas in the mix even more. Another key point that I received a couple of times was to get everyone to actively take part in things like the meetings and rehearsals but it is hard to motivate those people who really don't want to input but I do try to encourage these people and remind them that this is their choice of being there and they did volunteer and sign up to do the fashion show. Again in these cases it is reminding them that they are a huge help to the whole fashion show in a larger picture and to get them motivated again. The first comment that says that I should be stricter with participants, I personally don't agree with. I do respect the comment made and I respect their opinion but personally I believe that people work best if they are in a friendly environment and that works if I am friendly with them and am encouraging. I personally don't think that it will be beneficial to participants if I take an angry or stressful approach at them.

6. Overall, how do you think that the fashion show planning and organising is going and how the project is going as a whole?

Again this question was quite vague as I really just wanted to know anything about what people thought about the fashion show planning stage and to really see how people interpreted this question and what they picked out that particularly stood out to them about the whole process of the project. Below are about ten quotations that I have picked so that there is a bit of variety in terms of the responses.

"It seems really organised."

"It looks like it is a well planned event and that it will run smoothly on the night."

"Looks like a lot of work from the committee but well done with organising the walks."

"Appears very stressful but you all look so calm."

"The fashion show is such an amazing experience and I love modelling! Never done it before but it is a lot of fun."

"Working with fashion show club, it helps a lot and thanks for helping plan the rehearsals with us."

"I don't really know what is going on with the organising as I am part of the tech team but it seems in order."

"Well done with everything so far!"

"Seems like a lot of work but it all seems like it is doing good."

"Deadlines which have been planned are a bit tight especially the blurb and video hand in deadlines but I do understand that it holds everyone up on the other side if they are delayed more than those dates."

Overall with this feedback I received looking at the whole questionnaire, it was very helpful to see what participants think I can improve on and what they believe can be changed. It is now easier for me to pin point what I need to do next in regards in my leadership role and how to be better in the role. This has been a very useful experience in finding out what everyone thinks works well and what could be improved. Moving on with the project I will keep this all in mind.

Details of how the project will be shown publicly:

The project will be shown publicly at the fashion show event as I have mentioned before. The plan is to show this fashion show publicly at the event. The show will start at 7pm and then end at around 8:30pm where the audience members will then be invited to have drinks and nibbles in the Wollenstencraft Room (which is a fairly large room/hall) in the school, where there will be enough space for all the guest members and participants to relax and eat. Most of the details of how the project will be shown publicly, I have mentioned before in my project plan in the planning section, so if you are interested in finding more about that, then head over to the planning section.

Your responsibilities in relation to the public showing/sharing:

As mentioned before, most of these details are on the planning section, but I will briefly summarise the answer to this question. I am responsible for organising my own models for my own walk, along with other models and more of the planning section. I will be doing more behind the scenes work leading up to the show, so helping out with budgeting and coming up with ideas for example. Along with helping out at rehearsals, and also helping out younger students make their own outfits to contribute to the fashion show event showing. 

Details on how you have organised people and resources:

I have helped organise in meetings and I have also helped organise in the Fashion Show Society club weekly. I have had to voice my opinions and thoughts on other peoples ideas and also voice some of my own. In terms of resources, I have helped organise the budget; which entails from the food to the flowers on the night, and also helped assist setting up the theatre in preparation for rehearsals. 

Delivery of the public showing:

I have added pictures and footage from the event, which is on the photo gallery section of my website under the unit two section. Here you will be able to see the full extent of the fashion show event from videos from the catwalks themselves, to the photoshoots of each catwalk, to behind the scenes and the after gathering. Overall, I thought that the event was a massive hit and as I left the Theatre, I received so many compliments on the show along with on my personal collection. If anything could be improved, I would suggest that perhaps having a bigger budget for the flowers, to show the art department how grateful we are for all their constant work in helping and inspiring the girls, especially leading up to the fashion show event. 

Reflection on where and how I was developing and applying my leadership skills while managing the event:

On the actual night of the event, I had to help make sure that everyones collections were photographed and it was quite difficult to get all the members of one collection all together in the same place to get them to come to one of the art rooms to take the photographs in the photoshoots. There were set rooms where catwalks were allocated to go to, and this was between three rooms, but of course a model or designer could have been in one of the toilets in school or downstairs at the very bottom of the school having dinner, so that is where it was more complicated to find people, especially as there was a limited amount of time. However there were runners that their jobs were to find models or designers and they had headsets to communicate to other runners, next time I think there should be more as its was still quite difficult to find these runners in the first place, so I definitely think that for next time, they should have allocated rooms each and a few more of them so that everything runs smoothly in preparation to the show and on the night of the show. I was applying some of my leadership skills on the night of the event, and particularly using my organisation skills to find the models so that they could have their photos taken. After a certain time, the photographers would not take any photos as they would have to go to set up their equipment in the theatre to photograph and film the real event. This certain time was about 6:30pm and this was also about the time that models and designers had to make their way to one of the rooms near the theatre to wait for the event to start and so that the runners could easily find all of us to start the show. I also developed my communication skills and confidence when speaking to a large amount of people, when trying to get everyone to go to their photoshoots before the show. This was definitely the most stressful and nerve wracking part as it was hard to see who was yet to be photographed, but in the end everyone managed to be photographed, both in their collections and with a pair/group/individual. I also applied my organisation skills on the night, when I had to tell all the models and designers to go outside for the grand finale. After individual walks had been done, these models and designers had to make their way to the top of theatre area to sit down and watch and support the rest of the show. However there was a certain time that we all had to make our way down for the grand finale of the show and to wait and organise what side to get on to the stage from while waiting outside. After the second to last catwalk happened, and the audience was clapping and cheering, I stood up and motioned for everyone to get up and leave the theatre. This meant that I had to be organised to know when to evacuate the top area so that the grand finale would be on time. 

Feedback from participants and audience members after event:

Again, I made an online questionnaire on SurveyMonkey.com, to collect feedback from participants and audience members alike, to find out what they thought of the event as a whole, and what they thought could be improved, among other questions. As the questions and feedback that I wanted to find out from both participants and audience members was different, I created two different questionnaires for each section. Participants had the knowledge of what happened in rehearsals, behind the scenes and what it was like in preparation for the actual night of the show. However, the audience members only saw the final result, so both participants and audience members had very different experiences, so I wanted feedback on both sides. 

The questionnaire for the participants was slightly longer than that of the audience members, as the participants had nine questions to answer and the audience members only had five questions. This was mainly to do with the participants being a lot more involved with the show obviously so there was more sections that I wanted their feedback on.

I wanted to keep this survey brief so as to not to take up a lot of the models and designers, and everyone else involved's time. Everyone was absolutely knackered after the night of the show, so I wanted to make the survey as easy to do and as less time consuming to do so that more people would be more likely to do it. The questions I asked are as follows:
1. How do you think that the Fashion Show went this year?

2. What was your favourite part of the event?

3. How do you think the organisation of the planning of the show went?

4. What do you think could have been improved (in terms of planning and the execution on the night)?

5. What do you think was the most organised part out of the fashion show?

6. Overall could you rate my leadership skills (whether on my communication or on my organising and planning)? 1star being really poor, 2 stars being could have been improved, 3 stars being average, 4 stars being good and 5 stars being excellent. I also asked follow up question; if you did not think I was five stars, how could it have been improved in your opinion?

7. As a participant, what do you think worked well in preparation for the show?

8. As a participant, what do you think could have been improved in preparation for the show?

9. Last question, overall how would you rate your experience as a participant on a whole (looking back at rehearsals/meetings/experience on the night etc) 1 star being bad, 2 stars being could have been better, 3 stars being average, 4 stars being enjoyed it and 5 stars being really loved participating. Again I asked a follow up question; if your answer was not five stars, could you let me know how it could have been improved below.

The link for the participant focused survey questionnaire is: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RVH5XW8. I will also add screenshots of the questions below to how they are presented on the site. In addition to this, I will also add a number of answers from participants below and a brief summary of all the feedback I received.

These screenshots above are from each individual question on the online survey participants, I will add a few of the responses down below of the feedback to get a range of answers so that I know what worked well and what could have been improved. There were about over thirty participants who answered this questionnaire in total, so I will add a few of the responses, ranging from the best to the average answer to the most critical responses, as it will be more beneficial and easier to see and analyse the responses rather than having every single response up.

Answers for the Feedback from the Fashion 2019 (Participants Edition) questionnaire:

1. How do you think that the Fashion Show went this year?

"It continues to evolve every year."

"This is my first year ever being part of it and I really thought it went better than I thought it would be when I signed up. I didn't realise how big the event was considered in school till the week before when the stage was starting to get set up."

"I've done it every year since year 8 and I am in year 12 right now and I always really enjoy it. Can't wait for next year!"

"Just joined BHS this year in year 7 and I really liked being a model."

"Want to do a bigger role next year but for my first year, I really liked being a runner."

2. What was your favourite part of the event?

"When I was walking down the stage and I could see my parents and younger brother in the audience cheering me on."

"The photoshoot definitely!!!!"

"Being part of tech because I want to work in computing when I'm older."

"I liked being part of fashion society as it felt like a family at the end and everyone was really supportive of everyone else."

"I preferred the event itself when it was happening but it was really nerve wracking."

3. How do you think the organisation of the planning of the show went?

"I wasn't involved with organising so I can't say specifically but from what I could see, the whole event ran quite smoothly."

"Was part of meetings and I think everyone's voices got heard which was really good."

"I think it was really organised everyone knew what they were doing basically."

"Can't say from experience as it is my first time but everything seemed organised."

"Bit hectic towards the end especially on the night of the fashion show and I think the finale bit could have been rehearsed more as I wasn't sure when my cue was."

4. What do you think could have been improved (in terms of planning and the execution on the night)?

"I think that the final part could have been rehearsed more because we only rehearsed it a few times."

"More pizza ordered!"

"As I said before, the finale as I did not know when my cue was to come on stage."

"I think we could have had more meetings in prep for the show."

"Making the videos and submitting was a really tight turn around."

5. What do you think was the most organised part out of the fashion show?

"Everyones choreos as everyone knew what to do."

"The videos! They were all so good and made in time before the rehearsals!"

"The show itself like when we were showing the clothes instead of the after event as my parents did not really know where the room was as they haven't really visited the new school before and got a tour of it."

"All of it I thought it was all really organised."

"Tech team because they knew all the lighting cues and what to do."

6. Overall could you rate my leadership skills (whether on my communication or on my organising and planning)? 1star being really poor, 2 stars being could have been improved, 3 stars being average, 4 stars being good and 5 stars being excellent. I also asked follow up question; if you did not think I was five stars, how could it have been improved in your opinion?

I received an average of four and a half stars from all the participants who answered this survey on rating my leadership skills. So this rating was halfway between good and excellent. Overall I was really happy with the responses on this question as most of the ratings were really high from a 5 star which I labelled excellent, and a 4 star which I labelled good. However there was one response that was a three star rating and the comment was that: "I think maybe you could have engaged with every single participant more, including us in the technician team as we could have been directed a bit more. Just being harsh, but this is my honest opinion." That was probably the harshest rating but I totally agree with the comment, I definitely focused more on the designers and models rather than the technician team for example, as to me I thought that they knew what they were doing and were given requests from each catwalk on the lighting and given the music and videos to play. From this feedback, I have learnt that I need to spend more time with each section as a whole and just finding the balance between every section.

7. As a participant, what do you think worked well in preparation for the show?

"Having so many rehearsals."

"Getting so much time to get ready before the show."

"I think we got a lot of handouts and letters and messages which was good to remind we when everything was happening."

"Doing extra rehearsals if we were unsure on the walks themselves."

"I think the meetings were really helpful as well as emailing info to each other."

8. As a participant, what do you think could have been improved in preparation for the show?

"Practising the final bit more."

"I think we should have done more rehearsals."

"More meetings!"

"Having rehearsals start sooner instead of a few days before the show."

"I think we could been more prepared by doing more rehearsals but some people told me they wanted less but I really think more next time."

9. Last question, overall how would you rate your experience as a participant on a whole (looking back at rehearsals/meetings/experience on the night etc) 1 star being bad, 2 stars being could have been better, 3 stars being average, 4 stars being enjoyed it and 5 stars being really loved participating. Again I asked a follow up question; if your answer was not five stars, could you let me know how it could have been improved below.

Again, much like the other rating question, I received an average of four and a half stars again, which was halfway between to what I labelled; "enjoyed it" and "really loved participating". So I thought this was really good, the lowest rating I received was four stars which was "enjoyed it" which shows that out of all the participants who answered, they all enjoyed it and valued the experience. I received a lot of five stars on this question on how they rated their experience as a participant as a whole, but of those who gave four stars, the additional comments they added on why they did not give it a five were as follows: (again I will only add a select few to get the overall sense of the answers and feedback added):

"There was enough pizzas for everyone but some people got more than others so I think making sure everyone gets the same amount."

"Tickets for our parents or friends could have been cheaper."

"More rehearsals as everything was a bit last minute, but I really enjoyed being included and I enjoy getting involved more each year."

The answers above (for question 9) are probably the harshest I received and I do accept all these responses but I do think that the tickets were priced really reasonably, and are always priced at around the same prices every year anyways. The price is due to the budget and trying to cover the costs whilst also getting a profit for both the Art Department resources and also the Sixth Form Ball. There was also a mix of responses regarding the rehearsals, some responses said more (such as the one above) and a lot said less, so again it really just is about personal preference, so I think we had a fair amount of rehearsals overall.

In general, looking back at the responses, I think that all the feedback was really fair and I take it all on board. I am most pleased with the rating I got from my leadership skills as I really did try to develop my skills overall in this project. I think that there is a range of responses so some said more rehearsals for example and others said less, so again as I have said before, it is really hard to find the balance on making everyone happy and pleasing everyone when there is quite a large number of people involved. 

The link for the audience member focused survey questionnaire is: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/R7XTQYL. Again, I will also add screenshots of the questions below to show how they are presented on the site, along with some of the answers from audience members themselves. 

The questions for this audience questionnaire are as follows:

1. Overall, out of five stars how would you rate the event as a whole? (from the show to the after gathering)?

2. How good did you think the organisation of the show was? There was also a follow up question; if your answer was not five stars, how would you suggest it could have been improved in your opinion?

3. What was your favourite part of the whole event?

4. What was your least favourite part of the event?

5. What could have been improved in your opinion?

Asking audience members to fill out the questionnaire and actually receiving answers and feedback from audience members was a lot more difficult compared to getting feedback from participants. This was mainly due to the fact that there was no set guest list so I didn't know who attended the event and who to ask and send the questionnaire to. I asked several people who were students watching as audience members and then asked some students if they could send their parents or family the link to the questionnaire to answer it, and overall I got just about twenty responses back and who filled out the questionnaire survey. So again I will add a few direct quotes from what some audience members wrote down in the survey so that it is easier to analyse and compare feedback responses. The answers are as follows:

1. Overall, out of five stars how would you rate the event as a whole? (from the show to the after gathering)?

Overall for this question, there was a full five stars given, which shows that all the audience members, or at least those who answered the questionnaire, all thoroughly enjoyed themselves, which was really pleasing to see. There were no other scores aside from five stars given, which shows that the audience members as a whole enjoy the event and the after gathering.

2. How good did you think the organisation of the show was? There was also a follow up question; if your answer was not five stars, how would you suggest it could have been improved in your opinion?

There was a full five star rating given once again on this question, which shows that from an audience members point of the view, they thought the event ran smoothly and was well put on. And even though audience members who did this questionnaire survey did as a whole rate five stars for this question consecutively, some also did write a small comment in the comment box provided which I gave a follow up question title in it so that it was clear what the purpose of that specific comment box was so; if your answer was not five stars how would you suggest it could have been improved in your opinion? However these comments were really helpful and motivating especially after all the work that was put into making and organising the show, and it was so nice for audience members to leave me little comments when they did even have to. One of the comments was: "The fashion show ran so smoothly and I thoroughly enjoyed my experience as part of the audience. I really liked seeing my daughter get involved, especially considering that this is her first year at Blackheath High after moving schools." Another comment was: "I really liked going and supporting my friends and there was no hitches! Well done to all of you!"

3. What was your favourite part of the whole event?

For this question, I received a few comments that were again so motivating and uplifting after all the amount of work put into it. The answers were as follows:

"Definitely seeing my two daughters on the stage! So proud!"

"I totally enjoyed seeing the diversity in the clothing made by the girls."

"It was so interesting to see it all come together as my daughter was working on making the collection at home."

"Watching and supporting my friends who walked and modelled on stage."

"Watching the show!"

4. What was your least favourite part of the event?

"Witnessing the stress that my daughter was under when preparing for the show. It was all worth it in the end!"

"Nothing, I can't name any."

"Being sat in the last row and not being able to see all the clothes up close."

"None."

"I came as an audience member to support my friends and I auditioned to be a model but I did not get chosen but I did get offered to be a runner, on tech or on hair and makeup, but I just wanted to be a model. So my least favourite part was not getting picked but I will try again next year."

5. What could have been improved in your opinion?

"There could have been more vegetarian food in the event after the show."

"More non alcoholic options for the girls after the show."

"The girls could have walked on stage longer so that we could all appreciate the clothes more."

"Definitely more Prosecco!"

"I have several food intolerances, so maybe more allergen friendly food at the after show?"

Project Report:

What happened on the project?
Myself, along with other students organised a very successful fashion show event to be shown to a  large amount of audience members of  around 200 people. This consisted of several catwalks from students who designed and made their own collections, performances from students which consisted of displaying music and videography, alongside the two main hosts hosting the event and a small after "party" gathering at the end of the night after the public showing of the event. The evening went according to the original plan; so the event started off with a small reception to then audience members took their seats and then the show started which was hosted by both Poppy and Olivia. Then the catwalks commenced and there were small intervals in between every few catwalks where there was a musical performance by Ellie and a video shot by Hana shown. After the catwalks and performances were done, then the small speeches for congratulations were made by the hosts and the head teacher to thank the organising team and also Mrs Gilbert for working so hard alongside everyone and helping everyone to be able to make the show such a success.

What was produced?
An event which exhibited the work of students' textiles capabilities in the school and musical/videography talents. There were collections produced from about 7 different students in total, alongside the two year 11 classes and fashion show society. There were a diverse range of art forms shown in the event but these mainly focused on the textiles aspect, naturally due to the nature of fashion shows.The youngest student who contributed their own work to the event was in year 7 (11 years old) and then the oldest was in final year of ALevels (18 years old) so there was a range of ages between the students working alongside each other in this large scale project.There were very different types of clothing made for the exhibition so it made a great show as everyone made something very unique and different to one another. There was also a running theme of (De)Construction so every designer took this in a completely different way and moulded their ideas to fit this title.

What did you enjoy the most and why?
Definitely seeing the whole event come together as a whole after all the work that was put in; designing, making, rehearsals, planning. I also enjoyed getting to know other students who I don't usually see or talk to around school, so it was very nice to meet and assist other students who are in different year groups or who have even just joined the school. I also enjoyed working as a team and how everyones roles were crucial in getting the event to such a success as it was on the night. I really liked designing and making my own collection in contribution for the showing part of the fashion show, aside from the planning and organising.

What was the most challenging thing and why?
Actually just starting with the actual planning because it was hard to know where to actually start. It was also hard to get everyone to be quiet and to listen when rehearsals had to start as students tended to come into the theatre usually about ten minutes early so naturally everyone was talking but when it came to the time that the rehearsals needed to start, it was really important to get everyones attention so that they knew what they needed to do and what was coming up. Also on the day of the event, two models were unable to come as they were really sick, so then two year 7 students were found who were the same size as the original model so that the clothes did not have to be altered last minute, and was less stressful on the designer. It was also challenging at first to speak and address such a big crowd during rehearsals and give orders on what was going to happen and what everyone needed to do.

How did the public event work?
The event was put on by the art department at the school but organised by some students at the school (me, Ana and Eve), so anyone was free to attend but had to buy a ticket beforehand ideally although there were the last few remaining tickets being sold at the door if anyone needed to get any last minute. Audience members ranged from family members to family friends to close friends of the students to other students and teachers. The public event involved catwalks, live music, a short film viewing, nibbles and drinks.

What have you learnt about leadership?
That when leading (especially a large group of other students) it is important to be very confident and to speak loudly and clearly. It is also so important to be able to communicate all your ideas in a simple manner so that your ideas are very clear to everyone and can easily be followed. I also learnt that teamwork is incredibly important during leadership and that even though you might be leading something in the way you believe is the best way, it is always crucial to be open to receive feedback to know what to improve on for the next time, this is why the online questionnaires that I made during the event planning was so crucial, as I instantly knew what to improve on. 

What have you learnt about communication?
As I mentioned before, it was so important to communicate all my ideas in the simplest manner so that everyone understood and could follow through with these ideas and know what to do. I also built on the fact that communication is not just about talking, it is also about listening and is so important to do so and to see other peoples' perspectives on the same situation and to get more ideas as a result. It was also quite important to adapt my communication skills to different people depending on their age, as with the older students you could be slightly more harsh and tell them truthfully how it is  and they would be able to handle, but with the lower years, they were (as a whole) very nervous and timid, so it was important to be more gentle with them.

What have you learnt about planning?
That it takes a whole team to organise such a large scale event and that no one individual could do it all alone, and that working in a team is so crucial in a project like this; during the planning stages especially to filter through all the ideas and combine  the ideas. The plan we had in place did follow through with no major hiccups so the plan in our case did work out and the event was a success but we also had to consider what could go wrong and what our solutions would be if certain scenarios happened. Planning was so important as it seemed to motivate everyone for the end result and everyone knew what they were working towards and what needed to be done to end up with the best result possible that we all wanted; whether models or designers or anyone else involved.

What have you learnt about your art form?
That there is so much work done behind the scenes compared to what audience members just see on the catwalks. The planning behind fashion events takes an army and so much work is done that doesn't get seen, so next time I attended a fashion show, I will be more aware of this factor and be more grateful that a team of people have put so much work in to make that event possible. I also learnt more techniques when sewing my own collections, and that initial designs do not always follow through, as I changed my designs very often so that the ideas and collection would work aesthetically as a cohesive.

What would you do differently?
Looking at the feedback that I received, I could have perhaps organised more rehearsals, but it is difficult as some said that they felt that there should have been less rehearsals and others felt as though they wanted more, however, additional "support" catwalk rehearsals were also organised for any catwalks that were under performed or felt as if they needed the extra rehearsal time. I also learnt that with these events, it is better to have extra food and drink as opposed to not enough, so we could have ordered more food and drink, but we just did not want this all to go to waste, but there were a few comments regarding food and drink, so we should have ordered more just in case it was needed.