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The Ultimate Guide to Wearing a Chambray Shirt
UPDATE (Feb 27 2013): If you like this article – you should ‘Like’ Confessions of a Product Junkie’s brand new Facebook page to get updates when there are more fashion how to’s and articles like this one.
Chambray and denim shirts have been popular for quite a few seasons now, and for good reason. They are, hands down, one of the easiest trends to wear. They’re also the glue that ties many other spring trends together (as you’ll see in this guide).
Personally, I’m a huge fan of the chambray. Some of my favorites are from J Crew (I have this one), Lauren by RL and Urban Outfitters.
More options…
However, I’m sad to see that many women have avoided purchasing a chambray because they’re just not sure how to wear them. That’s where I come in. Because one of the questions I get asked most often is how to pull off the chambray (or I get asked how to wear other things and the answer is always “with a chambray!”), I decided it was time to put together a guide. So here are my tips for wearing a chambray or denim shirt. Enjoy!
Image on left via See Jane. Image on right is me.
So if you add one thing to your wardrobe this spring, make it a chambray or denim shirt. In fact, make it two – because if you follow these tips for wearing yours, you’ll get so much use out of it that you’ll want to own both.
UPDATE (Feb 27 2013): If you like this article – you should ‘Like’ Confessions of a Product Junkie’s brand new Facebook page to get updates when there are more fashion how to’s and articles like this one.
CLO3D Student Virtual Fashion Concept Visualization Project
The video above is an example of Introduction to CLO3D to a FashionCAD class that focuses on developing intermediate Adobe skills for the Fashion Industry. Each semester we try to include one big final project that has the potential to incorporate some of the previous skills as well as introduce a 3D working environment to students. The students in this class are not exclusively apparel design students. Some apparel design and product development students are mixed in with fashion merchandising, fashion/textile design technology. No garment pattern skills or background are required for this class.
The video below has additional submissions.
Introducing CLO3D was an experiment conducted to determine how user-friendly and easy CLO3D would be in a general fashion Adobe design product development class as a fashion product visualization tool. The results were outstanding. The videos posted are the result of the very first CLO3D class assignments. Each student watched the CLO3D intro video tutorials and they were each assigned to develop 3 garments. They were to use fashion colors developed in class and if they used print patterns – they should be the ones developed earlier in class.
These first assignment videos illustrate partial results from the class.
Once the students familiarized themselves with the basic functions they began to really see the creative development possibilities and really began to enjoy working in CLO3D. This was a user-friendly application that they could use to quickly visualize their fashion product concept.
CLO3D was not used as a garment pattern making tool in this class – it was used exclusively as a fashion product visualization tool to view their 2D fashion concepts in a 3D environment. The time alloted for the CLO3D project was the last 4 weeks out of a 15 week semester.
The students were then challenged to an optional project to develop CLO3D virtual representations [6] to match a previous fashion product development class assignment that included concept,description, color, fabric, print pattern and line boards. Future posts will illustrate some of the student submissions.
note: If you are an educator and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu
copyright © 2012 by Elaine Polvinen all rights reserved.
Digital Fabric Design: Creative & Technical Exploration
Using CLO3D to visualize engineered garments
This post summarizes a customized undergraduate student project that incorporated an exploration into and experimental development of vector based surface design graphics. The new methods explored by the student were non-repeat yardage & engineered garment design.
The aesthetic goal of this project is to capture the essence of Hawaii. Water life, flora, and volcanoes of Hawaii are incorporated into the surface designs. Research was conducted to integrate the surface theme with the traditional sarong garment styling as well as develop engineered garments inspired by the sarong.
Faith Scheffer Moeuhane-Fabric-Design-II
The challenge was to first conduct a variety of research then develop a Hawaiian theme that is integrated with current color and print trends. A new method of print design for the student involved four very large lengths of silk fabric (four sarongs) that did not contain a repeat. Another challenge was to explore and develop custom engineered prints for garment pattern design and construction. Garment patterns were traditionally developed and digitized into the OptTtex application. From there they were exported and then imported into Adobe Illustrator where the surface graphics were added. CLO3D was used as a 3D visualization aid for viewing surface graphic design placement.
Vector based applications are perfect for creation of either large width/length pieces of yardage or for developing graphics for full-scale garment patterns because vector files are resolution free thus the file sizes are manageable as compared to raster files. Vector files can be easily exported as a raster of any quality.
The wide scale (42″ by 72″) fabric non-repeat design was easily created by the student in Adobe Illustrator. The silk fabric yardage was printed at Inkdrop Printing. Garment patterns for this project were created using the traditional methods of flat patternmaking and then patterns are digitized into the computer. The full-scale garment patterns were then imported into Adobe Illustrator and surface designs were created directly onto the garments patterns. 3D visualization helps with design development. Fabric was digitally printed with the digitally embellished surface patterns at Spoonflower. The two garments are then constructed.
The resulting Moe’uhane, (which means “dream” in Hawaiian) collection consists of four sarong yardages and two Hawaiian-inspired garments. They were recently presented publicly at the BSCRUNWAY 5.0 annual fashion event sponsored by the Fashion and Textile Technology Program at Buffalo State College, USA.
Link to Faith Scheffer student designer interview
note: If you are an educator and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu
copyright © 2012 by Elaine Polvinen all rights reserved.
Behind the Scenes of Flamingo PAU with KadesMode
Videographer: Alexandersvisions.com
Designer: Elaine Polvinen
Photographer: Bruce Fox
http://www.kadesmode.com/
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua VII
– Summary
Flamingo Pua Collection
The Flamingo Pua project involved the design, development and creation of prototypes of a collection of 6 garments from initial concept to virtual to real garment prototypes.
The use of 2D and 3D applications throughout enables very quick response design development. This project took approximately 3 weeks from start to finish. Applications used were Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, OptiTex, and CLO 3D.
Photoshop was used to develop the initial concept board, Illustrator was used to develop print pattern repeats and create the garment basic silhouettes, silhouettes with print patterns and all full size garment pattern surface design and graphics.
OptiTex is a very easy to use multi-dimensional application. For this project it was used for garment pattern development, initial 3D garment testing before and after graphics were applied, and export of garment patterns to Illustrator.
CLO3D was used to develop Animations for the virtual fashion show and the four-way layouts.
The four-way static posed layouts could also easily be generated in the OptiTex application.
Other product development steps you would need to complete if you were ever planning on some sort of limited production would be to create a specification pack [spec pack or tech pack] that included all detailed garment measurements for each size you are planning to order the garment in and every single other material [fashion fabric/lining, interfacing], notion and embellishment needed to reconstruct the garment. Last but not least by any means would be to put together a costing sheet that includes all costs associated with producing the item. I will put together a follow-up post in near future.
Hope you enjoyed the series.
note: If you are an educator and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu
Previous posts:
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua VI: – Runway
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua V: – digital fabric printing of engineered garment pattern prototypes.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua IV: CLO3D virtual fashion show
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua III: garment pattern development in OptiTex, garment sketch development, engineered garment pattern surface design development, OptiTex 3D simulation test.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua II: color palette, print pattern and garment sketch development.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua I: inspiration, initial research for concept & silhouette development
copyright © 2012 by Elaine Polvinen all rights reserved.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua VI
A very special thank you to Kristina, Kadejah and Ashley.
BSCRUNWAY 5.0 was held at Pierce Arrow Building on Saturday April 21st at 3 and 8pm. Here is a link to the BSCRUNWAY FACEBOOK page and the BSCRUNWAY blog.
The Flamingo Pua collection was in Runway 5.0. Video of the entire show will soon be on the Buffalo State YouTube site and a video clip of just the Flamingo Pua collection will be posted here when it is ready.
- Nate Benson Photo links for Runway 5.0 here.
- Eric Winton Photography Runway 5.0 link here.
- Buffalo.com photo links for Runway 5.0 here.
Next Post: 2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua VII: Summary
note: If you are an educator and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu
Previous posts:
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua V: – digital fabric printing of engineered garment pattern prototypes.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua IV: CLO3D virtual fashion show
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua III: garment pattern development in OptiTex, garment sketch development, engineered garment pattern surface design development, OptiTex 3D simulation test.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua II: color palette, print pattern and garment sketch development.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua I: inspiration, initial research for concept & silhouette development
copyright © 2012 by Elaine Polvinen all rights reserved.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua IV
– CLO3D virtual fashion show
CLO3D was the application used to create a virtual fashion show for the Flamingo Pua series. I will have more posts in the near future relating to integration testing of the CLO3D application in an educational setting for specialized use as a fashion product visualization tool as well as a student project that included the use of the CLO3D application.
Next post: 2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua V: digital fabric printing of engineered garment pattern prototypes
note: If you are an educator and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu
Previous posts:
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua III: garment pattern development in OptiTex, garment sketch development, engineered garment pattern surface design development, OptiTex 3D simulation test.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua II: color palette, print pattern and garment sketch development.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua I: inspiration, initial research for concept & silhouette development
copyright © 2012 by Elaine Polvinen all rights reserved.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua III
– Garment pattern development in OptiTex, garment sketch development, engineered garment pattern surface design development, OptiTex 3D simulation test.
palette, print pattern and garment sketch development.
Garment patterns were quickly developed and simulations were visualized using OptiTex PDS.
Ideas for graphics were added to basic silhouette sketches (above) and used as a guide to develop final surface patterns/graphics (below).
Garment patterns were exported from OptiTex and imported into Adobe Illustrator full size (above). All garment pattern lines were set to invisible except perimeter cut lines. Graphics and surface patterns were developed inside the cut lines for each full size garment pattern piece.
Engineered garment surface patterns were tested in the OptiTex PDS 3D application (above).
Next post: 2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua IV : Clo3D – virtual fashion show
note: If you are an educator and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu
Previous posts:
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua II: color palette, print pattern and garment sketch development.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua I: inspiration, initial research for concept & silhouette development
copyright © 2012 by Elaine Polvinen all rights reserved.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua II
– color palette, print pattern and garment sketch development.
Color palette, print pattern and garment sketch development Color, styling and silhouette direction were researched using WGSN (Worth Global Styling Network). It is the leading online global trend and sourcing network.
“WGSN is the leading online trend-analysis and research service providing creative and business intelligence for the apparel, style, design and retail industries.” History of WGSN
All WGSN reports are downloadable and fully editable. My favorite category is Design and product Development – inspiration, influences research color key items, silhouette, styling and graphics 2 years in advance for every fashion category you can think of.
Pasted blow are the color and print patterns developed for the Flamingo Pua series.
Pasted below are the basic garment silhouette shapes developed for the Flamingo Pua series.
Next Post: 2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua III – Garment pattern development & engineered garment pattern surface design development.
note: If you are an educator and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu
Previous post: 2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua I : Inspiration, initial research for concept & silhouette development
copyright © 2012 by Elaine Polvinen all rights reserved.
2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype Flamingo Pua I
This fashion product development product prototype project was specifically developed by Elaine Polvinen, MFA & Dr. Lynn Boorady, Buffalo State College, USA to incorporate a visual exotic Hawaiian theme into a series of real world garments and to experiment and explore integrating multiple 2D and 3D development techniques. Applications used for development of this series were Adobe Creative Suite [Photoshop & Illustrator], OptiTex and CLO3D.
CONCEPT/SILHOUETTE DEVELOPMENT
INSPIRATION
The inspiration for the Flamingo Pua Series is a synthesis of the simplicity and beauty of the anthurium plant. The simplicity of the early Hawaiian holoku and muu’muu garments also provided an additional inspiration for the simple shapes of the 100% cotton jersey garment series.
CONCEPT RESEARCH
The project began with visual research and development of 2D visuals of the anthurium, color, garment silhouette and styling trend research as well as research into the historical development of the early Hawaiian holoku garment and Hawaiian fashion. According research conducted by Arthur (1997) the hawaiian holoku originated as a loose gown for everyday wear. Her research states twentieth century “Lingerie-style holokeq \o(u,-) were made in cottons such as muslin, batiste and dimity, and had a straighter silhouette than previously.” The Hawaiian muu’muu was a loose fitting , shorter informal version of the holoku. The word muu’ muu means “cut off” because it lacked a yoke.
Information about Hawaiian shirts an dresses can be located here and here.
Next post: 2D/3D Fashion Product Development Prototype flamingo Pua II – color palette, print pattern and garment sketch development.
note: If you are an educator and have a 2D/3D apparel/textile product development prototype project that either you or your student(s) created and would like to share with readers of this blog, please contact me at polvinem@buffalostate.edu
copyright © 2012 by Elaine Polvinen all rights reserved.
BSCRUNWAY 5.0
RUNWAY 3.0 IS COMING!
The build up to Runway 3.0 has started!
Runway 3.0 Tickets go on sale on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010. They are available at the Buffalo State Rockwell Ticket Office and Wegmans markets.
Here is a link to the RUNWAY3.0 TICKETS post.
Fashion students are busy working on the Runway production class as well as senior collections and single entries. HERE IS A LINK to a FLICKR slide show.
Additional RUNWAY 3.0 links:
BSCRUNWAY 3.0 Blog Postings List
- Project Runway Limited Edition Sewing Machine Raffle
- Runway 3.0 Fiber Design Accessories & Wearable Art
- Runway 3.0: Working Hard for Fashion!
- The Cinderella Project @ Runway 3.0
- Fashion Research Institute, Inc. Changing the Fashion Industry & Supporting Runway 3.0!
- CURRENT CULTURAL TASTE-MAKER AS JUDGE FOR RUNWAY 3.0!
- Gap Outlets: Presenting Sponsor of Runway 3.0!
- Runway 3.0 Wearable Art Design Award
- Limited Edition Runway 3.0 Tote Bags
- New Era Runway 3.0 59FIFTY!!
- RUNWAY 3.0 ZAZZLE STORE
- RUNWAY 3.0 FIRST REVIEW: Video Clips I
- BSCRUNWAY 3.0 FIRST REVIEW
- RUNWAY 3.0 STUDENTS WORKING
- PRINT & POST BSCRUNWAY 3.0 FLYER
- GUEST JUDGES FOR RUNWAY 3.0!
- Runway 3.0: Nancy Belfer Senior Collection Award
- OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE!
- RUNWAY3.0 TICKETS
- RUNWAY 3.0 COLLABORATIONS
- TECHNOLOGY: PROGRESSION/OBSESSION
- BSC RUNWAY HISTORY
- PRESENTING RUNWAY 3.0
- BSC RUNWAY 3.0: PROSPECTUS
- Runway 3.0 NEW VENUE: The Pierce Arrow Building!
- Keep checking back to the BSCRUNWAY30 blog for frequent updates!
FRI’s Virtual Fashion Interns from Buffalo State
FRI’s Student Interns, New York City, and Fashion Week
Head over to the Fashion Research Institute’s Shengri La blog [by clicking the link above] and read Shenlei Winkler’s post about hosting two Buffalo State College virtual fashion interns. The students are preparing their real/virtual collections for the Runway 3.0 event May 1st in Buffalo, NY.
FRI: Virtual Fashion Internships
- Shineli Winkler, CEO of FRI
[Note: this is a guest post by Shenlei Winkler, CEO of the Fashion Research Institute, Inc., 419 Lafayette, NYC, NY 10013 [ph 646-688-4042] [fx 646-688-4043]
- Author, Designing Dreams: Best Practices for the Art & Business of Avatar Apparel Design & Development
- Author, Shengri La Spirit: A Designer’s Perspective of the Making of OpenSim
Fashion Research Institute has been working in virtual worlds for the past few years, exploring them as platforms and tools for use by the $1.7 trillion apparel industry. We have since developed a design application, Black Dress Design Studio, which is currently in closed alpha. Black Dress shows promise of being a disruptive technology for the industry, as well as a game changer for the way product is developed in both apparel and in the much larger soft consumer goods industries.
As we worked in the virtual world space, our understanding of both the potential power and range of the platform, and our understanding of how to educate fashion designers using virtual world platforms grew and changed. We knew that understanding how people learn is as critical to our success in bringing our application to market as making sure the application is ‘right’. With that understanding as a basis, we launched a series of educational programs, which currently include our Shengri La Marketplace program and our student internships.
Both of these programs focus on educating designers and helping them achieve their dreams. There are critical differences: the Marketplace program is intended to help designers of virtual goods, or ‘virtua’, develop their label in these virtual spaces. These designers have varying educational backgrounds and they have a burning desire to create within virtual worlds. Their product is not intended to ever be manufactured in the industrial complex, nor will it be sold through usual apparel industry retail channels. This product is sold to the users of avatars for some of the same reasons we buy real life apparel – we want to customize our appearance in a way that sends a message to people who see us. Obviously in a virtual world we don’t need to be concerned about fit or function, nor on manufacturability, which can be very freeing for the creative spirit. The Marketplace program has a rolling admission deadline.
The internship program, in contrast, is designed to teach fashion student designers how to go through the process of developing a collection from original concept to final runway show. Using virtual worlds as the platform, we take our interns through a fast-paced development sequence where they learn about both the art and business of design and development.
Our internships run about sixteen weeks. In that time the interns are expected to develop marketing concepts for their label, which include logo, showroom, storefront, customer service policies, packaging, and an overall look and feel for their line. They use these concepts to present their actual collection to the virtual goods marketplace in Second Life. The interns are expected to create all components of a collection during their internship – we have them create a mood board, color stories, and materials story, which we keep displayed in their workspace for reference.
The interns are taught to develop product using the in-world content creation tools. We maintain presence on several grids, and we usually have them prototype their designs on one of our OpenSim grids because there is no cost for developing on our grids. When they are ready to develop for the marketplace, they develop their product on the Second life platform, package up their outfits, and place them in vendors. They receive immediate feedback – either their outfits sell, or they don’t!
Our interns are expected to complete one look a week from their original sketches, developed in 3-6 colorways. Our goal is to help the interns produce a visual ‘story’ for their portfolio that shows they understand how the product development cycle works in the real life apparel industry. Using these low risk platforms enables us to take our interns through the process at a nominal cost. They are encouraged to explore the full parameter space of their own creativity.
Our final project with our interns is to help them produce a full virtual runway show with live models presenting their designs to a general audience. These shows are group shows where the interns collaborate to define their theme, name the show and determine the run order for the models. The interns are all individually responsible for styling their models and determining makeup, hair, and accessories to complete the look. They must also select pre-determined poses for their models to strike at the end of the runway.
FRI has a team of dedicated volunteer models who generously offer their time for fittings and the show. They also provide needed moral support and encouragement. The FRI team builds the runway and make sure that all of the models are correctly styled. We also manage the overall show including media and marketing. In addition, we have an audience of supporters who are gracious enough to come to the shows and demonstrate their support of our student designers by blogging about their work, buying their work, and simply being present and giving these new talents a bit of an ego boost.
At the end of the runway show, our interns have a chance to be recognized for all of their hard work by taking a bow on the runway. They depart with valuable experience in the real life development process. We stop short of pulling physical samples but the design cycle is the same and when the time comes for them to enter the work force, they will recognize the design process because they have already been through it. The educational process is fast-paced and demanding, and we set very high standards for them to reach.
Virtual Goods Marketplace Trends
We’re particularly excited to be working with our student interns from Buffalo State university because we think the virtual goods marketplace will burgeon rapidly. In 2007, virtual goods accounted for $2.6 billion in sales. Although the total value of virtual goods pales in comparison to the $1.7 trillion apparel industry, this market compares very favorably with the accessories market which generates about $1.8 billion in sales. Various analyst reports indicate that the virtual goods marketplace is set to double in 2010. Fashion designers are often encouraged to move into handbags and other accessories to add a new revenue stream and enable brand extension. With virtual goods slated to open up further in 2010, designers should definitely consider this new niche market they can readily move into which can help them generate more sales in a completely new area.
Not only is there a business case to be made for providing design for this niche, but designers can also use the low-risk OpenSim platform to explore new design ideas, and to show their work 24/7 on special runways, where models can walk the catwalk at a touch of the button and show off designs as they are meant to be: in 3D and moving.
Virtual/Real Runway 3.0 Project
We are very excited to be working with the talented students designers from Buffalo State University, and we’re very much looking forward to our Spring work with them. Working virtually, we will be helping them develop the exact same looks to present on our virtual runways as they will be showing in real life in their graduating senior runway show, ‘Runway 3.0’. Our work with them will extend even outside of our virtual space. We’ll be taking a day to tour them through the fashion district in New York City, the home of fashion. And finally, we’ll be working with them as technical fashion designers to help them create real world apparel with a decided technical bent: we’re going to help them add motors, lights, and more!
Virtual Intern Applications Being Accepted
We’re accepting new applications for our next internship cycle from Fashion Programs, which begins at the end of January. Admission is highly selective. For more information, please visit www.fashionresearchinstitute.com
