On 3/10/2011 1:52 PM, Lavolta Press wrote:
Who's your audience? From what I recall from being a fashion design
student at two different colleges, people seem to enter college
fashion design programs for a number of different reasons:
<snip>
More comments:
* In every course I was in, the students wanted to make garments for
themselves, regardless of their goals for the course. If they were going
to put all that time and money into making something they loved, they
wanted to wear it.
* We were always taught custom fitting. In one ready-to-wear course, the
instructor paradoxically claimed that even though we were there to learn
about ready-to-wear, a custom-fitted garment was always superior, so we
spent a lot of time on fitting techniques. The students thought it was
great, but again, it's not how the ready-to-wear industry works. There's
no way anyone could have been induced to buy an industry dress form for
a standard size and make all the clothes for it (considering none of the
students were exactly an industry standard size, which of course was the
point of the fitting lessons). One student wanted to make a dress for
her sister. The instructor allowed it, but required that the sister show
up in class for all the fitting sessions, because the whole point of the
course was that we were not supposed to be at home teaching ourselves,
but learning under supervision. The sister showed up, but she found the
scheduling to be a pain because although she lived in the area, she
attended a different college.
* When I took couture courses we were required to make custom dress
forms. I bought a foam form and customized it. A lot of the students got
together and made them from paper-mache, duct tape not being trendy at
the time. Paper mache was worse, as the student had to maintain a normal
posture not only while she was being mummy wrapped, but while the
structure dried.
* Although I went through a whole ready-to-wear program at one college
and couture at another, I encountered exactly one male student (in one
of the RTW courses). He posed a whole set of problems for the
instructor. The females were not allowed to fit him, and he had to be
sent out of the room for all their fitting sessions. You understand we
did fitting over underwear only, which of course was visible part of the
time. The instructor did dictate that the female students had to wear
not only bras and panties but full slips, regardless of their usual
habits. This was merely to preserve decency among themselves. It was too
heady for a male student to view. (He was a very nice, rather shy guy.)
Even regardless of mores, no one wants to risk a sexual harassment suit.
Fran
Lavolta Press
Books of historic clothing patterns
www.lavoltapress.com
_______________________________________________
h-costume mailing list
h-costume@mail.indra.com
http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
