What is Zenith?

The purpose of Zenith was to create a self directed project about something we are passionate about. This allowed us to spend time on work that we had a lot of motivation to work on and establish goals for ourselves.

Beginning the Project

What is your project? Why is this particular project a passion for you? Discuss the final media form as well as the content you envision.

My Project is creating a clothing line. As someone who is very interested in fashion design, and wants to pursue this field as a career, I find that this project will both help me grow and benefit me and my knowledge. I have also only been limited to sketches and drawings and I have never been able to bring my work to life. This is something that I have always had a dream of doing, and I will be extremely ecstatic to be able to produce my work. I would like to also make a lookbook of my final pieces in the end.

(Streetwear Design)

How is this project a new challenge (a risk) for you?  If you are in a group, define each of your roles and explain how each role will be a new challenge/risk for you. Also, how will you hold one another accountable for your roles? Note: To encourage and reward you for your risk taking, your process will be worth more of your grade.

This is a challenge because I will need to learn new skills in order to accomplish this. Sewing, knitting, etc. However, I am not sure if I will be able to order some of the pieces online, because I was interested in making hoodies/ sweatshirts as well, with my logo/ design on it, so that will have to be something I clarify. Another challenge I may face is running a fashion show at the end. This is something I hope to do if I can partner with a classmate to create this.

How will you incorporate your production class skills (new or existing).

In design, I think that the calligraphy portion will most definitely help me with writing my logo, and creating a neat and professional one. Also the use of the ipads can help create brainstorms and keep my work compact in one space. Digital media will most definitely help with my website skills, and allow me to make something that will fit my specific line of clothing.

The calendar

Zenith Due Dates:

March

1 – Proposal Due

8 – Calendar Due

20- Sketches for Clothing / opinion for revisal

22- Logo for Brand

26- Revised Sketches

29- Website to Sell Clothes  

April

2 – Article 1 of clothing

12- Article 2 of clothing

19 – Article 3 of clothing

23 – Any other articles to be approved

26 – all clothing on website

30 – lookbook complete

May

3- Project Due

The Process

Website

https://daneilassevasti.wixsite.com/website

“online shop”

Reflection

Now that the Zenith project is over, I feel very proud and accomplished. It was a very long and demanding process that required me to step out of my comfort zone and create something that I am passionate about. For the Zenith Project I chose to make a fashion line and create clothes. After establishing that for myself, I got inspiration from my Greek ethnicity and the culture in which I have been brought up in. Being Greek is something that I value and makes me, me. So that is why I immediately thought of creating unique pieces in which are able to represent myself and the style of fashion that I am into. I personally am drawn to contemporary pieces, I enjoy keeping up with the trends. So while these pieces were true to me, I also took inspiration from luxury fashion houses to make clothes that would be appealing to a broad range of people. Since it is shown that most trends do start at the “top”, meaning these luxury brands, I drew inspiration from pieces that I particularly liked, and that seemed to do well on the market. Researching these statistics for my prior research essay was evidently helpful in this project. On top of that, I wanted to use recycled goods. Although I hoped that everything that I found could have been pre-used, obviously I had to be realistic and know that I had different expectations that what I would find at second hand stores. So although I was able to find great material, I did have to purchase some things new. I wanted to show that you can still dress in style for a more affordable price, and that quality is not always about name brand. After I had everything set, I was able to begin. I am a novice sewer, so that posed an issue from the start, I had to acclimate myself to the sewing realm by watching youtube tutorials and by reading up on the art of sewing. Following that I analysed my sketches and began cutting out my material, and sewing. This was not something that I mastered by even the tenth try. I had to resew and even get new material countless times until what I made was to my liking. My most frustrating encounter with the sewing machine was when I was trying to embroider pants. I began to sew them on the machine and about halfway through I wanted to check on my work, only to realize I had sewed the pants all the way through. It was a painstaking process to carefully remove each seam, and then actually restart by hand. When I was finally done with the pants, I could not look at them for days, as they were a big road block for me and caused me to miss my deadlines.  As for collaboration, I did not work much with others during the entire process, until the end, when I needed a model to wear the clothing for my “online store” and lookbook. It was a bit difficult to voice the exact poses that I wanted, and sense I am no professional at photography a lot of reshooting was required. In the end, however, I was able to make a professional website that I was content with, and I one day hope to make that a reality. If I were to do the project over, it would definitely have come out different. I would have timed myself better, I now know how to sew, and I also would have taken the pictures during the day time. I thought that my clothing would look better at night with flash, since they were more statement pieces that were dark, but now that I look back I think the contrast during the day would be more well suited for the photos. The skills that I improved most upon were, sewing, collaboration, and technical skills. Since I had also never created a website before I had to figure out how to do that as well. Time management was one of the issues I struggled with, however, I was able to get this piece in on time, but still most definitely something I need work on. Overall this project highlighted to me that if I put my mind to it I can definitely achieve my goals, and that if this is truly a passion of mine it can be reached. After I received many compliments on my clothes, it made me more confident in the work I made and that I should continue doing that.