Branding Project

Evaluation

By completing this brief I have learnt that I enjoy producing samples for a specific client. Conducting extensive research on a brand and designing a collection for a particular season proved to be enjoyable and gave me an insight into the experience of working within a brand. I also learnt that being versatile is key, I adapted my way of working to think about the brand and the season, concentrating on which colours and knitting processes are associated with the brand and how I could re-invent their previous collections.

Sonia Rykiel reinvented knitwear and made it into something light hearted and feminine, so the pale and lively colours I chose were very important in order to portray the iconic style of the brand. I decided to with the traditional stripe that appears in most of Sonia Rykiel's previous collections, however varied the sizes from thick to thin in order to make the samples stand out.

This brief has stengthened my skills on the Dubied knitting machines, the whole collection was produced on the Dubied as I could choose from a range of techniques that resembled the patterns in my concept such as racking, ripple and in-laying. I learnt these new techniques during this unit and enjoyed incorporating them into my samples, they proved to be effective and represented my concept well. More could of been done in terms of experimentation with techniques that did not exist in previous collections in order to keep the collection current and exciting. 

I throughly enjoyed this brief as it helped me to realise that I want my practice to lead towards fashion knitwear. I am happy with the direction in which my work is progressing, especially in terms of working within a brand as a designer and maker. I thrived when working under constraints and having to follow a brands' characteristics enabled me to concentrate on collecting a range of research and meant I created more work, faster. 

The aspects of the project that I would do differently would be to think more abstractly about how I could create a collection that was completely new and exciting with a range of fresh ideas that could transform the brand's existing style into something more innovative. I believe that my collection would fit in well in future Sonia Rykiel spring/summer collections, however the lack of risk taking is apparent and depicts the samples as being too safe in my opinion.