This project started in August, where we had to research the Shirt; a key piece in everyone's wardrobe. I loved this bit of the project, ever since I finished my A-levels I feel so far from being an academic student, so being able to read up on a subject and find out things made a nice change, my only problem is I just don't know when to stop, I could have ended up with 50 pages of research, but remembering that I'm doing a visual subject, I witlled  it down to about 11 pages.

Once we returned to University in September, we started using this information and images we had collected of shirts (I went into Next and asked if they had any spare Next Directories- they were nice enough to give me 2), to create collages, which were then drawn around to create a shape, which was then mirrored to create more shapes and we had to design within that shape (some of these can be seen in the design boards).

We then moved on to a process called "moulaging", where we deconstructed 4 men's shirts, so that they could be rearranged and constructed in an contemporary way, they design boards show a couple of examples of these. I really enjoyed this process, but it was a little frustrating that although I came up with my favourite design on my first go, that I had to carry on doing other examples, but it's okay, I came up with some pretty cool ideas with some interesting silhouettes, but I still went with my first idea, adding a couple more layers of arm capes and another layer to the collar waistband.

It took me a while to decide where I wanted to have the photoshoot, I was also limited to which town I had to do it in. Originally I wanted to do it by an old billboard frame in Southport, but no one was available to be my model, so I asked my lovely friend Amie to model, but it meant we had to do it in Preston, so I thought about doing it outside the church near my Uni building. However as we were photographing other shirts on the same day, we headed to the park where I spotted a lovely oriental garden, which I thought would just be perfect. I'm so proud of the way the photoshoot turned out, and Amie looks beautiful. It really has a lovely Asian feel to it, that day she was a Kimono Princess!

We received our marks for this part of the project last Friday and honestly I was rather disappointed to only receive a 2:1. I should be proud of it, it was what I averaged at last year, and to still be at that grade when the level has been upped is satisfying, but considering how much time I put into the project, it's rather upsetting; I literally have no more time to put into my projects, I was working from 5pm-11pm every single week night, working on Saturday, and then doing at least 3-5 hours of work on Sunday. I'm scared that I'm never going to get any better, I'm not paying £9000 a year to only get a 2:1. Just going to have to dig deep and find whatever is missing from my projects.

So remember, each day, live a little, laugh a little and love a little ♥