MODEL CALL

Press!!!

Douglas and I finally managed to have a great photo shoot with Mel for promotional materials for the fashion show. VCU was kind enough to let us into the Scott House, which is this huge mansion on Franklin Street that’s full of beautiful old furniture. I’m really pleased with how they turned out!




cheers,
DuVal

Dying Dying Dying

Up until now, Grace and I have been working diligently on all of the planning and housekeeping aspects of our project. We have finally gotten to the fun part- dying and construction! Woohoo! I spent all day this past Saturday in the studio dying fabric. I had to start out with a sample to see if our chosen fabric would even take the dye- thankfully it did! After the test I proceeded to dye 3lbs of fabric, breaking it up into 3 dye baths. The dying took just under two hours and turned out beautifully as for the rinsing... Ohh the rinsing, my least favorite part of fabric dying. I recruited Grace's help for the rinsing since I knew it would be quite a task, especially since we were dying the fabric a shade of red (my worst enemy- it is the toughest color to rinse). With the two of us continually rinsing, it look us well over 3 hours to get the water to run completely clear. For those of you who aren't well versed in fabric dying and rinsing, it is essentially the same thing as washing clothes the old fashioned way- imagine doing that for three hours. Sheesh! While I hate the process of rinsing, I love the end result of hand-dyed fabric which makes the labor intensive process worth it. I was just very grateful for Grace's help, otherwise I would have been there ALL night!

Here are some before, progress, and after shots!





Until next time,
Anne Douglas

sketches

Anne and I are well under way with our project. Here are the sketches of the eight outfits we've designed. (excuse my messy drawings) Oh goody!!








xx DuVal

Greetings from Douglas and DuVal!

All of the grant recipients have to have their photo taken for VCU publications and today was our photoshoot. Needless to say, it was pretty hysterical. Grace definitely gets the crown for being the photoshoot glamazon. I, however, was rather awkward... no America's Next Top Model for me! Regardless, it was lots of fun to be silly with Grace in front of the camera. We found that our best shots were the silly ones- our friendship in a nutshell.

We're excited about the progress we've made. We've designed six of our eight looks so Grace is hard at work on the patterns and I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my dye stuff! Can't wait!

Until next time!
Anne Douglas

more thoughts on design...

last night Douglas and I spent a solid evening planning and designing. I have to say, we've gotten a lot done! I was stressed about how much we have to do, but now that we've talked and are getting under way I'm really excited! Here are some more ideas that we can play off of... all of these came from etsy.

LOVE this collar. nice structure:


this actually reminded me of one of the dresses we already designed. I just like the structure here, and the detailing around the neck:


this I'm not quite as nuts about, but I like the use of the upholstery detailing and the draping.




cheers!
DuVal

dress inspiration

hello hello!
Anne Douglas and I are well underway with our project now that we've finished winter break. We had our meeting with our financial advisor yesterday and now we have access to our funds, so we can really get cracking! The BIG news is that yesterday we successfully booked the venue for our fashion show at Can Can, a fantastic french restaurant in Carytown. We are SO excited that we've managed to find such a spectacular venue for our senior show!
on a different note, I stumbled onto emilyryan's etsy site and was VERY inspired by the structural element of the clothing she makes. amazing!













till next time!
Grace DuVal