Central St Martins - Fashion & Textile forecasting.

Following up my course in Nottingham i found a course at Central St martins College , one of the most famous Art colleges in London and worldwide.Once i enrolled onto the course i was so excited to attend and was very nervous to what the course was going to entail.I had a list of materials and research i needed to produce before i started the corse which got me really focused and give me some idea into what i will be doing at the college.Arriving on the first day we were situated in the Southampton Row campus which is absolutely beautiful the architecture was amazing and to think of all the amazing designers which have studied where i was going to study for a week was unbelievable .We began the class by introducing one another to everyone in the group , i was the only british student on this particular course which was so intreating to learn about people from Australia ,germany , Sweden , Ukraine ,Brazil , spain and dubai.The teacher Bridget Miles had a incredible resume of experience in trend forecasting and she had amazing knowledge of colour , as a person she was quirky unique and very colourful she quoted that she has never wore black for 30 year.She broke the week up into sections to help use learn and develop about how important trend forecasting is and how it effects everything in most commercial indusrtys.Over the week were set project A and project B which was a follow up to A .At first a lot of people where very confused by some topics she was relating to but i had quiet a lot of knowledge from college and the Nottingham course to understand and expanded on what she was explaining to the group.

Part A of the project was to created trend concept boards - Colour message.
We do a lot of mood boards in college but have not been shown these in depth so creating these trend concepts i learnt a lot about how important colour ways are.We had to use imagery which linked by colour and created a story concept so i used my resources magazine list to find some beautiful imagery.We then had to identify the colours which we wanted to put forward as the trend so we were sent to john lewis/libertys to find embroidery threads and wool to colour swatch.

We also visited mode information a trend book pulbliser which works hand in hand with all major trend companies it was a amazing visited learnt a lot about pantone colours and all the books which are publised.I also was lucky as helen one of the members of this company said she was happy to maybe offer me work ex in the future.We also received free trend journals.Our next task was shop reports visiting various shops in london which we all could compare and contrast and see how trends are used.

Part B - Fashion/textile concept
The second part of the project was a follow up from the colour concept we had to create a name and look for the trend and then add what: key garments,direction,mood,pattern,influence designers having trend references.We presented this idea to the group and was amazing to see how many different directions there was with some many various trend ideas.

We also where lucky enough to look at the peclers trend summery s which are only available to industry which was very interesting to see how trends now are going to develop into this new trends very interesting looking at fabric trends from indigo/premier vision , to catwalk, to highstreet.There was so much i learnt in such a small space of time , it was a very good and valuable experience experience and i think i have leant to think more realistically about my future career which i don't think we get supported enough from my college.I would love to do another course like this it was expensive experience but a very good experience which has changed my thoughts and ideas of what i want to do.

I love this graffiti which was in one of the hallways in St martins.