Friday 15 March 2013

Fur Workshop

Fur workshop was fantastic!!! 

As a finalist of the British Fur Trade Association's Fur Design Competition (BFTA) I was invited along to a workshop.

It was divided into two parts. First part was an introduction, I've really appreciated an insightful presentation from Hockley and BFTA representatives: Tina, Izzet and Andrea. Their speech was a great introduction to the fur industry, its benefits and challenges, and I've learnt to better understand its role in the fashion industry and learn about Origin Assured. Then, the Head of Design & Innovation at Saga Furs, Dorte spoke about Saga Furs and showed us unbelievable fur samples brought especially for the 8 finalists to see. We were all amazed by how much you can do with fur and what a generous material it is to work with. I was inspired to be more creative and experimental with my own work with fur. 

My most favourite samples were: 
1) The degrade shaved emerald coloured fox! I couldn't keep my hands off it. 
2) Fox strips sewn onto jersey. It was weightless and stretchy fur - unbelievable! 
3) Burberry's Haymarket check in fur - anything is possible! Sam Towner couldn't let it go either! :)
After seeing all the samples and getting inspired, we had delicious lunch and proceeded to part two of the workshop.




The second part of the workshop was more technical: we were shown how to use the fur sewing machine and were introduced to various furs available at the warehouse.



Personally for me, one of the most useful part of the workshop was a one-to-one tutorial with the judges. Speaking about my ideas and designs to professionals, who gave me critical feedback, helped me a lot. 

After the workshop, i had two weeks to design and submit the final designs.