Draping Womenswear Design Short Course
Course description
Course overview
This beginner's short course teaches the principles of draping and how to use draping as an experimental and playful tool to generate fashion ideas.
You'll learn how to manipulate fabrics through twisting, folding, gathering, and layering to create stunning results. You'll also create collages, sketches, and designs based on your draping work, while building a portfolio of 3D images. This portfolio will be valuable when applying for foundation or BA courses in fashion and could even form the beginning of your fashion collection.
You will complete a portfolio of pictures of your 3D work and will learn how to manipulate fabrics, whether for personal or high-end fashion collections.
This course is available both on campus or online.
Who this course is for
This course is ideal for anyone wanting to learn about draping womenswear designs as a useful tool to generate fashion ideas. For students applying to a foundation or BA course in Fashion, you will also complete a portfolio of pictures of your 3D work which will be valuable to your application.
Additionally, your portfolio of designs can potentially form the beginnings of your own fashion collection.
Key information
Topics covered
- The origins of draping and historical costumes
- How to prepare and experiment with fabric on a dummy
- How to cut your piece of fabric
- Examples of draping in contemporary fashion
- How to photograph your designs
- Draping a skirt
- How to mark a garment
- Draping a bodice
- Developing your designs in 2D
Topics covered on campus only
- Introduction to draping with fabric manipulations
- Draping without pins
- Designing garments based on your draping
- Draping with bias detail
- How to prepare a presentation of your work
- Making collages and sketches
Learning outcomes
- Undertaking your own visual research before you start to drape and sketch
- By twisting, folding, gathering and layering fabric you will learn how you can get the most amazing results
- Working in a sketchbook as well as working with fabric on a dummy will help develop and build up your ideas for shapes and details for a fashion collection
- Your collection will be made into a presentation for your portfolio at the end of the course
- Digital badge and certificate of attendance
Materials
On campus
Please bring these with you to the first session:
- Scissors
- Cutting knife
- Pins
- Glue/Pritt Stick
- Ruler or set square
- Tape measure
- Tracing wheel
- Felt pens
- Pencil
- Eraser
- Camera/phone
Online
Please ensure that you also have the following materials on hand during the course:
- Dummy-figure
- 7 meters of light weight calico (at least 1,60m wide)
- Pins
- Thread
- Needle
- Iron
- Digital camera
- Fabric scissors
- Tape measure
- Ruler
- Felted pens
- Dressmakers tape or ribbon
- Paper
- Pencil
If you are taking this course online, please see our Guide to taking online short courses.
Tutor
Petra Metzger
Petra Metzger is a fashion designer and educator with international experience spanning 20 years in the fashion industry and 11 years in education. She has a broad range of experience that includes commercial and high-end fashion design for international businesses. She created the womenswear fashion brand EINE LTD, and over many years leveraged students and creative professionals to the next step in their career.
Petra is highly qualified through a creative and technical education in fashion. Initially trained as a dressmaker, Petra successfully completed her BA and MA in Fashion Design at Central Saint Martins. She gained international industry experience in London, Paris, Switzerland and Rio de Janeiro and worked amongst others with Haider Ackermann, Hussein Chalayan, Peter Jensen, Swiss Hest Group and Lenny Niemeyer. Drawing on this experience, in her teaching Petra effectively engages a range of learners from high schoolers to experienced creatives and working designers. Amongst many other places, she has taught Fashion at Norwich University, multiple degree and short courses at Central Saint Martins, and co-created and led the post graduate fashion school Orbita at Centro-br in Rio de Janeiro.
Petra is a warm and people friendly person with a future-orientated and holistic mindset, passionate about eliciting personal potentials and sharing inspiration, and with a love of creative endeavours and realisation of ideas with others.
Stamo Ampatielou
Salima Sule Ali
Philip Mauger
With extensive experience in luxury fashion houses, Philip brings specialist knowledge and skill to the courses he conducts.
In 2005, during an MA in Womenswear at CSM, Philip began cutting for Vivienne Westwood's special clients, moving rapidly onto her specialist tailoring and Gold label show collections. Later moving to Lanvin in Paris to assist Alber Elbaz as a runway designer, Philip became responsible for some of the most identifiable silhouettes during its 2009-2011 collections. Philip followed this with further design and consultancy roles at McQueen, Paul Smith and Akris in Switzerland. Philip headed up Womenswear Design at Nicole Farhi during 2011-12 and became a Runway Womenswear Designer/Design Atelier Director at Burberry 2017-2020.
Throughout his fashion career, Philip has also worked extensively in film, developing/cutting costumes for productions ranging from Star Wars, James Bond and Into the Woods, to more recent Warner Bros/Marvel productions and series such as Captain Marvel and Loki. Philip currently develops costumes for contemporary and period productions.
Always involved in education, as a CSM alumni, Philip continues to tutor on the CSM short courses schedule. Philip has also tutored final years at Instituto Marangoni, conducted pattern cutting/folio design and design development classes at LCF and guest lectured at The Royal Collage for final year MA students.
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