FAWNFAWNFAWNICATION

This is just a brief insight into the origins of our luxury label FAWN, now available on ASOS MARKETPLACE. I felt the need to quickly write this up on the blog as I personally really loved the subjects that inspired our project. So, one of the perks (well, I wouldn't really call it that as we had to work unbelievably hard on this project) of being a Westminster Fashion student is getting to work with world renowned brands such as ASOS for our business of fashion project. Our challenge was to create a brand which entailed the high end cutting and design skills we have learnt while maintaining a USP and a commercial clothing brand. We also had to work as a team with the Fashion Buyers who were in charge of costings,website etc. Our brand which was mainly inspired by the quote:



"nothing is more damaging to the spirit of a man than a secure future, the joy of life comes from new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new sun." - Christopher McCandless


Through this quote we looked at travellers and the idea McCandless presented in his manifesto ( his storey can been seen in this unforgettable film Into The Wild directed by Sean Penn), along with other quotes such as 'an aesthetic voyager whose home is the road', we really loved the idea of a woman who was surrounded by luxury and responsibility but felt the innate longing to be free, as Christopher McCandless burns money in the film, we wanted to create clothes for a woman who would 'destroy her own luxury'.  I think we all really cherished the initial research process; days of books, websites and covering our living room wall in hundreds of images. Entering the room literally felt like venturing into a other-worlding kingdom of fairytales, encrusted jewels, gypsies, the wild etc.So I thought I would post some initial research and films that we looked at during this period. What followed was a 6 week period, of pattern cutting,meetings,designing,sampling,tutorials,mess,technicians,spending 10 hours embroidering infront of films,photoshoots ,drama and no sleep but it was an incredible learning experience. 


I personally looked at films like Gadjo Dilo, The Man Who Cried and The Red Violin.  And Into The Wild, South Pacific and vintage retouched films as well as Marie Antoinette for our colour references. 

 My research book was no more than a shrine to magical photograher Paolo Roversi.

 First moodboard:

At first we named the brand CAGE, as we were looking at the idea of both travellers/nomads/drifters and people of wealth  or hedonism being trapped by societies stereotypes. However, our tutors felt it sounded too harsh and needed to reflect our clothing more. Although,  initially our collection was going to have a much harder edge, but as the project developed our tutors felt by making it more feminine it would have a stronger identity in whole. I would say my favourite parts about our collection are the fabrication, looking at travellers is a difficult subject and easy to make cliché, we felt, therefore throughout the project we were very aware of our fabric and colour choices. As a eco-conscious brand we used as little new fabric as possible, we used very rare vintage fabric found in my garage or on ebay and bought countless numbers of Saris from our local charity shop to cut out the hand embroidery  and delicately apply to our garments. Up-cyling and giving to charity! Score! 


I really feel that whoever buys our precious garments, when they wear them they will really be in that free headspace and feel like a traveller princess, after all, isn't that what ever girl wants! 


CHECK OUT THE BOUTIQUE HERE
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER AT @FASHIONFAWN
TUMBLR: http://fawnfashion.tumblr.com/ to check out more inspiration images. 
WORDPRESS: http://fawnfashion.wordpress.com/ to look at our journey in pictures. 




PEACE OUT X