By Dominique Tassell
Under the watchful eye of their teacher, Wendy Woodford, a group of Warwick State High School Year 12s have collaboratively designed a 12-item collection.
Abby Patterson, Hannah Buckmaster, Tahnia Smith, Teagen Hoffman, Cypress Wode, and Jessy Hollie make up the textiles class at Warwick State High School.
They were tasked with designing a single cohesive resort collection for males and females, suitable for a tropical Whitsunday Island holiday.
The project challenged students to use their imagination to create, innovate, express themselves and their ideas, and design and produce design solutions in various fashion contexts.
The first thing the students did was spend some time researching the Whitsundays, and the kinds of activities visitors might do.
Then they explored what exactly resort wear is, and how they might interpret it.
Students say they then worked on a colour scheme, after looking at the Spring/Summer 2022 palette.
“We got to pick two colours each,” Hannah says.
They then decided on the kinds of silhouettes they would showcase in the collection, deciding to work on loose, unstructured designs that would be cool and comfortable in the summer and on holiday.
Wendy then chose materials and picked fabrics for each different piece.
She jokes she spent an hour taking photos at Spotlight so the students would have a big selection.
The designing and creation process wasn’t without hiccups, and students had to change or morph their ideas along the way.
The material for Hannah’s second retro bikini didn’t work, so she had to make a shirt, while Teagen’s dress was originally going to have a larger section shirred but it kept shrinking, so she changed the design.
Other considerations were factored into the designs, including the “very important” decision to include pockets in the dresses.
While the students all made decisions together during the brainstorming and design process, they went away to make their individual pieces on their own.
Wendy says she was impressed by their teamwork and the support they gave each other.
She says she also had help from Judy Schimke, who lent a hand with patterns.
Throughout the Jumpers and Jazz in July Festival, the students’ collection was shown in Rose City Shopping Centre.
Wendy says she has a longstanding relationship with Rose City Shopping Centre, spanning around a decade.
“This is our 5th or 6th display there,” she says.
Rose City gave them an empty shop to fill, which they “really appreciate”.
This also helped with the merchandising aspect of the class for the students.
Louise de Lissa from Rose City organised for the students to take accessories from other stores, and students say setting up was really fun.
“It was a really rich experience in the end to see all that work come together,” Wendy says. “I’m really proud of them.”
The students all have varying experience and abilities when it comes to making clothes, but Wendy says they all did great work.
Abby went to Killarney P-10 State School until last year and had never done textiles before, but has learnt a tremendous amount in a short time.
The class made accessory sets last year, which they planned to show, but couldn’t due to Covid-19.
Their current project is a denim jack thrift-flip, where they have to take out the back panel of the jacket and replace it with something else.
