Travel. What do you think of when you hear this word? You may think of airplanes, cultures, etc. When we were asked to think of travel, the idea of postcards came into our minds, and the distances were had to go when we traveled.

-Jessi Modeling All of The Products-

Throughout the process of making the two garments in front of you, we were immensely inspired by the social media platform, Instagram. Many people use Social media to post their daily lives especially when they're travelling.  Instagram photos are based on the idea of "Artsy pictures and witty captions." This flowy peplum top is a perfect, day to night top, with crafty postcard-inspired details. Along with the shawl, this unique combination is perfection. But, it would be also great just by itself. We think that postcards are a great representation of the word "travel" because of the great ways they can be used to store memories from everywhere around the world. Made out of silk, this top is trendy and comfortable.

The shawl that you see portrays the tracks the traveller's memories they made around the world as they walked, ran, or simply rode. Throughout the whole course of "Future Fashion" our most worked upon subject was dyeing fabric. We've produced our own dyes and experienced the horrors and messes of dyeing as a beginner. When the word "travel" came to the table, we thought of dyeing techniques used around the world. The shawl is made from natural dyes pulled from fruits and vegetables from all over the world. Since the top incorporates a picture from Japan, we used the Japanese dyeing technique called Shibori. To do so, we stitched in the pattern we wanted and tied in beads for a more intricate pattern. The earliest artifacts of Shibori date back to the 8th century, so, we decided to tackle the timeless technique. This shawl will keep the traveller warm on-the-go or remind the consumer of their time travelling to distant lands.

This is the update from the last blog post, "Shawl gone Awry."

The second attempt of dyeing our Shibori Shawl went well, it looks amazing! We have made beautiful progress on our top and we are now planning on making a belt out of the shawl. We're on schedule and feeling great!

This week in our future fashion class we have been working on a new project. We split into three groups assigned to design and create a product that can be used for and that is associated with the idea of travel. Our group has been making a travel kit created to look like a barf bag - popularly affiliated with airplane and boat rides. Through this process of creating a travel kit my team (Camron, Ellie, Mahea, and Makena) fought, fell off of chairs, and most of all, had fun. Although, we did have some MAJOR set backs, like our focus, it has taught us much about timing, team work, and being on task. Much work has gone into creating this bag. Our team made a layout with which we cut white drop cloth that had been recycled and given to the program from the elementary art class at Punahou. We also made use of our layout by cutting out pieces of plastic that we used to give the bag more of a plastic barf bag look. After dyeing the white drop cloth with the natural dyes that we had previously made as a class, we sewed the plastic and cloth together. In addition to the bag we thought it would be cool to add two sewed-in pockets made specially for phones. We embroidered both pockets, one with the words accept and another with decline. The purpose of the pockets is to hold your phone, but also to have the option to place your phone in the pocket that will block your calls automatically so you and your phone can take a break. We are able to disrupt calls with our decline pocket with a special copper material that we have sown into our pocket. Not only did we make pockets but we also decided to add in three bags made to carry small items such as toiletries. We hope this bag could one day be sold in traveling stores and ultimately help people on there traveling journeys. But above all we hope for our travel kit to be enjoyed as much as we enjoyed making it. I am so proud of all the teams for completing one of our first big projects in less than a week. Congrats to all!

-Embroidering the Zip Lock Pockets-

-Sewing on the plastic-

-Pin A Little Diamond Head To it!-

-Buckle Up! Take a Risk. Time Flies.-