PGCERT

Encouraging 360° Thinking in Fashion Design

Micro Teaching Lesson Plan:

20 minutes:

1pm: (for the purposes of this micro teaching where I couldn’t ask students to prepare) Ask the students to find 4 pieces of paper (can be newspaper, brow paper etc…) any size, but needs to be a rectangle shape, and some coloured pens for the workshop.  

1.02pm: Introduce the workshop and explain the context behind it, why I am asking the students to do it, to get them to look at 360 silhouettes. Designing for the body is NOT 2D!  it’s about:

<Front,

<Left side,

<Back,

<Right side,

Full 360.

1.05pm: Show the students about how to do “consequences” folding the paper etc.

1.07pm: Explain about the themes

There are 4 themes:

<Gothic

<Brutalism

<Clowns

<Traditionalist

Start with the back

1.08pm: Start the drawings

Front:

Head

<Fold

Body

<Fold

legs

<Fold

Shoes

1.11pm:

Left Side:

Head

<Fold

Body

<Fold

legs

<Fold

Shoes

Back

Head

<Fold

Body

<Fold

legs

<Fold

Shoes

1.14pm:

Right side

Head

<Fold

Body

<Fold

Legs

<Fold

Shoes

1.17pm: Unfold all 4 drawings and share – hold up to screen, talk about 360 and how these drawings can be developed and mashed up or collaged into different looks.

1.20pm: Finish

Context:

Teaching Fashion design I see so many students struggle with designing the 360 silhouette, they often just consider the front of the design, and not who they are designing for, or full looks , top of the head – tip of the toe ! My micro-teaching session aimed to help fashion design students think beyond 2D sketches and consider the entire body—front, back, left, and right.

I did show a colourful clown object with distinct designs on all sides as inspiration, however the main object/s would be those 4 pieces of folded consequences that the students made.

To achieve this, I used a hands-on approach where students created their own designs using the “consequences” method, typically a drawing game where different sections are drawn without seeing the whole body.

Each student folded paper and sequentially drew a muse-inspired outfit.They did this 4 times Front, Back, Left side , Right side. To guide their creativity for the drawing, I provided themes—Victorian, Brutalist Architecture, Clown, Wobbly, Traditional, and Water Gothic—I used words/themes often used by in fashion design students. I also emphasised the importance of designing from head to toe.

At the end, students reviewed their drawings as 3D design references, moving beyond flat sketches. These objects/ drawings would then be used as a starting point for designing a collection of looks.

Feedback was positive—students found the exercise fun and engaging. However, they noted that abstract themes were easier to interpret than some cultural references.

Reflecting on the session, I see potential for refining this method, timing and theme choices, but it was effective in shifting students’ perspectives toward 360° design. Developing this workshop further could enhance understanding of silhouette and full-body design in fashion.

I chose to read this paper by JUDY WILLCOCKS and KIERAN MAHON from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. I worked with Judy when CSM first moved to Kings Cross on how to bring schools and local communities into CSM and give them Insights into what we do. So I was keen to hear about how the work had been developed over the years and moved online. We talked about this paper in our breakout room and all agreed how using objects was a great way at getting students to introduce themselves and their diverse backgrounds. I often use this method as an ice breaker, a talking point for story telling but also for mark making. I get students to mix up the objects, so in groups join all their objects together to create new communities. I am currently writing a project for MA fashion working with practitioners from Ghana, a hybrid project with the first week being online, so this extract below got me thinking about ways to use this object – based learning for the first week, It will allow participants to explore and reflect on the ecosystems in which Ghanaian designers work, while also creating a sense of community among our emerging MA designers.