Foundation Project Qualification (Level 1)

Biddenham arranged a three-day ‘ice-breaker’ course for all the Project students – at which they gave advice on topic choice and instruction on basic study skills, including using the internet and libraries, visual presentations and written communication. Each student was then allocated an individual project supervisor at the school.

More advice on delivery

Isis was inspired by her doll, Marina, and her lack of dolls’ clothes. As she enjoys sewing, she ‘made dresses from designs of flowers and nature’. Isis had not studied textiles in great detail before the Project, so sought inspiration by photographing flowers, looking at clothes and visiting the library to look at horticultural books.

Normally, Isis would be influenced by the natural environment and would also ‘look in a book or on the internet’ to research a topic but for this Project, she also went to the Natural History Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A). She says, ‘That was new to me, because I don’t normally go out and look at things so closely… I went to the Natural History Museum and looked at bugs. Some of the butterflies and the insects have really beautiful patterns on them and so I thought I could use that in my dress designs.

At the V&A, Isis explains, ‘I looked at the clothes and what styles there were. They’re from different countries and I was just looking at some of the flower patterns and things I could use.’ Inspired by the natural components of these clothes, she created dresses made from ‘flax, which is a material made from plants’.

Michelle, Isis’ mother, adds that at the V&A, ‘there’s a cabinet where they had sketch books’, so Isis kept a similar sample book as ‘this is how proper textile fashion designers keep their books’. Isis ‘wrote down what each material was’, after receiving free samples from a shop, so she would know what they were in the future. She concluded her research with a visit to a family friend to learn about pattern cutting and using a sewing machine. She ‘looked at the pictures and information that [she] had so far, and did a little sketch of what [she] wanted to do’. Isis was then shown how to make a pattern for her dresses.