The preparation for this semester-long project involved two class trips. The first was to the Cotton Incorporated Headquarters in North Carolina, to learn more about cotton harvesting, manufacturing, and distribution.

The second trip was to New York City, where we went to the Coterie trade show, to immerse ourselves in the world of retail buying. We also got to go to Conde Nast, a mass media company that has worked with comapnies like Vogue, GQ, and Vanity fair. We were given a tour of the magazine archive, looking at the history of Vogue Magazine, all the way back to the last remaining copy of its very first edition.

Once we had our foundational knowledge, we began working without assigned groups to come up with what brand we would be designing for, choose a line name, and create a mood board. My group chose to create a collaboration between Uniqlo and Diesel, because Uniqlo has done several collaborations with designer brands in the past. We chose fabrics, a color palette, and design elements from each brand to work into our collection.

Our next step was to begin sketching our looks. We each drew 3-4, and out of 30 looks, 8 were chosen. I was then assigned the task of redrawing all (except 2) of the looks so the models all looked the same. We then rendered 3D models of the designs on Clo-3D.

As we moved into our marketing, I used a layout progrm called sketchup to re-create the Uniqlo Flagship in New York City, and dedicate a section of the store to our collection. With some help from my group member Jonah, we incorporated visuals from our collaboration and set up a layout of clothing displays. The rest of the group worked on things like our packaging, advertisements, and our pop-up event.