Decorative style details - handbag

When designing a handbag you can add various decorative techniques to the bags.These can be decorative stitches, ribbons, creative cutting (using a laser cutter) or any other techniques you can think of. You need to think carefully about the placement of these decorative features to create an attractive well thought out bag.

Background – Pupils are encouraged to express their individuality here and design an unique or innovative decorative feature for the bag.

Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. a range of techniques are demonstrated to pupils – decorative stitches, methods of building up stitches, using pre-cut laser shapes to make individualistic decorative designs. Concepts related to proportion are reiterated

Teachers notes – Decorative features

Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. class discussion centred on what is meant by an original design or an innovative decorative feature. Pupils are give an opportunity to evaluate pre-prepared samples or bags previously made from the handling collection. They are also encouraged to make trial decorative samples using paper and sugar paper and stitching these to see what they can create. This also helps with their machining skills without using expensive resources.

Handbag decorative features

Design development – colour ways

Complementary colours( lay next to each other on the colour wheel) and are usually easier to combine

Colour is an important aspect of any product and especially a textile garment. Each season there are colour trends. Getting the colours right means a retailer will sell their bags at a profit instead of having to reduce the price at an end of season sale.

Bag manufacturers use trend and colour prediction agencies to get a clear idea of the colour ranges needed for each season.

Contrasting colours (opposite each other on the colour wheel) theseneed to be selected with care. With one colour being used in greater

proportion.

Bags are products that are frequently made using more than one colour it is therefore useful to be aware that different colour combinations are easier to use whilst others need greater consideration.

What do you think about these designs? Do you likethe colour combinations?I like the blue and pink.

Colour ways

Experiment illustrating the bags using as many colours as you can. There are no real rules to colour combinations as trends and colour combinations change and appeal to different markets or functions. However what you have to consider is would your bag appeal to your chosen specification. Or most importantly does it look good.

Colour is a funny thing, and something you need to consider as a budding fashion designer. Too much doesn’t look good unless thatextreme look is what you want

Background – Pupils are given an opportunity to evaluate pre-prepared colour combination.

1. Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Discussion of which of the 8 exemplar digital samples on the presentation slide follow or break with the colour guidelines previously discussed. Pupils are encouraged to place various colours together and develop a intuition of which colours “go” together.

Background – The importance of colour in the design and development of products.

1. Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Discussion about why colour is such an important aspect of any product we buy. Colours having gender biases etc. A short introduction to colour prediction and their awareness of colour trends. The importance of combining colour that work well together. A guide to using contrasting colour in proportion to each e.g. one contrasting colour can dominate with the other colour used in a smaller quantity. Or the safer route of using complimentary colour and where they are found on the colour wheel.

When applying your decorative features using ribbons the best bit of advice I can give is not to use too many. Firstly the more you add the more you have too sew down!! But also using too many complicates the whole design and is not too attractive as your eyes don’t know where to look first. Use only a fewthen show off your machine skills with some decorative stitching as this show’s your skill on a sewing machine and will impress any one especially your friends and teacher!

Adding ribbons

Using a few carefully selected ribbons will show your eye for colour, consider positioning also as this will give some space to apply some excellent sewing!

Too many ribbons just confuses the design. Plus you have to think about all that sewing with so manyribbons to attach.

Which design do you prefer and why?

Positioning

Ribbons placed horizontally onto bag.

Ribbons placed diagonally onto bag.

Things to think about when positioning ribbons onto yourhandbag. You can place the ribbons you have selected onto your bag in various ways. Opposite are some examples. At the top of the bag, the bottom of the bag or at different angles.

Background – Test and trial to see what could work.

Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Pupils could try numerous combinations of possible positioning of the decorative features – discuss and select the most attractive layout.

Background – This sounds a little brief but it is really the essence of what we want the pupils to take on board - “Less is more”.

Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Often pupils first instinct, is to use too many decorative features. The presentation slide reinforces that care is needed in selection of decorative features, and colours need to work together. Pupils might need to be reminded that proportion will influence the effectiveness of their design, division of three guidelines could be considered.

Adding decorative stitchingApplying decorative stitching can be a good way of adding different colours and effects to your bag to make it interesting. It also takes a lot of skill of sew correctly and straight. Have a practice on the sewing machine before you do the real thing. Different sewing machines have different stitches so just experiment to see what you think looks good. Just make sure you sew in a straight line!

Use different colour combinations to add interest.

Zigzag stitch is a good stitch to sew down ribbons

Use other stitches in between the ribbons

Combine a different techniques to further add interest

Background – Similarly to the previous presentation slide, pupils are encouraged to test and trial .

Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Pupils could try numerous combinations of possible, and apply their knowledge of colour theory and proportion to produce an attractive design that would sell in a high street store.

Denim or cotton drill are goodmaterials to laser cut as themachine seals the fabric as it

cuts so that it does not fray.

You can also raster on to the fabric, burning your designs onto the fabric without cutting.

Laser cutting

Here’s a few ideas for the laser cutter that make effective designs on your bag.

Laser cutting

If you are lucky enough to have a laser cutter you can either cut away from the fabric or you cancut out the shapes then add them to your bag. Just like these in the photos.

Cutting out shapes in contrasting fabrics and adding them to the bag.

Cutting out from the bag then adding a contrasting background fabric behind the denim

The laser cutter is a quick effective toolto add some interestto a bag.

Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. Outlying the importance that clear lines is the key to enable designs to be laser cut.

1

Background – Our laser cutter is on the Upper School site and we have therefore evolved strategies that relate to that fact. We are sometimes able to cut a specific design for a pupil but often logistics make that difficult. Therefore in order for pupils to get a “feel” for our “best toy” we cut out a wide variety of shapes and let the pupils combine them into possible decorative features or logos.

Possible teaching/discussion point e.g. A brief explanation of how a laser works and some exemplar samples of how it has been applied and could be used within Textiles.