I ordered samples from Fashion Formula and Contrado is find the perfect fabric for the summer dresses I planned for young girls. For the summer dress brief, I needed something quite lightweight and thin, I orginally thought of some kind of organic cotton but I actually found some of these to be quite rough or firm even when they were thin, so I knew I needed to find something softer than this for comfort purposes.
I started with fashion formula and started to sort through, thinking about my key criteria of softness, thinness and a clear image on the fabrics, as some of the thinner one became a little see-through or faded.
These four stuck out to me for a couple of reasons, the bamboo fabric was very soft and thin but not so much that it would be see-through, I could imagine it working for the summer temperatures and being comfortable, without it being so light that it would blow in the wind too easily. I liked the quality of the cotton slub as well for the thin effect, I have worked with fabric like this before for hair accessories but I think for the dresses it may be too thin as the white was not a clear white, instead being able to see the warp and weave I think showed it was a little too thin for the purpose. The percale was interesting, it had an unusual softness to it without it being as heavy as a velvety type of material, there was also a very clear image on it as well which I think looked really nice compared to one that was more disturbed by the warp and weaves of the various other materials I was going through. The final one I found was the organic cotton interlock, I mentioned that I wanted to look for a softer organic cotton and this was a soft one, with a good level of thinness without being see-through as well. It also had a little stretch to it which I thought could be quite good for a young girls dress as it would allow for some growth in the child, it also was very colourful so shows the colours of my designs would come up much better than some other fabrics. The only thing with the Fashion Formula samples is that I noticed the details are not really included, such as a thickness of the fabric or a code or anything to identify it on the website, I originally thought it was nice that they used different patterns on them while Contrado stuck to the same pattern in each and every fabric sample, but it is only comparing the same photo on different fabrics that you can truly see the effect of it on that fabric, so I do think the Fashion Formula samples could be better if they shared the same images, at least within a category of fabrics.
These were a few fabrics I picked out from the Contrado fabrics that I found, The pima lawn one is very thin and soft without warping too much, I do not like working with silk twill for example as it is so hard to cut a straight line in it due to the natural movement of the fabric. The janice Poplin fabric was a little thicker, but still thin enough to suit the purpose for the summer dresses, the image is very clear in terms of the pattern which I like, and does show up better than the crepe jersey one, which is a much softer fabric and at only 150gsm it is not a thick fabric either, but just by the feel and look of it I think it would feel a little hotter on the body than the other two fabrics would.
I think next it would be interesting to look into pricing for these particular fabrics that I like on the websites, maybe even looking at ordering a couple of them to show that the dresses that I am designing for could be out of a couple of fabrics, rather than just the one.
Firstly checking Contrado, I put in a size of 52 by 50 CM to have a fat quarter and be able to neaten up the edges as I want, I tried the Pima Lawn fabric first as I thought it looked interesting, the design came to 14.50 for this single piece of fabric in this size, without any discounts or anything. The Janice Poplin also came to the same price, as well as the crepe jersey.
Looking on Fashion Formula, the tools to repeat the design are a little more complex, this means that I would need to pay close attention when designing the fabric. I put in the percale fabric which came back as a fat quarter price of 12 pounds. There was another called Organic jersey interlock which was 11 pounds. The bamboo fabric was not available on the options which is disappointing, but the percale was a very nice sample one, so I may need to look at them again to make a decision.
Tahlia Paige 