Today was our first day at the Beijing Institute of Fashion and Technology. We were all in separate classes which I was excited about, because I felt it would force me to talk to people. Before I left England I assumed my classes would be taught in english but boy was i wrong.
My first lesson was garments manufacture, with Mrs. Wang. Luckily I was in the same class ad Hongbon, who tried his best to translate for me, but Mrs. Wang was speaking very quickly. She started drawing on the board and I followed her drawing which was helpful.
The measurements at first were so confusing because I saw Hongbon writing Cm next to all the numbers, but the rulers we were using were clearly not in cm. After finally finishing drawing the front panel of the pants I understood that these rulers were made for scale. So the first ruler we had was 4:1, this meant when we starting using the bigger rulers for life size garment manufacture you use the same measurements but a different ruler.
At the beginning of the lesson she drew on the board three types of pants: straight, awl and flair. We started of by creating the pattern for the straight leg pant. This started off very complicated until we got to the end and I saw the finished panel, it made so much more sense.
After finishing both the front and back panels on A4 paper, we then were told for our homework that afternoon to recreate this using the scale 1:1 on large paper. I managed to copy my diagram quickly, however, when I showed Mrs. Wang she said I had made many mistakes and tried to teach me how to correct it in Chinese. The language barrier seems so difficult to get past but I shall continue to do what I am doing because this is such a great learning experience for me.
Tori Grace Coleman 