Horse browband
Alex's horse browband, designed for a
larger horse than modelled here
Alex McKee
Wellington High School
Year 11 Fashion Textile Design Technology
Teacher: Kylie Merrick
Horses aren't usually interested in fashion but their owners are, so Alex McKee designed her 'bling' browband to appeal to young teenage girls involved in horse-riding.
Alex's idea didn't come to her straight away. She did lots of brainstorming (different kinds of markets, market products and the factors influencing people's choices), analysed some products on the market and conducted a survey. Working with a classmate, she asked 20 people about the influences on their buying decisions and worked out the common factors. Alex then brainstormed the factors involved in creating a successful product and aspects to consider when designing a product, and worked on a class activity researching intellectual property and manufacturing.
Throughout this process, Alex was considering what she might develop but hadn't come up with anything she really wanted to work on. She asked herself "What do I like?" and, as she thought about how much she enjoys horse-riding, came up with the idea to create a browband that would appeal to 12-15-year-old horse owners. Decorative browbands are available on the market, but according to Alex they are overpriced and don't "stand out" to younger teenage girls; her goal was to make a high quality, reasonably-priced browband with 'bling' to appeal to that segment of the market.
Using a ready-made leather browband, Alex planned embellishments she thought would grab attention in the show ring at horse competitions. She sketched a range of ideas, using bright colours to appeal to her target market. Alex notes that horse owners try to complement their horse's colour when selecting a browband, so the colours she chose wouldn't necessarily suit every horse. She included fabric samples with her concepts and examples of the 'bling' details such as crystals, metal studs, faux fur, rosettes and screen-printing.
After mocking-up a browband in a simple two-colour diamond pattern, Alex decided to develop this idea in green, pink and yellow ribbon, with crystals and a rosette. She sketched some designs based on the initial diamond pattern and also drew some rosette designs. Alex trialled a variety of rosette styles and chose a three-colour rosette made with three layers of ribbon and a tail – she says that when she finally made the rosette the hardest part was getting the right size, and that she made some that were too big or too small before achieving what she wanted.
Before beginning construction though, Alex asked 35 people at the Horse of the Year show for their opinion. She says she got some great feedback, and was also able to talk to some of the people about how they make their browbands. She followed this up with some research on making browbands and rosettes before starting her own work.
Putting the 'bling' onto the browband improved the whole look, says Alex, and made it more eye-catching. She first trialled the use of glue and tape to stick the crystals on, and decided that not only was tape easier but she didn't run the risk of burning her fingers with the hot glue gun!
Between shows, browbands are usually stored in a protective cover, so Alex developed a cover as well. She drafted her own pattern and sewed a toile – this was time well-spent as it showed that the sizing wasn't quite right and Alex made another toile to ensure she had adjusted her pattern correctly before making the cover. Trialling the fabric was also worthwhile because she realised it was too thin and very hard to sew, so changed to a thicker fabric and sewed two layers together for additional bulk.
Alex was pleased with how well her browband turned out and that people seeing it at a local gymkhana commented on how good it looked – so much so that ten people asked her to make them a browband, while the head of a pony club requested a set of browbands for a competition team.
Teacher comment
Alex had a great personal knowledge relating to her product which helped drive her to be able to produce an item that had a specific appeal to the teenage horse-riding market. She understood that function and longevity were as equally important as aesthetics to teenagers. The ability of her product to be 'made to order' with choices of colours and 'bling' to match the horse was thinking beyond herself and was engaging other future stakeholders. Not being a horse person myself, I didn't know much about browbands; however, this was not an issue as I turned it into a learning experience for myself as well. It was a fun project that has great ongoing future potential.
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