Another week, tick tock and the time's slipping!

I had a vaguely productive weekend then. I did end up getting various versions of tweed and some wool and silk at the fabric store. Sad thing is, I didn't tackle my dissertation like I originally wanted to, but ah well. I still have a week to pop out 1500 more words.

I watched Misfits a bit too much this weekend - how many times can you watch the same episode without looking like an absolute fail face? Cos I think I've gone way past that limit. I just keep having to watch Future Simon O_O I can't help it! I suppose it may be because I missed Monty so much this weekend that I had to watch Misfits excessively. Ha. I'm such a sad person XD

Aaaanyway, I've burned (well singed, really) pages of my sketchbook last night, tweaked my boards again today, attempted to find fabrics that I wanted to order (only to find out that ALL the ones I wanted for my main fabrics have been discontinued!!! RAGE!) and I am now trying to focus on designing my line-up now. I went through the uniform books in the library to find some inspiration and think I'll mix the whole uniform thing in the Victorian era as well as everyday wear too.

I was advised by my tutors that I should choose whether to do menswear or womenswear, abd that it's difficult to do both, but I don't see why I need to choose....Why should I? 3 mens outfits and 3-4 womens! Argh. Seeing as we don't have any support from the tutors at the minute, I can design for both now, I suppose. I need a teensy bit of guidance even though this is a heeeeeavily self directed course. :/ Meh.

Have a gander at some of my inspirational images:

Peace.

Happy Saturday, ya'll

Ah what a Saturday morning. A nice lie in til noon and a bit of constructiveness by attacking a bit more of my dissertation. Didn't get much done though, not gonna lie.

I've been sooo into researching this week it did feel quite slow though, to be honest....the week freaking dragged! But it was quite good cos I managed to get quite a bit of work done. I finished my Moodboard, Marketboard, Colourboard, and Brief and I'm currently trying to bulk up my sketchbook, which is working out nicely. I feel quite positive about my work so far. Monday I shall look at and order fabric with hopes that it will get to university by Wednesday so I can attempt to get some textile swatches done. Oi vey. -_-; Need to go to town tomorrow I think. Actually I may go now so I can kill two birds with one stone and go snooping around for other local fabrics for this project before I head off to work.

Oh my account will have a nice dent in it. :) Off I go! x

P.S. I need to go Christmas shopping...and make a list for myself! D= So much to do...

Assessment Funk.

Had my assessment today; It went okay. My model was brilliant. The tutors told me things that I already knew. Here's a little taste of what I've done:




The feedback was constructive and quite helpful, but I still managed to come out of it feeling strangely dejected. Ah well, there's no time to let my moods slow me down. After I had my presentation, I modeled for Cassidy and then ran off to the library to find out some more things to inform my final collection.

There are elements that I'd quite like to keep from this little collection and there are things I'd like to add as well. I think I'll go down a more deconstructed path where my fabrics look more worn down and lived in, I think.

Here be some cool things I've been looking up today!

Some sexy post-apocalyptic stuff by graduate Jessica Darwin.

Banging shoes from McQueen from last season. Love the heel.

Mother of London. Now those designs are sick. (good sick, not bad sick o'course)

Going down the apocalyptic root. Totally. Should be fun, yeah?

Whoa-hoooa. A Month down the line

See how easy it is to get swamped with work and life? SEE?! Absolutely swamped and quite drained and all we had to do was one outfit. One. Just one stupid outfit. It really puts everything into perspective when you get your new brief for the real thing.

Life's been like a whirlwind of crap lately. We had terrible news last week about one of our coursemates causing our assessment to be postponed and a serious funk went around uni. No one went in really and when they did, the mood was off. Just nuts really...but I managed to have Thanksgiving to kind of cheer the mood up a bit. I cooked and cooked and I managed to feed a good bunch of people. They seemed to enjoy it as well so that was brilliant. Should have dinner parties more often. I had another Thanksgiving as well on Saturday which was even more of a success because I fed even more people and made a good chunk of money (which I won't be able to use because away it goes to rent...)

Anyhoozle, it's been difficult getting back into the swing of things. I keep wishing for snow because I got my first taste of first snowfall of the season on Saturday. Stacey and I were properly excited and kept staring out the window going "It's snowing! .....It's still snowing! ....It's snowing more! ....It stopped >:( " It snowed this morning too. It was so exciting!!

Ahem, now back to this whole fashiony side of my life again. I finished my jacket and annihilated my trousers, but together it looks quite nice. I managed to fit the outfit to my good buddy Horigan and it looked quite nice to be honest. Toile that is...I haven't had a chance to try the final thing on him yet, and I wont find out until tomorrow as well. I don't know if he can make it in time or if it will snow even. Please please snow! I'm ready for this assessment but at the same time I just want it to be over and done with. Totally tired of seeing everything I've worked on in the past 2 months. Lame.

Now to consume some more mulled wine and sort out the research for my final collection. At the minute Stacey, Slawa and I are sorting out a critical path so there is no way any of us will fall behind over the next few months. I will be so organized that it will hurt me. Promise.

RIP Melissa Smith. Love and miss you, girl. This year's for you!

Oh My Gosh. Willow Smith is AMAZING!

This girl is 9 years old. NINE! And she's just wow! I mean...I know Will Smith had talented children, but WOW!

Willow Smith - Whip My Hair (Official Video)
- Watch more Entertainment Videos at Vodpod.

9 years old and she's amazing. I couldn't stop smiling while watching this. She's quirky and adorable. It's gonna be strange seeing her and her brother when they're older and I'm like...30-something and saying "I remember when they were born!" Just wow.

Just wanted to say I like her style. It's interesting! I think Rihanna needs to watch out. There's a mini trendsetter storming the streets! x

Steampunk day!

Ha. I'm way too into the auto-tune viral videos at the moment! Wah.

So yeah! This week we had guys working on our studio space. We had to move our old tables and they built us shiny new desks!! Ace - and apparently they're even better than all the other desks in the room! It's so nice to have shelves and things. Yay extra storage space! Check it out!


Pretty swish. :) Love the kettle Stacey and I have! She's clever as well! Using the kettle to the fullest by having soup and pot noodle. Kudos to her!

In other news, I had a steampunk workshop today. =D Radical. Learned fun things and felt really inspired! We learned how to work sheet metal and use all the cool tools in the fabrication room. It was really worth it. The technician was a good tutor and here's my almost finished piece!


Strange, huh? It's a sort of instrument, I suppose...I need to add some nice gramophone bits and it'll be done =D Yay! Next project will be googles for Horigan (my awesome steampunk mentor!).

Back to designing! x

Where did I go?

Hey. It's been a while. No excuses though. I haven't been that busy where I haven't had the time to post - it just slipped my mind. *cough* for over a week...

Anyhoozle! We got our brief yesterday for creative practice....basically we need to promote ourselves like mad and have a mock interview at the end of the year. A bit unsettling because the work is piling up and I'm barely swimming through it, to be honest. I'm so ridiculously relaxed and work is slowly getting done, but it's aight! It's all cool, bruv.

Here's some fashion news! I've done a nice little colour palette and customer board. I need to do a mood board next so tomorrow is a computer day! My eyes will die but that's aight! =D I'll come out with loads of pretty designs. Promise.

Here's who I'm comparing myself to!

Mercibeaucoup

John Galliano

Juun J

Quite similar, but again quite different. I feel as if I should be doing really incredible things, but I dunno...I feel a bit flat. I want seriously incredible pattern cutting...my collection doesn't feel fabulous enough. I think I'll just do my showpiece just to do it, but change alot after the deadline. Would that be silly?

I think I'm moving away from my original research. I'm kinda forgetting the Korean aspect of this. I'll nail this. Fingers crossed! x

Week 3

Oh man. Where did the past two weeks go? ...uh oh. I just noticed that you know...times running out already. This is ridiculous. I did nothing since we started uni! Well I did stuff, but not enough! I need to make lists, but I'm still too lazy! Ugh this is bad. I need to get out of this funk, yo.

So went to uni today and guess who we all saw in the office? Satyen was sat chatting to Ali. To those who don't know who I'm talking about, he's this designer. He's a nice minimalistic designer, methinks, but everyone was quite wary of him this morning. From what my course mates and I noticed from last year, he was quite tough as a tutor. Could be nice, but then could be very nasty.

Yeah, there was a bit of fear in the room when he walked in and I was just sat doing my own thing in the studio and he comes up to me first. I wasn't actually scared, just unsure of where to start...but hey! It's was aaaaalright. We just had a casual chat about my work (or rather, my ideas) and he helped me realize that I needed to get on with it and edit my research down a bit.

I need to plan out my life now. I'm too comfortable to do work, so I'll make lists. Lists are always fun. x

Humidity!

It was humid as hell today. Mmmph. Rather uncomfortable to be honest, but it was nice that it was warm enough not to wear a jacket!

I tried looking online to find Korean magazines to order and my GOSH they're expensive. 12 quid for a mag? I think not! I may have to cough it up anyway...I really want one!

I met up with a friend that used to work with me at Starbucks today. It was so lovely seeing Weijin! She's as cute and sweet as ever. We walked around Park St and went to the Bristol Museum. I loved catching up with her and having a lovely Thai lunch with her. :)

I think I may like to work here when I'm done with uni! Angels! They're costumiers for like movies and theatre and stuff!! I asked to go on a tour with them to see what they're all about and to see what kind of things they so there! So coooool.

Gloucester tomorrow to see another lovely friend. Yay for friends! x

Acid and The Hippodrome

The acid dye workshop I had today was rather dull..I do love me a bit of acid (dye of course) but it just so happens that the workshop as a whole was a lil' shit. It's good that I have the knowledge on how to professionally dye lovely colours onto silk and wool but meh. I wish it happened last year.

But I've decided I'm gonna use wool as one of my fabrics :)

We had a meeting about the fashion show and how we need to designate jobs to everyone to make the workload more reasonable for everyone. I'm quite excited about this fashion show. We still have a helluvalotta fund raising to do, but the end result should be radical.

Ah and for my interview today. Talk about intense. 10 girls, one theatre. Ha sounds like a bad porno, however that's what it was! We had a maths test and individual interviews in these quite rooms, I was actually a bit nervous :/ I hope I get the job though cos my other potential job fired me before I started. Haha yep, on the way to uni this morning I got a call from the cafe and the lady said that she had someone else and she didn't need me for Sunday. At least my weekend freed up. =D And I wasn't bothered anyway but I reeeeeeeeally hope I land the job at the Hippodrome. I'd be well happy.x

Productivity

As I declared on the good ol' facebook, it was a productive day. At least semi productive. I got a nap in and managed to whip up some more of my digital sketchbook. The one that I made at uni wasn't recognized on my InDesign CS2 so I just started all over again and quite frankly, I like my newer sketchbook anyway.

My original plan of doing 70 designs today was a taaad bit unrealistic. Well totally unrealistic cos I didn't do any designs today really. Not my fault! I was researching print ideas! ...kinda!

Anyhoozles, I just got back from a pirate themed party with my former Drama Society family. I say former because I didn't join Drama Soc this year, but I just went to check out the new recruits, catch up with the former fam and scope out some models! I managed to rope in a few for my bud Viv! Oh how she'll love me.

Ah and I came across something today. Man skirt. Yay or nay? They amuse me. I think the right person can pull it off. But everyone else just looks funny.

Um...? Giuliano Fujiwara?

Er...
But somehow is that one done better? Oh men in skirts! So confused! Shall I include that in my collection? Its really hit and miss innit?x

Day off

Ooo how naughty I am. I'm playing hookie and staying home today. =D So are Slawa and Stacey so it's all good in the hood.

I'm gonna clean my room and then do some serious work. And maybe make some flapjacks. x

Beep.

Awesome little dance. Gotta love your "viral" videos!

Got a call from the Hippodrome - they want me to show up for an interview at 6pm next week. I wonder how that will go...? I hope Monty gets an interview too. I only found out about the vacancies because of him in the first place :/

Nothing to report today really. Went to uni, came back early and now I'm attempting to design but I think I still need to do more research before I come up with things that I like and that are well...me! I want to start toiling next week so I need to crack on with it, man! I think it's time for another cup of tea soon.






Cosmic Wonder is an awesome company, btw. Yakinori Maeda is a genius.





And you see that? Korean Nylon did a Big Bang GDragon photoshoot and they just put him in a woman's cape (by Marc Jacobs)! But he still looks pretty fly. I think that's what I'll do. Put Victorianesque womens silhouettes on men and vise versa. Bang. x

Start of another week!

Happy Monday, ya'll.

Today was quite productive! I got a job this morning at yet another local cafe up the road! The lady made me make a cappuccino just to see if I could do it properly. Ohoho - I've been making coffees for too long. Part of me wants to go back to the easiness of Starbucks but most of me doesn't. Lawl. I bumped into the famous cupcake-making Rosy today at uni! It was lovely chatting with her cos I haven't seen her since I quit the 'bucks which means I haven't seen her aaaaaaaaaall summer. :) I'm glad we're on the same campus!

I ended up socializing most of the morning to be honest. Socializing is a very important part of Monday morning! ...well every morning, really, but epesh today cos it really got me in the mood to do work. Up the library I went again. I claimed a table and sat with magazines and books and just perused for hours with the random-ass sun darkening my already dark-ass neck. Why was the sun out today? Why was it such a nice day out? I swear this country is just just confused in the weather department, man. Last week it was cold and rainy and today was a completely different experience!!
....
But it was nice to go out without a cardi :)

I got a brilliant book out of the library today! Just a few hundred pages with naked and clothed peeps in these different poses at all angles. Freakin' brilliant. Some of the pages are just inappropriately funny. Like the "Vicar blessing girl"...


Just LOOK! I know you can see it. And with that, I'll leave you. x

End of the week!

Whew! I managed to send in a job application 10 minutes before the closing time. Woop woop! Fingers crossed! And on that noteTGIF, yo. Oo...I should go eat there. It's been a while. Mmm T.G.I.Fridays *nod*

Anyway! End of the week - how nice! I had my meeting this morning and it was quite successful. All I need now is responses...Good things come to those who wait! I started my "sketchbook" on InDesign today. I even got a book out on how to use the software properly. I felt like such a nerd in the Epi Centre, but by golly it was fun! I've only got so many pictures, but it'll come together! It's a good money saving tactic, methinks :) £7 for one 30-page empty sketchbook or £7 for 47-page filled sketchbook. Ooo! Bargain!

Stace and I (well more Stacey, to be honest) cleaned the kitchen downstairs and now its all clean! Yay! It's so much nicer to do work when you know all is well in the kitchen and all the recycling is sorted (thanks Stacey!). Oh and it's also nice when you make brownies too. Mmmm brownies with lots of squirty cream...they were nice. x

London-London, I. Love. London.

Oh the music in this video makes me dance!



Yep Nylon Korea. I figure since I need to do a lot of talking and explaining in the meeting that I'll have tomorrow, why not study more into my market? I can't believe how new this extension to Nylon family is! Only 2 years?! Snapz! I need to get my hands on some of their magazines!

Meeeh today was such a lazy day at uni. I left early with Stacey. I virtually got nothing done today XP ah well. These types of days are always bound to happen regardless. I tried to work InDesign and it confuses me with all the stupid photo regulations and shiz. Ugh I'm so over it already but I need to get the hang of it - or just uh...try another program. Maybe I should have an internet sketchbook! I love technology too much. Everything that I do is computer based these days. I wanna get myself computer glasses to save my sight. Big chunky Spongebob ones.

Oh yeah. xx

Morning of the fourth day!

Hasn't even been a week and I've missed a post. Let's be realistic here, I'm not going to post EVERY day. Got a life, ya know? Anyway, I was thinking about writing yesterday, but Monty (the fiance) got his bike stolen last night so I cast all other things aside to comfort him and make sure everything's okay. Stupid bike thieves why can't they just get a respectable job or buy their own damn things? Mmph.

Anyway on a lighter more fashion/textiley note, I began putting my wall up at uni. It's full of inspirational pictures and the overall tone that I want for my collection. At least, that's what I think I want at this point! I've looked at 2D work by Richard Borge (a known Steampunky artist) and came across a few really cool pictures.
How delightfully strange, right? Right up my street. I also did some more research about my market and what kind of designers I'd quite like to work for or even just find out about what they're all about. The company Envuzan designed by Hong Eun Ju is just soooo amazing. They're concept is what I believe in. Comfort, uniqueness, fit, style, oh jeez! Just so awesome! I had to translate their concept on Google, which was a lot of broken english, but it was worth it in the end. I think the idea of targetting a Korean market is really exciting and a bit difficult. I can't go to Korea, I can physically see all the fashion crazes for myself so this will be a different thing entirely for me. Hope I can get it right!

Gonna go to uni late today...have a nice morning watching Jonathan Creek and starting to layout my sketchbook. Yay! x

Business...Creative Enterprise?

At noon today we had a talk about the new module about business. It was really interesting, but do I want to do a presentation about my "business". This and Visual Culture run the same amount of time...I would like to know more about business, but would I enjoy stressing out about my business module file AND my showpiece at once? I suppose the same thing could go for the dissertation. Actually, writing about my options now is making me start to lean toward this Creative Enterprise business. Bah. I still have all night to give it a good think!

I felt rather productive this morning. It was a nice cycle:

Wander around library, pull out a book, browse, scan the hell out of it the book, repeat.
Wander, book, browse, scan, repeat.
Scan, scan, scan, scan, repeat.

Bulked out my picture file a bit more, but I do need to actually have a good look through it and do some studies from my pictures. What good are they if I can't get anything out of them, eh? I'm thinking about doing my sketchbook in InDesign so it's nice and clean and I can change pages without having a panic attack when I want to go in a completely different direction with my work. I think I may start that tomorrow, but in order to do the whole InDesign thing properly, I'll need to reformat my Mac. Shocking, but I want it all fast again. The amount of Adobe ANYTHING files slows my Mac's pace down to the speed of an old lady who just got a hip replacement. Anyhoo...

Karis (one of my lovely housemates) came running up to me in the Library today and explained that there was a steampunk workshop starting up this year. Is that lucky or what? So Slawa (another one of my lovely housemates) went down to the Fabrication room with me to hear what it was all about. The technician seemed really excited about everything so bing! I signed up with the quickness. First workshop is on the 21st. That gives me enough time to design some things for it! Happy times.

I also get to meet with the International Recruitment officer on Friday and I get to go to the Bath Fashion Museum on November the 26th so eveything's coming together! Oh, how efficient I feel!

I must steal that book off of Stacey (the last, but not least of my lovely housemates) to aid with research! But for now I'm going to curl up with a cup of tea and draw for the next 5 hours. ...or at least that's the plan. Maybe I can squeeze in a few episodes of "Come Dine With Me" too. Just sayin'. x

First day back!

Surprisingly, the first day wasn't too bad. I managed to knock down a shelf in the library and fill up a file with photos! Huzzah! We had a reeeeeeeally long talk about out brief which happens to be for our showpiece! ...I feel like a bit of a dunce cos I know that what a showpiece is, but I don't as well. It's that "wow factor" that never seemed to catch my attention (or maybe I just never pay attention? Who knows.) So why not try to familiarize myself with showpieces from well known designers?

I'm assuming that this it the showpiece for Marni's SS 10/11 collection. I think it sums up the whole collection pretty well actually. Take a look for yourself. My tutor said it didn't have to be a piece that blinds you or something, but it needs to be enough to stand out...at least subtly.

This brief sounds fun, but sadly, it stressed me out a wee bit because I wasn't so with it over the summer. I should have done more research, but no use worrying about it now! For the rest of this week I shall be drawing like a crazed artist, you know, one of those types who lives in paint stained trousers and always has dirty charcoal covered hands. Ha...

On a lighter note, I got to have a tutorial and talk about my ideas and the tutor I talked to was really inspirational! She gave me loads of advice and supported my ideas. One thing I need to do is send an email to the International Recruitment officer. My tutor said to get a better grasp of my market in England, or Korean even, I need to actually get proper opinions about boy bands in Asia and fashion. Basically I need to ask the recruitment officer if she recruited any Koreans so I can ask em questions. A bit shifty, but everyone at this university is mad so I don't think I'll cause much of an uproar asking for a supply of willing Asians.

Additionally my tutor said to go to Bath Spa and go to the Fashion Museum. I planned to anyway so I could really get a grasp on how Victorian clothing was made. All I need to do is call the museum and demand alone time with the garments =D Should be simples!

Took out some magazines today to check out how to layout my sketchbook. All things will (try to) be considered! My presentation this year will knock someone out - pow pow! ...or ya know, at least keep them interested! I'm quite excited about this year and I also have that sense of dread hidden behind all that excitement. This year shouldn't be too bad, should it? x

Ah last day of my summer holidays...

Today's a bit depressing because we all have to go to uni tomorrow. I've got mixed feelings about going back - mainly because I don't think I did all the required summer work, but oh well! It will be good to see everyone again and catch up.So this blog is mainly for the documentation of my final year at UWE! May carry on after I'm done, or I may not, but we shall see.

This summer was quite interesting...I quite my job at Starbucks, got a new job at a little cafe up the road from my house, lost my job a month later because the place went out of business, went to the Edinburgh Fringe aaaaaand got proposed to. Yep. I'm engaged now! How exciting :) My mom also came to visit me for a week, which was fun. I haven't seen her in over a year so it was really nice seeing her.

I also sparingly did some research on what I hope will be my final collection. I'm inspired by a number of things:

Steampunk
"You're Beautiful" (an awesome Korean drama)
Korean boy bands
Korean fashion designers
Victorian England

It kinda all fell into place because my fiance suggested the Steampunk culture to me in my first year, I was bored at the beginning of summer and watched Korean dramas (cos I'm a dork) and thought about the last project I did in uni. For that collection I attempted to combine both male and female fashion...it didn't really work out to plan, but the idea stuck! I'm really interested in androgynous fashion and the show "You're Beautiful" captured that sooo well!

The story is basically the chick above has to pretend to be a guy in the famous boy band. The funny part was, all the guys dressed really...femininely, but were obviously really manly. It's a Korean thing cos all the boy bands there do it and it's awesome!! It was totally up my street for my research.

Steampunk is kinda like Jane Austen meets 21st century technology...kinda. Really cool subculture that can kinda be summed up in a picture.

Goggles, steam powered stuff and Victorian clothing. Cool, innit? =D

Anyhoo, that's a glimpse of what I have...I've got more research and things...but ya know, gotta see if the tutors approve tomorrow, ya dig? x