Surrealism Skirt - FINISHED.

Despite my wakening up in a terrible mood and sleeping in - generally, the odds were against me this morning as soon as my alarm woke me up, I managed to finish my skirt.

I could lie and say, "I have no idea why it's taken me so long to finish it", but I know that the extra time gruelling details I decided to add to the skirt today was the culprit for taking me so long to feel as though I had accomplished something. I could have handed in the skirt yesterday which would have meant that the skirt would have not had hand embellishment added or the pollen ducts attached, but then I would have felt that the skirt was not really finished. Plus, I was getting incredibly weary of people commenting on the fact that my skirt looked "leafy". Therefore, I wanted to do all I could today to make it look as flowery/floral/NOT LEAFY as possible...

Bad quality photo's from Blackberry.

Front

Back.

I was inspired by a sketch I took at the exhibit of a dragonfly that was made from natural materials, such as conkers and leaves etc. I did intend on adding an actual dragonfly to the skirt and attaching it, but as time went on, this was no longer an option.

Everything I create, seems to have a natural theatrical quality and thus, tends to look more costume design than high fashion. I think this is because when I taught myself how to sew and hand embellish in my sixth year at school, I created costume pieces for a contemporary production of "CATS - The Musical". Since then, I find it difficult to create and design garments without a theatrical style or drama.

When I created my surreal shirt for example, I kept thinking of Chicago the musical, and something one of the characters would wear. For the surreal skirt, I kept imaging it in a production of "A Midsummer Nights Dream".

One designer that marries high fashion and theatrical designs beautifully, is John Galliano.

I have always been an admirer of his romantic designs, despite his collections being criticised by many. His runway shows are a piece of theatre in their own right, and his garments look as though they just walked off of a performance of "Cirque Du Soleil". I kept Galliano in mind when I designed my floral inspired skirt and I particularly seeked reference from his Spring/Summer 2008 Ready To Wear Collection.

Dainty designs with lots of layering.

Inspiration for makeup design on the day of the catwalk.

Gorgeous embellishment.



Although my design is hardly comparable to Galliano's, I did constantly keep him in mind when designing my surreal skirt.

My skirt is far from a work of art, but I am proud of it nonetheless.

xoxo

Smiles All Round (:

Today has been a day of success and has consisted of work, work, more work, and watching "Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging."

Speaking of that film, I can't believe Aaron Johnson is dating a fourty year old woman. Apparently he's married to the director of "Nowhere Boy" and she's already had a child with him. Everything inside of me tells me that this is disgusting and socially unacceptable. But regardless of his sexual preferences in old ladies, I still find him gorgeous since going to see "Kick Ass" in the cinema earlier this year.

Yummmm....

In regards to the epic amount of work I managed today, I'm over the moon as I have finally finished my sketchbook. I was never behind on work with it, but I have had trouble printing from the Mac's in the University Library. This was making any further development in my sketchbook next to impossible as I needed to print off my Fashion Babylon review and my "Granny Takes A Trip" photographs. Nonetheless however, I managed to print off my pictures today and put them into my sketchbook. Now my Contemporary Contextual Studies sketchbook is totally finished and ready to be handed in!

I feel ever so slightly more relieved with Fashion Marketing as today myself and my group managed to finish our marketing presentation to be submitted tomorrow. It has now been sent away and ready to be marked. I hope our group is rewarded kindly for it, as we really tried to make an immense effort on it as we are all worried about the written part of the exam. If we do well in the presentation, it should hopefully pull up my overall grade for Marketing.

Finally, I managed to draw my pattern pieces for my floral skirt. I traced round my petals and my "stemen" as apparently we need to have all of our pattern pieces drawn onto paper when we submit our skirt. Since I managed to get that done today, that allows all my time to be focused on the practical aspects of my skirt this coming Thursday and Friday. 

Now, all that's left, is Fashion Marketing revision...

*Sighs loudly*

xoxo

Granny Takes A Trip

Here are our photographs from our "Granny Takes A Trip" photoshoot.
For my sketchbook, I decided to put the photo's through Poladroid to give it an old, vintage look.

Me - "Grany Takes An Acid Trip"

Rhoda - "Granny Packing For A Trip"

Rebecca - "Granny Literally Taking The Trip" (:



I loved wearing Rebecca's vintage clothing. She has quite the collection of gorgeous garments.

xoxo

I LOVE CHOCOLATE AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Yet another blog to distract me from my Fashion Marketing revision.

I'm eating chocolate Oreo's since I already devoured the original kind (with the white centre) yesterday. I'm also currently processing my "Granny Takes A Trip" photographs through Poladroid.

If none of you have heard of Poladroid before, its a free download you can easily access through the internet. It literally takes about 30 seconds to download and it sits on your desktop ready to be used. You simply drag photo's over the little Polaroid camera and it will change your photo's to a Polaroid format. It crops and changes the shape of them so that they have that extended white border associated with Polaroid photographs, and it also dims the photo's and adds sepia tones to create an old and aged effect.

I can't get enough of using it because the application is sooo cute. Here's some photo's from Poladroid of me eating my Oreo (:

YUMMY!

xoxo

Feeling like a bee on a leash...

Today, myself and Fiona Jesus ventured into the sewing workshop to attempt to get some more of our surreal skirt projects finished.

Fiona suggested two great ideas for my skirt today.

1. "Why don't you make one of those giant stem things with a huge ball at the end? You know, like the things that stick out of a flower?" - Stemen to be correct.
2. "You could also like attach flying bee's to it" ...  Me - "How do you do that?" .... "Well you have to capture them and then freeze them and then while they're frozen, you can wrap a bit of string around them and when they wake up, cause they don't die they stay alive, you can walk around with them attached to a string. So you could put them on your skirt if you want?" ... Me - "Does that actually work?" .... "Well my brother tried it once but he kept getting stung." Me... "Hahahahaha, thats the narliest think I've ever heard!"

Although I did manage to make a giant curly stemen to be sewn onto my skirt to make it look more "floral" as I am growing tiresome of people mistaking the petals for leaves, I did not, however, attach bee's on string to it. Something tells me this would be highly dangerous and idiotic.

xoxo

The Bane Of My Existance...

I can't believe this is happening.


I made a promise to myself this morning. This promise was that I would not blog, I would not go on Facebook and I will instead, study for Fashion Marketing.
The exam is in one weeks time tomorrow. Although I started studying a month in advance, its no secret that I have certainly taken a back seat to revising this week. Instead, I have been staying up all night, and sleeping all day.
Although I promised I wouldn't blog, I am allowing myself the opportunity to this evening, as I am blogging about Fashion Marketing... Therefore I suppose I am technically allowed as it is related to the revision I have done today... Maybe.

The book I am clutching, is essentially our bible for Fashion Marketing. My book is huge, yellowed with age, cracked, torn and smells funny. Thank you to the lovely man on Amazon who assured me the book was as "good as new". I can't really complain however, as it only cost me £5. The book is incredibly wordy, repetitive and intimidating in size. I am becoming increasingly worried about this exam as the hours pass. 

Off to do some more reading, I may even post another blog tonight if I feel motivated. Until then, I shall smile and pretend nothing is wrong...

xoxo

Untitled

Today my friends and I watched a documentary about plastic surgery operations that have gone drastically wrong. Although I expected the programme to be hilarious and disgusting - that, it was, what I did not expect was to feel so shocked and moved once the programme had finished.

We were all amazed to discover that Hollywood's baby, Marilyn Monroe, had previously had plastic surgery before she passed away.

Words cannot describe how much I admire Marilyn Monroe. Although there are many qualities of her personality I adore, I have to admit that I am predominantly infatuated by her aesthetically, and I will always see her as a style icon.

Finding out she had previously had plastic surgery made me see the whole process of having your body tampered with, and the risks you may suffer due to the consequences of this, in a totally different light.

Although Marliyn Monroe is breath-takingly beautiful the way god made her, dare I say she looks.... Better with having the plastic surgery?

I would like to take a moment to remember Marilyn Monroe as a style icon and one of the most beautiful and influential women in the world. She is a powerful and inspiring woman with a vision. But most of all, I'd like to thank Marilyn Monroe for allowing me to pass Higher English. Without her inspiring of the poet, Edwin Morgan, which lead him to write, "The Death Of Marilyn Monroe", I would have continued to fall asleep in English and not pay attention.... I would like to confess that other than when we were studying this poem, I did in fact do this.

xoxo