Last Week of Term = stress, STRESS, more stress and EATING!

Unlike biology classes you cannot procrastinate when doing art! This is my biggest lesson this term; time management is crucial when it comes to any type of art because everything takes a tremendous amount of time to complete. After my trip to Amsterdam I was quite a few days behind in finishing my project for the term. At the end of term we had to have in a finished garment (shirt), a design portfolio with 50 pages of research and design and 4 final design sheets, and a technical file with all the technical bit of knowledge we learned during the term. Well this was a lot more than I had expected. 

I spent so much time working on my actual garment that I left the rest of the stuff until the last week, really BAD idea Marcus! My shirt was almost impeccably made, with fully finished French seams (a really skilled way to finish clothing) and almost perfect stitching, but waited to put on the buttons until the last minute. As for my portfolio, I had found out a few weeks before that 25 of my then pages were irrelevant and needed to be taken out, which left me with 6 pages out of 50, great! I had since been slowly working on expanding from that point, but had not made a substantial amount of progress going into my last week. My tech file was non-existent and is still non-existent, but we’ll get to that later. 

My turn in date was on Monday December 7th and on Sunday December 6th I still had A LOT to finish. Needless to say I had to pull an all-nighter but the hours seemed to go by faster than I was realizing and soon it was 8:30am (my turn in time was between 9:00- 9:45am) and I still had not put together my portfolio in order, my shirt had no buttons and my tech file was, well you know. I started to panic, which caused anxiety, which cause hurricane Marcus! Papers were flying everywhere as I tried to get things in order and I started to break down and give up, but luckily my friend called and whipped me into shape and told me to bring whatever I had in whatever state it was in and just turn it in as is which would be better than nothing at all. So on the verge of tears I gathered everything up and headed over. I was 15 mins late turning things in, and all I wanted was my momma to cradle me in her arms as I cried like the little baby I am. I was so disappointed in myself, I felt like I had failed, but worse that I had failed myself. My friends and course mates were they’re trying to cheer me up, but it seemed to no avail. We all went to a breakfast place down the street and we all discussed our tribulations. I found out that NO ONE turned everything in complete, people had shirts pinned together, some without sleeves or collars or cuffs on it. As for their portfolios people didn’t even have the minimum 50 pages, and a lot of people didn’t have a tech file, or it was thrown together last minute. Needless to say I felt a little better, but I still felt disappointed in myself for not organizing my time better. Well we get our grades and feed back on Thursday so I guess we’ll see how we did, and then all my course mates are going out to drowned our shortcomings away, in which my good friend Captain Morgan will be accompanying me.

My room Monday after Hurricane Marcus

My room Tuesday evening after the clean-up

Thanksgiving and then Amsterdam!

Well I know this was a few weeks ago now, but I’ve been so freaking busy with finishing my project for the end of the term that I haven’t been able to post anything. So I decided that I would celebrate thanksgiving with my flat mates since they had never partook in this great American Holiday, and to do so I prepared a whole Thanksgiving dinner by myself (for the most part). The dinner consisted of a stuffed chicken and duck over roasted veggies (turkeys were quite expensive), stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, bacon gravy, and pavlova for pudding (aka dessert). It was quite the spread and of course being the American fatty that I am I consumed two plates full of food and two helpings of pavlova. This would soon become a disastrous combination.

So my University was offering a trip to Amsterdam for around £100, which was a pretty good deal considering it paid for travel and room and board for a 4-day trip. So a couple of friends and I signed up together, of course I didn’t really take note of the departure date, I would late find out it was on Thanksgiving at 10pm, I though that would be fine we can still have dinner and then leaving. I forgot to taken in account digestion time, and how ill I feel after thanksgiving dinner from over eating. In true Marcus style I consumed way too much and had to leave right after we finished dinner, bad idea! I felt soooooo sick and then we had to get on the bus for a 12-hour journey to Amsterdam, oh god that was a very miserable time in my life!

            After the agonizing journey we finally arrived in beautiful Amsterdam, only to find out that it was cold, windy, and a bit rainy... needless to say I packed to weather closer to that of London, which was milder at the time. Our first venture after checking into the hostel was to go and find some warm clothing such as more socks, beanies, gloves, etc. We walked around the main shopping area for a while and then sat down for some tea and coffee to warm us up. We later went out to eat dinner at Thai place, ended the night at a club called Dansen bij Jansen, it was an interesting experience to say the least. Our second day consisted of walking around Amsterdam and checking out all the cool design shops and trying to see all the touristy places. We walked all the way across the city to see Anne Franks house, but by the time we got there the line was way too long so we just turned around and headed for the Van Gough museum. It was pretty cool, it showcased an evolution of his work from classic style to his very expressionist style that we all associated with his work. We further went on to check out the red light district, which was saturated with groups of men (wonder what they are there for?). We ate a Dutch restaurant where I had traditional pea soup called “erwtensoep” and weinerschnitzel, which is not at all what we associated it with. It was more of a battered and baked pork chop rather than anything to do with sausage. It was really good and satisfying, reminded me of my sister’s oma’s (grandmother in German) cooking. We topped off the night with a visit to and Amsterdam Coffee shop; let’s just say it was very interesting. The next day we got up early before we had to leave and went out for pancakes. They were bigger than my head!!! I got a chicken and cheese one it was soooo good! Over all my Amsterdam trip was fun, but I think it would be much better in the spring when all the flowers are in bloom and what not.

Ready to go Klogging!

"M" is for Mama Marcus

These next three pics are for my Momma, this is a flower market that 

was on the sides of one of the main canals in Amsterdam. 

Tulips for my Momma

And Roses for Mrs. Z

Rosy and Darunee

Anne Frank

Night on the Canal

Day on the Canal

Whose eating who in the scenario?

Visual Collage of my trip to Amsterdam

So Sorry, but...

Well I am super busy write now and feel like i have no time to sit and write about all the stuff thats going on in my life. But in short, last week my design tutor actually complimented me on several thing including my sewing and she told me that she was excited to my work when its finished, i'll explain further a little later. Now i'm in a mad rush to catch up on my work since i lost a lot of working days because of Thanksgiving and Amsterdam, but again i will tell you more later. As for right at this very moment i am off to sleep so i can get up early and get more work! AAAaaaaahhhhhh, going crazy! but in a good way! hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving last week it made me really miss everyone! Lots of Love!

PS I am thankful for friends and family like you all!!!!!

Good News!

Sorry that I haven’t written in over a week, but I have been really busy and at last it has paid off! Ok I left off last time right before I went in on Tuesday November 10^th for my design class. I had prepared a lot of samples for my tutor to look at, but hadn’t done much in my portfolio. Well I went in and showed her my samples and she liked where I was going and I also liked the fact that I knew where I was going. To sum it almost I think I might have gotten a smile out of her. I left that day feeling half on top of the world and half stressed, cause I didn’t want to come in the next week with any less than what I had that week.

            Well that week I drafted and made 11 collar samples, and I drafted 5-6 sleeve patterns, but only made 2 samplers of the designs I really felt passionate about. Over the weekend I had an epiphany with where I wanted to go with my designs and juxtaposed Victoriana, Leg of mutton sleeves, and a Chambered Nautilus. So I made one of the sleeves form one of my designs and showed it to her on Tuesday November 17^th, along with all the other stuff I had sampled. Well lets just say I’m both on her good side and I have my final design. This next week is going to be a mixture of panic between making a full toile/sample of my final design, a research paper on peacoats, a reflective essay, Thanksgiving and at the end of the week heading to Amsterdam for a nice weekend holiday! It’s going to be stressful ending in a fun weekend, so I can’t wait! Well here are a few photos of my sleeve sample along with the collar that will accompany it:

It's Tuesday Again!

I thought I would write a pre-class blog entry this week to show everyone what I was going in with and to possibly be less cynical whilst writing friends and family. Well this week instead of drawing my designs, which I will admit I am terrible at, I decided to make some samples and half toiles of my design ideas to show to my tutor today in hopes that I might get my ideas across to her. Well here are my designs, hope you all enjoy:

This is a Leg-o-mutton sleeve with cartridge pleating

This another Leg-o-mutton sleeve, made-up 3 pieces and is cut to lay across the chest when pressed flat, this causes fullness in the shoulder of the sleeve

This is a half toile that has double box pleats in the front,

 back and sleeve to give extra fullness 

Detail shot of the front yoke

detail shot of the back yoke

This is a pleated raglan leg-o-mutton sleeve

Detail shot of the winged french cuff

Here are two "Dandy" style collars with an ascot bow

modeled by the wonderful Ozora

Vile!!!!

Tuesday came again this week…… sucks for me. So design class this week was interesting again, I came prepared with all of my research laid-out on presentation sheets and I also came in with a few designs to show her as well. I got to class and she was calling people one by one and she always starts from the top of the roster, so I had plenty of time to finish a few more pages. When it was my time to go and speak with her I was pretty confident in my work, unfortunately for me. First I showed here my presentation sheets, which she said were “uninspired” and that each one should “tell a story”, I was ok with this and told her that the reason that they weren’t inspired was because I simply was uninspired by that research. Then I showed her my designs… well they were not received well. She said that they were “costumey”, which I get a lot, and that there were “contrived” and if they were be worn by a person they would look “absolutely vile!” at this I had to laugh! Through all the comments I took in stride this time, giving a few chuckles here and there, not that I wasn’t taking what she was saying seriously, but you just kinda had to laugh, or the alternative cry. But after that ordeal I asked about how I could change and simplify my ideas into something more “wearable” as she wants, and we discussed some things that can be changed and basically I’m going to simplify my ideas and samples for next time so we can see how they look in person, cause my bad sketches my be too severe a representation for what the final piece will ultimately look like. Well can’t wait for next Tuesday! Lol!

Here are a few of those vile designs:

 

Halloween!

Being an American I thought it would be a great idea to dress the part and become an American stereotype, or should I say an “a-Merican”! seeing as people tend to think of Americans as either Californians, being the best, or southern hicks I thought I would try out the later of the two. My costume consisted of my friends old magenta hair extensions, a trucker cap, wife beater, cut-off flannel button-up, ripped and tattered jeans and boots (essentially “all American”). Along with my new look I adopted an new persona, we’ll call him Billy Bob as to not be confused with the actual Marcus. So Billy Bob love country such as Gretchen Wilson with “Red-neck woman”, some Taylor Swift, and definitely his favorite Billy Ray Cyrus! Billy Bob wouldn’t consider dating anyone unless they were a close relative and loves his beer and (American) football more than anything else on this earth.

            Well enough about Billy Bob and a little more about Halloween. So Billy Bob went out on Friday night and got trashed and left Marcus to deal with the hang-over the next day. Billy Bob also made an appearance on Halloween as well but behaved himself a little more due to the Hall Staff warning everyone that there was a gang initiation that night and people were getting stabbed in the area. Over all there were fun times and not so fun times, and Billy Bob wont be making an appearance anytime soon, but here’s a picture of him, so if you see him say hi:

"Thumbs up for Kuntacky (Kentucky)"

"Purdy ladies make me happy, WOOoooOoO!"

Thank Goodness for Americans! / Tuedays=Design Class ☹

Well as of last week, I now have a favorite teacher/lecturer and her name is Ellie Herrington. She is our lecturer on academic writing and research and she is AWESOME! She’s loud, enthusiastic, clear, concise, basically everything that has been missing from my other classes. She relates visual and art research to academics, which has helped me a lot, taking it from “go with the flow” and “just jump in” approach to something more thought out and organized. We analyzed visuals for deeper meanings and I kicked ass with that. Thank you Ellie Herrington, you make my life right now!

 

            So this Tuesday was design class again. Since last week anger has fueled the fires of research, and in single week I have collected hundreds of visuals and have printed through my first pair of ink cartridges. I went in to class with only about ¾ of my research printed out and only one of the subjects laid out on presentation sheets, but she liked it! She said that this was a “million times better from last week” and that she liked my presentation sheets. She said “smoothing must have clicked in [my] head in the last week” and I think I have to thank Mrs. Ellie Herrington! But she liked my sketches and said that I should work out how not to make them “costume-y” and more modern, which I am currently doing.  So after last weeks class I know think I am on her good side and am now on the right track, but we’ll see what will unfold next week……

Well here are some of my presentation sheets on Dandies of the 1800's 

Design Class #2

Another design class again today…. What to say, what to say.  Well I went in and I have to admit I didn’t spend hours each day doing research, but basically I was reamed for not doing so I was even questioned on how I even got into the program! Well Danielle sat down with us one-on-one today and when it came time for my turn I showed what I had and she said that was not nearly enough and that they weren’t even good visuals. I told her that I didn’t really know how to go about “visual” research and she asked why I didn’t ask her last week in class. Well Miss Diva, I didn’t ask you because your horribly intimidating, not because you’re an up and coming designer, but because you came in the first day, didn’t even introduce yourself and then ripped apart what we had done as if we should have known that it was shit! Maybe if you were more pleasant and approachable we wouldn’t have had this problem this week. Creating this diva barrier around yourself doesn’t really invite people to ask questions for your info. Well that was my day, hopefully tomorrow will be better.

My First Real Class, and it was…

So I had my first design class today with my Tutor (used in the UK for teachers not in “academia”) Danielle Scutt, who is an up and coming designer here in London. Well needless to say she was a bit intimidating. For today’s class, we were to bring 10 A3 (approximately 17”x11”) sheets of paper worth of research on the 10 descriptor words we had chosen. I came in with my 10 sheets and after the first girl I knew that they weren’t at all what she wanted. She explained to us that what she was looking for was for us to research everything about a shirt (dress/button-up shirt in the US), for instances: what makes a shirt a shirt? Why does a shirt have certain elements, like a collar, cuff, sleeve, ect. Why were different designs popular in the time period when they were produced? Well you get where this is going.  So when it came time for me to show the research I have done for the project, she just reiterated what she had previously said to us, about starting from the beginning and working toward something that inspires you about shirts. So basically I have just wasted my time trying to sketch, going to the library and a ¼ of my new ink cartridge on nothing, great. I have been complaining to all my new friends here about how horribly vague everything is and look what happened, wasted time. Well that was first day of class, lets see how the rest of the week 

Update on My Shirt Project

So just a little info behind the inner workings of how I design:

 For the shirt project we are supposed to choose 10 descriptor words and explore how it relates to shirts, such as collar, cuff, stripes, etc. Here are my ten words:

 

Anatomy

Collar

Cuff

Plants

Sleeve/Shoulder

Japan

Armor

Pleating

Birds

S&M/Bondage

 

Basically I’m exploring each one of these words in context with the development of a shirt. For instance I have been designing around the human anatomy, i.e. bones, musculature, organs, etc., and I have been trying create designs that incorporate the grotesque inner body in an aesthetically pleasing way. So I have to do this same process for all 10 of these words by Tuesday, hopefully they like it!

First Day of Classes?

So I am still uncertain if I’ve started classes yet. Well today we had a sewing machine and pattern cutting introduction, but it was semi and tutorial and partly making sure everyone knew how to use everything. So in the sewing machine “induction”, as they call it, we were taught how to thread the machines properly and were shown a few different types of seams. Of course I was ahead of the crowd, most people got lost half way through threading the sewing machine and by that time I was speeding through the seams we had to complete. The two sew machine room technicians really liked me, so that is a plus. As for the pattern cutting induction all we did was trace body blocks for a bodice. For those of you who don’t know what a block is, it’s a very basic bodice pattern that has no real design behind it, but is the 2D representation of the human 3D figure, so it would be like making a flat pattern out of your skin. So we listened to the pattern cutting technician lecture about rules and what not and then we traced our patterns and were able to leave. Before I left I asked if we’d be doing everything in the metric system and she said yes. Uh oh I better get used to metric and fast!

Exploration of the Unknown

Here are some pics from places that I have visited, thought you all might enjoy living vicariously through me.

 

Me on the Brighton Pier (Southern Beach Town)

Sunset in Brighton

The front of the Victoria and Albert Museum

Inner courtyard of the "V&A"

Theseus and the Minotar 

Dale Chihuly chandelier

Tower Bridge

Another view of Tower Bridge

Marcus NEEDS a Designer Jacket Fund

So this weekend I was working on part of my project by going around to different stores and look at the fashions presented in them. Of course I had to visit the great Vivienne Westwood store, because she a genius and a true artist. Well while there I decided to try on some of both ridiculous pieces of fashion, which she creates many, and some stuff that I liked, big mistake! I tried on the this bomber jacket made of a very textured white wool. It was LOVE at first sight! I had only felt this feeling once before and that was in Dior Homme on Rodeo Dr when I tried on another bomber jacket. I stood in front of the mirror for ever and became very attached to it. I looked at the price, £555 okay not to bad, or should I say not as bad a Dior prices. So £555 translates to approximately $900, ouch! I was now making up every excuse as to why I needed to buy this jacket, some included “Il love it!” ; “I would wear it with everything, because it matches with everything” ; “Sacrificing food just means I would be on a mandatory diet”…… and so on. I almost charged it to my mom’s credit card right than and there, but I decided I should sleep on it to make sure I wouldn’t regret it later. All I could think, all I CAN think of is that jacket, but that jacket would mean I would have to give up: food, movies, clubs, BOOZE, traveling, and shopping all together. Luckily I spoke to my mother, who always puts into prospective in the nicest way, and she said that we just didn’t have the money and that I would need the money later on for school and what not. BUT if any of you would like to help me out just let me know! Lol!

It looked a million times better in person

Access Denied!

Well I went to the appointment with the womenswear course coordinator yesterday, but she wasn’t there so another one of her colleagues talked with me, and I’m kinda glad she was there instead, cause she was younger and more understanding. So I told her my concern of how I felt like I belonged in the second year on the course instead of the first and then she looked through my portfolio…..  She said I was really strong in construction but my designs were old, what exactly that means I’m not quite sure. She also said that I needed to work on my fashion design cause it was too theatrical. Both of those comments were unsettling, but she went on to say that everyone comes in with different strengths and weaknesses and my strength in construction would give me an advantage over those you aren’t as skilled in that area and would ultimately help me turn out a better product.

            Well she also told me some of the concept we would be learning about in class this term, so I felt a little better about the decision and she also said she would look into possible ways for me to get ahead, as possible transferring into a higher program or something like that, which she had done herself. But this is how I’m going to look at, I’m coming into this first year with a huge advantage, where if I had gone into the second year I would have been some what behind. With this advantage I plan to really impress my professors and aim to become “that” student, the one everyone knows about!

 

 

Shoes OMG Shoes

So thanks mom for your horrible addiction to shoes, I too have inherited this trait and in a place like London filled with merchants of sin like TopShop, River Island, and Selfridges (all amazing stores) I can’t resist the temptation!