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!

Flat-Mates!

So I live with 7 other people, again, but this time I’m the oldest, que sad. Anyway I live with 6 girls and 1 boy. The girls names are Sarah, Hannah, Ksenya, Alex, Darunee, and Charlotte and the boy is Will. So I’ll go through and describe them for you. Ok first is Sarah, she is the only one born in the 80’s besides me, and she seriously reminds me of Baby Spice. She is all girl, blonde, blue eyes and sweet, and the vegetarian of the flat. Hannah is super sweet little one of the bunch, she has hot magenta hair that is teased and scene, but she is like a little doll. Ksenya is from an eastern European country that I keep on forgetting, but I don’t know much about her but she seems nice? Alex is the phantom of our flat, she seems to be always gone but not, she has this cool like tom-boyish style but still makes it look cute. Darunee is the only other asian in the flat. She is from Thailand, but is ethnically Chinese, she’s really cool and we have been spending quite a bit of time together. And then Charlotte, I don’t know too much about her either but she seems really cool as well. And then there’s Will, he’s super nice white English boy with a cute sense of style, but he should since he’s doing menswear, and we’ve gone out a couple of times on the town going to the clubs. Well those are my flat-mates, hopefully we’ll all still like each other by the end of the year! Lol!

Sarah

Hannah

Ksenya

Darunee

Charlotte

Will

Unfortunately Alex is extremely difficult to catch so she is missing, for now....