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!

Year 2?

So when applying to this program I didn’t know that I could apply to go directly to the second year of the program. When I heard about this I started thinking about the amount of experience I have over my other classmates and so I asked the womenswear course coordinator if I could discuss the situation with her. She instantly became very short with me and told me how students who go directly into the second year are usually overwhelmed and struggle, but I have an appointment with her on Friday (10-2-09) at 12:00pm so hopefully with the help of my portfolio I can show her that I have enough experience to start at the second year, plus it saves me money. Wish me luck!

First Day of School

Well it was sort of my first day of school today (9-29-09) but it was mainly getting us into groups for a project. So this is how it started: some where around 300 students either in womenswear, menswear, fashion jewelry, or textiles were crammed into a very small canteen (a.k.a. cafeteria), which soon became unbearably hot. We were then herded like cattle to another room where we were split up into smaller groups and then given a project. The project is comprised of two pieces: a) deconstruct/ reconstruct- we were given 4 vintage garments and we, as a team of six, are supposed reconstruct them into a new outfit; b) Research- this is where we as a team are supposed to go explore places of reference around London, such as museums, department stores and boutiques and what not. Some how our group got messed up and we ended up with 6 people instead of 5 and not only that we had too many womenswear designers (4 in total when there we only supposed to be 2), 2 textile designers and no fashion jewelry person. On top of this none of them can really sew, I don’t think any of them can draft their own patterns and so it might end up with me doing all the technical work. Fun times are ahead……