Just a sneaky peak……

But the knitting has started!

Today I made something…..

Actually it was on Friday.  It was just a simple summer outfit as the snow started up again – give me something to look forward to wearing for one day in maybe four months time.  However, it turned out to be not so simple!  I’m clearly out of practice!  I used no pattern for either piece and simply cut out everything by eye, using my bust measurement as a guide for the top and my waist measurement as a guide for the skirt.  Seeing as the fullness of the skirt was held by the waistband anyway, it was just a question of elementary maths to make sure everything was evenly spaced and also remember that I had cut pockets.  Usually, when I was sewing on a regular basis, I’d say the task would normally have taken about two hours from start to finish but in truth it took me close to double this on Friday though in my defence, I was distracted by some cheese puffs at one point……… So lesson learnt = sew more often!!! Go on, you know you miss it, Charlemagne……Though I don’t think I am quite finished with it yet; I’m thinking of screen printing some madness on to the skirt as I like the whole print-on-print thing and maybe embroider the neckline a little with a bit of bling (50s retro style) mainly to cover up my grey overlocking thread faux pas – oops!

Lost in stitch

The main reason for my trip to Paris was a bit of a reccy mission.  At the time, I was thinking of moving there to complete one years embroidery course at Ecole Lesage.  Anyone can take professional classes at Lesage if they have just over eleven thousand euros – you see now why it was just a thought……

Lesage is an haute couture institution and can trace its roots into the middle of the  19th century.  In 2002, it became part of the Paraffection group, set up by Chanel to support independent atéliers d’art. These workshops have long been suppliers to Chanel and many other fashion houses, particularly for their couture and sometimes for their ready to wear lines. Chanel made the decision to form this umbrella company to avoid potentially losing these suppliers which they rely on for their expertise in different areas. It contains Lesage (embroider), Michel (milliner), Goossens (costume jeweller), Massaro (shoe maker), Desrues (button maker) and Lemarie (feather and flower maker). There is also a fabric pleater and a glove maker within the group.

You can’t just pop into Lesage; an appointment is required and must be sought out in advance.  But once in, it’s worth it!  The waiting area is decorated with hand embroidered art pieces and you sit on a chaise lounge, upholstered with metres of exquisitely hand embroidered duchesse silk satin.

I was given a tour of sorts; remember, this is a working workshop and when I visited it was quite close to couture week and everyone was working away.

This is a photo of the classroom workshop as I was not allowed to take photos in the actual workshop, in order to keep the fashion secrets in the right hands.  The actual workshops are as clean as this though which came as a bit of a surprise to me but I was assured it was essential to keeping the work pristine.  Inside the actual workshops, white lab coats and cotton gloves are the given uniform.

There were many languages spoken inside; English, Croatian, Russian, Chinese, Spanish but French was the primary.  The workforce was made up of women and the odd man who could do the job to the expected standard.  No more, no less.  Training at the school does not mean that you will get a job here, much less handle couture pieces.  What it does get you is the tools and the portfolio to knock on some doors and hopefully that will lead to a job.  I was allowed to take a sneaky peak at what they were working on and take a photo of something not couture related lol.  Here you can see the lunevile hook in action which is paramount to most pieces.

I got to spend five minutes in their archive collections  – actually one room of their archive collection.  Five weeks would not have been enough.  Not only does it store almost every design Maison Lesage has ever designed through the years but Monsiuer Francois Lesage (who sadly passed away last December) collected as many designs as he could from other, now closed, embroidery houses around the world in the 1990s.  There are thousands of designs, ordered, by original house, date conceived, style etc. It’s a beaders paradise!  But unfortunately I couldn’t take any pictures.  Apparently most private clients would rather use a piece from here as a base to any required design than design their own.  I was then led to the bead stores – heaven!!There were maybe thirty of these shelving units in the room I was in, all filled with beads, sequins, buttons and rondelles of every shape, size, colour and finish imaginable.  I was told that there were many other rooms and in all there is thought to be about 40 tonnes of materials, a lot of which was acquired by Monsieur Lesage while design hunting.  Many of the collection are antique or one offs; once used will probably never be seen again.

That was pretty much the end of my tour, which was just as well as my eyes were full!  Beautiful, beautiful work……I have always said that if I ever win the lottery I’d quite happily send a year in Paris, learning here and eating all the pâtisserie I could get my hands on.  The tour finished in the office, where I was given some literature etc about the course and I got to see Karl!

When I’m bringing in the money…..

……..I’m gonna live in Paris to quote a rather jolly tune by the Friendly Fires.  Some of my class mates are going to Paris on a school trip in a few weeks but unfortunately due to being poor I can’t.  I have however quite recently come back from Paris and so don’t feel too bad about missing this trip apart from the main reason they are going.  They are going to attend the biggest textile fair in the world – Première Vision – I have always wanted to see this extravaganza of fabric!  So I am counting on my fellow students to photo as much as they can so I can get a feel for it myself.  My trip however was not a complete waste; not only did I eat a lot of cake but I saw quite a lot of textile goodness myself which I shall be posting about in due course.  Here’s some souvenir photos to feast your eyes on in the mean time…….

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Border crossings……

So two weeks into the new semester and two weeks into a new design brief!  This time, the university have partnered with an American and a Slovenian art college and given all the students the same brief.  It is basically a study on identity and culture how we see it within ourselves and in the country around us.  For the first five weeks, we are to concentrate on ourselves and for the following six, all the students in Dundee need to focus on Slovenia.  The other colleges are doing the same for the first part and in the latter, Slovenian students are focusing on America and the American students, here in Dundee.  So it’s a cyclic thing really and it’s purpose is to get us talking to others out of our usual circle about our discipline and make connections.  A network similar to Facebook has been set up so we students can talk to each other at ease and swap photos, ideas etc.  In the eight page brief(!), it was explained that identity and culture is made up of many different things: religion, cloth (types of uniform etc), social issues, personal memories, food, politics, national identity, ceremonies, clubs, decoration (tattoos……) etc and it was from these things that we should draw our inspiration.

 As a textiles student any project begins with drawing from primary source and here’s where it got a little difficult.  We were encouraged to mind map ourselves, focusing on the above ideas of identity, to see if anything pushed itself to the forefront for us to use.  Now mind mapping yourself is much harder than you think, especially when you are trying to get down things that are easily obtainable for you to draw –  you can’t draw that you are loud for example.  So after a bit of a think, lots of felt tip pens and cheese puffs, I settled on cockles and saris.  My thought process was this;  my father is half Indian and so saris have always been attractive to me, especially as I love bright colours, embroidery and sequins.  I am also from London where cockles are a staple side dish in every fish and chip shop.  They have great texture, colour and shape which I thought I could draw on.  And so the drawing began!

 The whole point of the last two weeks was to amass a collection of drawings to inspire a collection of fabric samples.  Now if you read this blog you’ll know I had a choice to make in the new year that I was trying to put off.  Well, my hand was forced and I finally choose knit!!  So over the next three weeks I need to develop these drawings into knit textile swatches.  From them I need to get ideas of pattern, colour, texture, any surface design etc so watch this space folks!

End of the Last…..

As promised, here are my final samples for my last project with my concept boards.  I have now started on my next project brief which will be a subject of a post soon.  As you’ll see there are knit, mixed media and print examples.  Apologies for the terrible photos! Kiss kiss bang bang folks x

Wake up and smell the fresh…..

Tags

adverts, Fashion, tim walker

This time of year is always seen as being a bit dour. Celebrities are all sunning themselves on the beach, the pop charts come to a stand still and the weather is simply awful. Never fear, folks, the new spring ad campaigns are here to brighten January. My favourite is this blush, bright, rosy, snip of goodness. This time of year is always seen as being a bit dour. Celebrities are all sunning themselves on the beach, the pop charts come to a stand still and the weather is simply awful. Never fear, folks, the new spring ad campaigns are here to brighten January. My favourite so far is this blush, bright, rosy, snip of goodness.

Look at it……what’s not to like? It’s as British as can be and I wouldn’t expect anything less from Mulberry. I have extremely fond memories of Brighton, mostly childhood ones to be fair. The past playground of royalty, the scent of salt and vinegar mingling with candy floss always fills your nose as you fly around on waltzers. Shot by the genius lens handler, Tim Walker, this shot shouts playtime and fun and romance. Just some of the reasons why he’s my favourite fashion photographer.

I love this image and also enjoy the fact that the clothes seem to finally be on a level platform with the bags. This is most certainly an active push by the company and it worked – I looked at their catwalk stills again after seeing it.

On seeing most of the s/s 12 campaigns, the mood is definitely more free, fun and uplifting than the previous season. Designers went sombre for a/w 11, relying on the pull of classic cuts and colours to get them through the depth of the credit crunch. If people buy anything, they buy safe…. But now it’s pretty safe to say the creativity is back in earnest with prints, pop colours and maximism everywhere this season. Bring it on, I say!

Materials matters….

Tags

mixed media, my work, print, textiles

So having finished the first semester of my course, I have completed my first module and so have an end product that you may be interested in.  The module was called Material Matters and the basic brief was to create something textile-y while being inspired by nature.  As I started the course a little late (as I got a clearing place) it was decided that I stick to leaves or something else as readily available.  So starting with leaves, I soon became more reactive to microscopic photographs and ended up concentrating on stomata – these are the ‘breathing’ cells on all leaves.

After the initial drawing weeks, we all then had the chance to sample screen-printing, knitting and mixed media, each for a week.  Below is a mock up of my finished samples in a fashion context.  The jumper is a mixed media piece made of felt, silk organza and hand stitching.  The skirt is a screen print, on silk using disperse dyes.  There are other examples of both techniques and knit, of which I will add more pictures of later.

It has been implied that when we start semester two, we will have to choose wherever we wish to be knitters or printers.  At the start this seemed simple enough as I’ve always thought myself to be more colour and pattern responsive so always thought I’d pick print.  But after sampling both disciplines this choice is actually much more difficult as the constructive nature of knit was much more stimulating than I thought it would be.  With little more than a week until we start again, there is still a lot of thinking to do but the longer I’m allowed to put off the choice, the longer I am going to take advance of both workshops!

A different light, a new direction

Tags

languages, menswear, new year

So it’s the second day of a new year – about time to think of some resolutions, I’d say.  There are some easy ones like watch less television, read lots of books, run more often, eat less cheese and travel and save more.  However there are some that are needed for professional development – it’ll be beneficial to me to learn French and Chinese for example and seeing as my interest in menswear just keeps in increasing, I’m gonna try to make a proper tailored suit!!  I hope to chart this on here so you can see how it’s going……Also if I could find a well dressed and travelled man to fall in love with me this year I’d be on to a winner!

Old Doodles……

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Puzzles

I use google a lot.  And I mean a lot.  Not one day goes by when I don’t need to google something.  And it’s always fun to click on the almost daily doogle – they always teach me something new and are sometimes pretty fun.  So imagine my excitement when I came across a listing of the best google doodles of 2011.  The top ten list is here and you can enjoy them all over again by seeing all the doodles ever made here.  The number one is a cracker – have fun!!