Quicky

I have been discovering that my dress that I did last year, 1950's Summer Loving, has been to into a window display at the Aylesbury Shop on the inside windows. Just wanted to show it, probably already seen this dress a few times. But our dear Creative Director, kind of makes a big deal about having students stuff in the Shop. So I'm proud, which I honestly must say doesn't happen that frequently.

In my Printed Accessories I was asked to bring in an Illustration that would inspire me, as I would either have to copy it or get inspired by it to make my arkepak (I've clearly spelt this material wrong, but have absolutely no idea of how to spell it...) illustration, that will be used as a test print at some stage (next week). The artist is called Tadaomi Shibuya.

xoxo

Hannah

Week one

Currently drowning in research - Grey Gardens, you guys are going to hear loads about that, this project is first going to be handed in on the 28 November! Well honestly is stupid for me to say: first, because it really just around the corner and the weeks are going to fly by. The first week of college is over and it feels good. The first week is always a bit hard, a LOT of talk from the tutors and not so much work from the students. Although I do think that little miss Emma (construction teacher) has been a bit hard on us, perhaps new at the teaching game, slightly shy and us students are a hard nut to crack, bless her! Oh my, that sounds so British! Unfortunately she hasn't been so kind to make us a time-line, that guides us through week by week, so we know exactly what we are doing, because right now I really don't have clue about; when I should be finishing my research and start doing my designing...

Been flicking through some of my ELLE magazines to find some inspiration, in the current October issue, theres Poppy Delevingne in a gorgeous Gucci dress, amazing print! And so in for this A/W season. Should probably have scanned in the images, but I'm so lazy! Sorry! There's also the 'Dolly Mixture', could imagine Little Edie wearing that if she moved to NYC right after her mother died, although all this clothes is from the newest collections; shearling coat and silk-organza shirt both by Prada, plastic cuffs by Marni, baby blue suede gitter and snakeskin boots and wool skirt by Prada, and then there's the boxy clutch bag which is also by Prada. Lots of '60 inspired dresses and shoes for that matter. I've also been looking into fabulous mature women such as Daphne Guinness, Didder Rønlund, Gitte Lee and Iris Apfel.

The other thing that I'm currently drowning in is ... again research, but this time is all about universities! You are going to get so sick and tired of me talking about this, but hey, this is important to me! So originally my idea was to apply for a few English universities, such as London College of Fashion (LCF) and Central Saint Martins (CSM) (a girl is aloud to dream) and few Danish, such as the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts - The School of Design and Kolding School of Design, but as I was speaking to my parents over Skype we came into a longer discussion about universities. I mean free education in Denmark vs £9000 per year in the UK, which one would you jump for? It's clear and with out a doubt that CSM is one of THE best fashion universities that the WORLD could possibly offer, but last year the whole fashion department had 3,500 applicants and the were only 25 available places for Fashion Design - Womenswear! Talking about competition! The short of the long is that should I go global? Meaning should I try and apply for some of the most prestigious fashion uni's in the world? Isn't that a bit insane? I mean we're ONLY talking about BAs and not MAs. Should I really put the effort in to applying to universities like Parsons in NYC or Antwerp in Belgium? Would I be able to survive mentally, when I'm so far away from what I know?!

It all seems a bit crazy to me, do I even have the talent? And financially, I should just be dropping this immediately, there's no way that either my parents or me could afford doing crazing things like this. Yeah, you could always apply to satisfy some curiosity, but filling our various different application forma, personal statements, that probably can't been used for all the different universities, one needs to be in Danish and the other in English, its all a great deal of work, and do I have time for it? Especially with the amount of coursework that I have got to do.

Wise words are appreciated...

Speaking of coursework, got a new project on the Friday, assignment description goes:

PLAY - 12/09/2011 - Part one: 31/10/2011 and Part two: 05/12/2011:

"A silkscreen can be remarkably versatile tool in the hands of an enquiring mind and an attitude of curiosity. Endless possibilities exist in terms of line, shape and texture. Capable of perfect precision and repeat pattering, the screen can also create marvelously organic, fun and spontaneous results" - Leslie Morgan, screen printer.

The use of a silkscreen is a varied and experimental, form posters, t shirts, fashion and scarves, to wall hangings and abstract art.

You will need to learn a range of techniques to ensure you have the skills to be able to do all these. Many of the techniques you will learn can be used for all manner of printed outcomes and it will be up to you to choose the best ones for the job.

EXPLORE - DOCUMENT - LEARN

To understand the process of screen print and dying fabric, and how it works - you need to get your hands dirty!

You will be given a series of techniques, showing different outcomes, textures and lines but all using a silkscreen, you will need to practice each techniques and document it in your journal.

You should produce a 'technical journal' in a 'book' of your choice, but as always, be creative, use an old school book, a small photo album, anything that is personal to you.

Included in this journal should be small sections of detail on print practitioners who inspire you, can you copy their techniques, can you learn from them, try...!

xoxo

Hannah

Back to basics

As the headline says we went back to basics in construction this week. Playing around with reconstruction a basic bodice block on the stand, I was working with Siân, thats the girl you can see in the second picture. This was done yesterday.

I must admit that its Siân that is more into the 50's kind of style compared to me. When we did the 1950's summer loving last year, I thought it was a nightmare! But hey ho, the important thing here was to find out the endless possibilities that you could do with a basic block. And we even might find it easier to experiment and come up with designs, by doing this, compared to sketching it out.

Talking about sketching the reason why these images look like this, is because I played around the the features on Photobucket, and I think it looks quite cool, the effects totally works for what course I'm doing! Haha, honestly I did it to compensate for the ridiculously bad quality of my cellphone camera! The first two images I have used the 'thin' effect and the last three images I have used the 'thick' sketch effect, otherwise you weren't able to see the details on the pattern paper.

Today we were working on darts and stitching samples - regarding to the samples, I think that its a right pain in the back side, considering we did a least eight really good ones, in the last 5 weeks of our first year - so now we have to redo most of them.. Learning how to pivot the dart was a great thing to learn and our teacher, Emma, even gave us a handy link, just in case if we were interested to look at other basic pattern alterations. I'm going to be ever so kind, because I'm going to share this link with you guys, just in case you were curious: lutube.leeds.ac.uk

Sorry for the late post, but the amount of work that I have to do for college is madness and we haven't even started yet. Okay so of it might have been my own fault because I got carried away. Like printing out 100 photos in the size of 9 x 13 cm (that should be about right?) - lets just make it clear I am not exaggerating(!), cutting them out and putting them into a A5 black journal, that seriously STINKS, because of some weird glue, since the outside is made of faux leather. I did this, because we are supposed to be preparing for our final major projects, that starts in December or otherwise it is after christmas.

Well better stop now, before this becomes to long and dreadful, which it probably already is! Haha!

Sleep well, to all you that must be behind the screens!

xoxo

Hannah

Grey Gardens

Little Edie

First day back at college! Can you believe it?

Can't figure out if those 10 weeks went quick or slow, perhaps more along the lines that the days went slow, but the whole 10 weeks has gone rather fast.

Today was more an intro day, meet our teachers - Emma (Construction), Allison (Head of Retail - Form Tutor), Will (Digital) and Penny (Print). Some I new, some I didn't. Just to make it clear, I have chosen to do the Fashion side of things rather than the Retail side.

First term will be all about our first project in Construction its called Grey Gardens; the assignment descriptions goes:

Using research based on the film Grey Gardens and the internet through searching for images and articles, compile a series of research pages.

Use these pages to make a mood board about your response to Grey Gardens and then use this to inform your design work when you will design a capsule collection of 18 outfits which would imagine Little Edie wearing if she were alive today.

Little Edie's great dream was always to leave Grey Gardens and move to the city. What would she have designed to take with her?

"My costumes? That's a protest against having worked as a model for the Establishment, believe it or not. A lot of models feel that way. Sometimes their lives are protests against having worked as models. Besides, I didn't have time taking care of mother to get out and buy many clothes. So I used what was left of mine and mother's in the attic." - Little Edie

Keeping the essence of her style and using your own response to the evocative images presented here.

Your research can be rough pages, your mood board must be digital bot paper and your final 18 illustrations must also be digital not paper.

We also got a whole lot of other information but won't bore you with that yet!

xoxo

Hannah

Today I've just been cruising around the internet trying to get inspired, so I can create my capsule collection for All Saints. Not going as easy as I would have hoped for. Hopefully I'll be able to come some what closer to my final 10 outfits tomorrow, if I get that far I'll post some scans, to show you my favourite outfits... if that such thing will even exist. This project has got to be one of the worst I've done, when it comes to effort.

I did get told that I need a more relaxed approach for my summer project, I've just been TOO relaxed. And to tomorrow is really my last chance to finish the project as I'm going to Barton on Sunday, to wish my cousin good luck with moving to London to start at Rose Bruford uni...

I'll see how it goes...

xoxo

Hannah

06/09/2011

Well, well, well! Back in the UK, well I arrived Sunday, but hey ho. Apologies for not having any pictures, but, I still have invested in a new camera... Don't really want to get into that.

fWent to the bank, how frustrating that I'm a costumer at Lloyds TSB and they wont except my Danish Visa, so I had to go to another one to withdraw the money, but they have a security factor, so I couldn't withdraw all the money that I wanted to - great! I guess I'll have to do the rest tomorrow.
Anyway it was my first ride on my bike down to Risborough since I've been back. Wasn't as hard as I expected, although I meet rain and heavy wind on my way. Could feel on the way back that I was struggling a bit.

Back to the humble Dean residence to do some more homework:
The assignment description is: To produce a capsule collection of 10 outfits for either All Saints or Burberry, take into account thier current customer, trends and styles.
Show back up drawings, research and a final 10 outfits.
If you have any questions please ask.

Late night shopping in Tesco after a nice meal, shepherds pie, that isn't something you normally get at home in Denmark. A little bit of drama here and there, that's all I'm going to give, because I mean this is just the Deans.

xoxo

Hannah