Versace for H&M...

The fashion on the high street has hit a full-time high and H&M opened their shop for their new collection which was designed by the one and only Donatella Versace.

Versace for H&M was revealed today (Thursday 17th November), with shoppers in London waiting to get their hands on the garments.

The collection ranges from your tropical pattern blazer, to the floral leggings and not for getting the sequin dresses and studded jackets.

Not forgetting the men's suits which stand out with the hot pink suit and shoes to match and the wild patterned black & white suit with the big boots. 

At last but not least Dontella Versace at the London opening in a pink studded dress looking f-a-b-ulous !

Chalet Chic..

So, was my very first project at University and I couldn't wait to get started. Its a whole new chapter in my blog.

The brief to choose a sport which influence the fashion industry from catwlk, to designer and then the highstreet. The sport I decided to do was skiing, and after much thought the title for this blog entry would be 'Chalet Chic'.

I looked at colours, fabrics, textures and the key items for a fashion styling ski holiday.

Influenced by designers and the highstreet my sketchbook and illustrations came out perfect.

V Festival ....

Thursday 19th August couldn't have been any better for me, my results had finally come through and I found out I got accepted at Manchester Metropolitan University to study Fashion Design and Technonlogy.

So with my smile being like the cheshire cat I couldnt wait for V festival, Music, Fashion, Friends and the odd drink ;)

After the eventful drive down my weekend was amazing seeing all the lastest festival fashions and the newest sounds.

Leather jacket, hunter wellies and purple hair. Let the music begin

Me and the girls

Watching The Script

Best band of all time, Arctic Monkeys <3

Which tent is yours ?

Just chilling

Aaron Brown...

These pictures are out of this world.

He doesn't just base his photography eyes on one topic music artists, weddings, sports, buildings the list goes on.

Every picture has a story behind it.

http://www.aaronbrownphotos.com/



Marc Jacobs NYC Showroom 2011....

Michael Kors Fall 2011 cuffs to die for ....

Little Bits & Bobs....

It's my last year at college and also my last Fashion Show here. This year we have been asked to create some little bits as bobs such as badges, hair bows and brooches to sell to raise some money for the Fashion Show.

Here below are some pictures of the badges I had made and one of the brooches I made.



Final Major Project Evaluation...

After 13 weeks of hard work my time has come to finally hand in my last project at college and to be truly honest its quite upsetting to think this is the end on a learning step but a new step to going to university, however I couldn’t be anymore happier the way my final major project has turned out.

For the first three weeks of this project I collected my research, a programme on More 4 was on the television about the life of Lee Alexander McQueen called ‘McQueen and I’ and this helped me so much in collecting my research. His fashion shows where influenced by how ‘he’ felt and what made his designs stand out to every other design giving him and identity in the fashion world. It also talked about Isabella blow that supported McQueen since his graduation show, following the ups and downs in their relationship as friends. Not only did I look at designs I also looked at artists such as William Hogarth’s Deceptions and Pablo Picasso’s blue period. During last year I went to Italy with my mum after hard times at home so we decided to go away and I learnt a lot about Italian fashion. Its not about fashion there it’s about your style and your personality which is expressed through their clothes making it different to Britain I think.

Completing my research I started creating fabric samples, when I am designing I kind of go the opposite way I prefer to sample then illustrate I find it easier to create outfits after sampling. During the four weeks of sampling I done a lot of workshops in class such as weaving, paper making, batik and heat press. My textiles have improved a lot in this project, I think the theme helped my express how I felt and what makes me ‘me’, my favourite textile piece I done was the weaving because the colours are dark but also has a hint of yellow which is a colour of madness in my mind. Also the textures of all the materials in the piece are amazing and feel weird with all the different types such as lace, wool, cotton, nylon and felt.

The following five weeks was the time I started to make my dress, I didn’t want to use a pattern that was already done for me I wanted to create my own pattern so I started off using a piece of checked material and cut away to get the shape and size of the garment. Transferring the material pattern on paper was the next step and this was the hardest part for me as I had to mark all the pleats making sure that very pleat was the same size on the paper. Before making my final garment straight away I wanted to make sure that the paper pattern would work so I made a mock up of the dress using the paper pattern. Using calico it took me over 2 days to make and it worked and I was finally ready to make my final garment.

Buying my fabric was the first step to making my dress; I went to Abakan in Liverpool to get my fabric which cost me £8.00 in total working out as £4.00 per meter. The next step was collecting hand prints of family and friends and this was the identity part of the project because everybody’s hand print is different, the three colours they could choose from where Green (meaning nature and life), Red (love and Death) and Purple(mystery and fulfilment) the colours would show the emotion side to the project. Making the garment was easy as i had already done a mock up so it was easy to refer back to and in the future I would defiantly make a mock up of any garment before the final making process. The hardest part was applying the zip if I could change anything on my dress it would be to make sure that the zip would be right in the centre on the garment.

My final major project has taught me a lot on how to stay on top of my time management and my textile skills.  If I could change or do anything more in this project I would have made another garment such as a cape or top. Over all I couldn’t have been more proud of this project for my final assignment in college.

Music & Fashion...

Listening to music gives me a sense of freedom, I go into this world of my own leaving people behind and music influences my fashion sense everyday. 

The genre of music is the key part of expressing your personality and you, and fashion is exactly the same. When you listen to a song it sets your mood and listening to the lyrics especially effects how you feel (well it does to me)

 

Arctic Monkeys

Well oh they might wear classic Reeboks
Or knackered Converse
Or tracky bottoms tucked in socks

Emotions and Identity...

For my final major project I wanted to create a theme that is close to me and I want the people who look at my work to relate and understand the theme. So after much thought I have decided to base my project what makes us who we are and how we feel on a day to day basis so the title is ‘Identity and Emotions’. I want to create a garment showing that emotions are shown through colour and identity can be seen by what makes everybody different such as finger prints.

Collecting research will be my first step to starting off this project, looking at designers who are influenced by their emotions and what makes their designs different to every other designer in the fashion industry using magazines, books and the internet to collect this research.  Also I will look at exhibitions and not only this country is influenced by their emotions which affects their everyday fashion style but all over the world is too so I will try and research if it is any different to Britain.  Television programmes are a great source of research because they are a reliable source, so I will keep my eye out on any programmes which will relate to my project.

Fabric samples are my favourite part of any project so I intend on trying new workshops in class to improve my ability in textiles. I want to look at how to get as many textures I can create through out this project and using specific colours to relate back to the emotion side of my project, however the project is also about identity so I will try and find different ways of collecting peoples identity which can be transferred onto paper showing that everybody is different. Before making or collecting any research and fabric samples I will make a weekly action plan so I know I am up to date with my work. For the first 3 weeks I will collect and complete all my research in my sketchbook and the next 4 weeks will be for drawings. The next 5 weeks will be creating and making my garment making sure I have all the fabrics and finishing’s I need to complete my final piece. Followed by 1 week of evaluating and check over all of my work and garment so that the next and final week I am ready for the fashion shoot and the deadline.

Through out my project I will annotate my work also asking others what they think of my project and how I could improve my sketchbook and garment. After that I have a photo shoot for the garment which I will have to find a model for which will show my organisation skills. At the end of the project the garment will be placed in the Warrington Collegiate Fashion Show which takes place on Friday 17^th June 2011. Not only that but I also get to but my work, garment and the photo shoot picture in an exhibition which will also be held at my college too.

Life Drawing...

Over the past 6 weeks I have taken part in a life drawing class that the college had organised. 

Below are some of the drawings I had done during the 2 hour lesson.

This painting was done using charcoal and oil pastels.

4B pencil was used to draw the outline of my drawing, then work over with orange oil pastels, watercolours and indian ink.

I firstly drew the outline of the face and hair using a white oil pastel, and then I painted over it with blue drawing ink and when this had dried, the white pastel had stood out and I went over it in black oil pastel to make it stand out more.

Article for Modern Masters...

For my ‘Modern Masters’ assignment I decided to go with the theme of pop art. According to Charles Moffat from www.arthistoryarchive.com pop art can be summarised as;

a visual art movement that emerged in the 1950s in Britain and the United States. The origin of the term Pop Art is unknown but is often credited to British art critic Lawrence Alloway in an essay titled The Arts and the Mass Media.

To me pop art is a movement that is used to show colours in a way that they are never used. Colouring objects or people in a different way to their natural tone and to me based on which colours they use it shows a different meaning as each colour has a theme to it.

The painting I had choosen was Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘In The Car’ which was painted in 1963, his style of painting was Pop Art and his inspiration was comic books so his paintings always have a story to them.

This painting is a perfect example of what I would want my brand to be like because, its colourful, mysterious and bold. I love colour and standing out from the crowd and this makes me want to encourage young people to express themselves and be who they are and not copy others.

I wanted to achieve a modern version of Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘In The Car’ by changing the surroundings inside the vehicle to the woman driving showing she has control. Also getting rid of the man and instead have shopping bags to show she doesn’t need no-one but herself, furthermore showing she earns a good life and is doing well enough to treat herself on luxury items.

When it came to doing my photo shoot it took place in my college and I had asked the caretakers to kindly reserve me two car park spaces for the shoot. My Lecture had let me use her red mini and had collected designer shopping bags for me to use. My garment I made from two meters of yellow fabric, one meter of fur, one meter of ribbon and then to get my pattern onto my fabric I used iron-on transfer sheets. We took the roof down on the car so the lighting would be better to shoot and to get the bags to stand out more clear. The photo shoot went very well and quick.

The best part of this project is learning about how to organise a photo shoot and collecting research about an art movement and artist who I am really interested in. If I where to do this again I would like to do more research such as not just like at Pop Art of that time but also looking at other movements that where happening at the same time and compare them. Furthermore I would like to have spent more time on researching how to set up a photo shoot and try and make it more professional by researching the lighting, setting, backgrounds and overall settings. 

70's Summer Fever...

To me summer is the best part of the year but living in Britain, the slightest bit of sunshine and the summer dress and ray-bans our out and this summer 70's fever is back !!

Look out for Maxi dresses, Big Platform Shoes, High Waisted Flare Pants, Disco Minis and Hot Pants. 

Roy Lichtenstein...

Roy Lichtenstein is a pop art painter who worked in the style of comic strips and contemporary American life. Before he started his pop art style work he based his artwork on Cowboys and Indians. 

Born in New York City in 1923, he briefly studied at the art student’s league. Lichtenstein briefly served time in the army from 1942 till 1946, then from there enrolled at Ohio State University to get a master’s degree and to teach.

1951 Lichtenstein returned to New York City where he continued to teach, first at the New York State College of Education at Oswego and later at Douglass College, a division of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Through out the 1950’s, he used basic techniques for his artwork and incorporated them into his themes such as ‘Cowboys and Indians’.  However when the 60’s came around his style changed after seeing the work of a colleague called Allan Kaprow and this turned him to using comic-strip and cartoon figures by which he is well known for today. ‘Flatten... Sandfleas’ was the first important example of his new style.

Death of jane McCera

Primary colours (red, blue and yellow) and heavily outlined in black became his colours of choice, however he occasionally used green. Instead of shades of colour, he used the benday dot, a method by which an image is created, and its density of tone modulated in printing. From time to time he selected a comic strip, recomposed it, projected it onto his canvas and stencilled in the dots.

Even though his paintings are relatively small, his method of handling his subject matter conveys a sense of monumental size. His images seem massive.

In 1967 his first museum exhibition was held at the Pasadena Art Museum in California. Also in the very same year his first solo exhibition in Europe was held at museums in Amsterdam, London, Berlin and Hannover. He married his second wife, Dorothy Herzka the next year.

1970’s and 80’s, were the years where his work had began to loosen but expand on what he had done before. He produced a series of ‘Artist Studios’ which incorporated elements of his previous work.  A notable example being with the ‘Artist’s Studio, Look Mickey’ (1973) which incorporates five other previous works, fitted into the scene.

Art Studios Look Mickey

In the late 1970’s, this style was replaced with more surreal works such as ‘Pow Wow’ (1979).

In 1977 he was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 5 racing version of the BMW 320i for the third instalment in the BMW Art Car Project.

Lichtenstein didn’t just do paintings he also started to do sculptures in metal and plastic including some notable public sculptures such as ‘Lamp’ in St.Marys, Georgia in 1978, and over 300 prints, mostly in screen-printing.

His painting ‘Torpedo... Los!’ sold at Christie’s, New York for $5.5million in 1989, a record sum at the time, making him one of only three living artists to have attracted such huge sums at the time. In 1996 the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C became the largest single repository of the artist’s work and then donated 154 prints and 2 books. In total there are some 4,500 works thought to be in circulation.

The year of 1997 was the sad day that Roy Lichtenstein had passed away after suffering from pneumonia.  He died in New York University Medical Centre.

TorPedo... Los ! 

Modern Masters...

When I was first given this brief I was abit worried about what the whole assignment was about but after much thought and reading over the brief the title "Modern Masters" finally made me get into the research part of this project. I had to find a piece of art work of my choice from the past and re-do the picture with a modern twist, ending up with a photo-shoot at the end.
The picture I have chosen is by Roy Lichtenstein called 'In the Car'...

Quote...

"I never think of what's going on after me. I never think of what's next. I only think of the moment."
Karl Lagerfeld...

Hair Bow Photoshoot...

Given that I have already done a blog on my hair piece, I was asked to do a photoshoot to show what garments and accessories I have made so far. 

The project was based of designing a hat or fascinator for a little black dress and the era I chose was the 1980's. 

After my photoshoot the next day i went and uploaded my pictures and started to photoshop them. I wanted to make them fun and colourful just like the 1980's. 

Thanks for looking           

   

Shape and Structure...

\My first project as a second year was called 'Shape and Structure', so me and  You're So Last Summer set off to the engineering department in the college and started to take pictures of cars for research and within the first week all my research was done...

Designing was the next step in this project and i based my 'Shape & Structure' on cars...

The picture below was drawing I done and photoshopped it 

This is my final garment