Hair Rollers

My inspiration for the current project is the West park hospital in Epsom, It's a part of a group of old mental hospitals catering to Londons population.

The place is eerie, really eerie, all boarded up and smashed up.

The main photo i've chosen to progress of a collection of hair rollers found:

I'm going to use the colour palette, the shapes and spaces to really create something unusual and hopefully inspiring for my project

Lanvin for H& M

Possibly one of the best high street- designer collaborations known, but alas we're only allowed a a sneaky preview for now....

Asymmetrical necklines, graphic prints and ruffles with on-trend colours,

I can already see the scrabble at the front door of every H & M

Elbows at the ready.

I struggle

With shabby chic.....

Or contemporary Design?

" I love you more than my own skin"

Godalming's A-level art show....

So it's the time of year again, schools out and the end of year shows are in full swing. One that I went to visit was my old college, Godalming. Some of the pieces were truly great, alot of time and effort had gone into the pieces and became more individual and original from piece to piece. Although I dont think the art pieces had the most fantastic displays, it was all fairly crammed in and unfortunately some art students had more space than others, Textiles was also nothing that i personally consider to be the great art of fabric, ooh how they'll learn in foundation, but it's all interesting to think of how the kids are soon going to be (hopefully) going onto art school and we'll be seeing some of those students names up in lights.

It's been a while dear friends......

..... So I've been a busy one preparing for summer, earning the dollar and sort of trying to actually have a summer holiday all in one.
But i've heard through the grapevine today that you can apparently own your own piece of Elvis autopsy,
may i say ewww and ewww again.
Another crazy-ass American auctionhouse has somehow got their hands on the surgical equipment and tools used to dissect and cut open Elvis after his death and are planning on bidding them off to Elvis-crazed fans in order to own a piece of him?!
I think this is a violation of sorts and really how can you tell it's all genuine (que horror-movie type skills of the actual autopsy)

Dita Von Teese

Beautiful dame Dita showed off her curvaceous figure today on the runway for Jean Paul Gaultier held during the Paris Haute Couture and oh how fabulous she looked.

The 37 year old wore a dazzling, tummy sucking, waist reducing corset designed by Mr Pearl that left little to the imagination, with a skeletal feel about the piece it suited Dita down to the ground with its Gothic look and structured bones squeezing and tightening in just the right places.

The piece lest the crowd stunned as the piece a de la resistance as Dita removed a black dress to reveal a cutaway corset, the collection is a collaboration between Gaultierand underwear agent La Peria, it will hit stores mid-November and features an arrangement of Pink, coral and Black pieces, truly feminine with an edgey twist.

Glamour Glamour Glamour.

Lime Crime

So after beginning to work my butt off at a full time job for the Summer I figured working in a health and beauty store I'd write up on on my favourite products and how they fair from other things I've tried.

So to begin, I am a make-up junkie and the absolute must have lipstick I've discovered is Lime Crime.

Lime Crime is an American brand created by the ever fabulous Doe Deere, its an assortment of some weird and some wonderful shades ranging from light Blue to Black to orange, its sort of a Barry M feel but better quality and smooth stay-put power. The packaging is appealing (for those of us who like bright colours, but then hey you wouldn't buy it if you didn't!) and it's even been rumored the Bearded Lady of Guildford bought the bright Orange shade known as "my beautiful rocket".

Me myself I have D'lilac and Cosmopop and couldn't be happier.

The colour slides on and stays opaque you literally need to use the tiniest amount to wear for hours and are bound to get noticed when wearing,so be prepared to be bold and in candy colours for the Summer season.

Chelsea Textile Degree Show Time

So it's here again, the time when us first years become skivvy's to the third years in prep for their final show.

But oh was it worth it! The show featured three floors of spectacular pieces ranging from clothing to wall pieces and even some furniture.

The students had truly worked hard to not only produce one-off unique pieces of work as well as mini-collections, all the work was individual with some selling in private view proving fast ways to get into the industries hands.

On talking to the students some had spent up to £4000 plus on their pieces, including buying cars and humongous art canvases, better get saving.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG48YtjJUy4&feature=player_embedded#!

A video with an interview of a third year student about prepping for the show.

Disappointment. Oh yes

I must Say I am disapointed with ASOS.com collection of Reclaimed Vinatge, as a bit of a vintage Junkie I am forever on the scroll to find the ole'internet bargains and found the section on the reclaimed Asos, with few pieces on show it just seems a collection thats seen so much in the high street at the moment in the form of utility wear ( take for example Cheryl Cole) and they've slumped it under Vintage, Pfff No fooling us.......

Oxfam D.I.Y

Ingenious! A guilt-free way to shop with some of the most spetacular clothing,

Oxfam seemes to have very cleverly tapped into the what's hot and what's happening of right now, By promoting Second-hand as chic and fashionable with ethical fashion sense good fashion has returned!

Patriotic Design with the Tassling detail, dare to bare.

First of all the Oxfam Curosity shop which happened a few weeks ago in the bottom of Selfridges and let me tell you it was a hit, with celebrity donations and the rich and famous buying Oxfam made a bomb for their ever-worthy causes.

Next an Oxfam D.I.Y store online, Top Stylist and Designer MRS JONES has created a limited collection of 30 garments to sell online at different times online and in the Camden Store, if your around its a must have visit, and heres a little peek of whats avaliable......

The collection features both women and men's clothing and feels like ASOS meets true British Punk Rock. Its Viv Westwood revived from her early days and its a must grab-onceinalifetimeopportunity and Champagne Lifestyle Lemonade Pockets

Assessment time= Being a nocturnal mess

Soo It's assessment time again guys n girls, which means lack of sleep, tonnes of work and last minute panicking!

For tomorrow I must have submitted my Alternative fashion Week project and Garden Stuff.

Below some fantastic pictures of the garment me and miss Jenifer Howard designed for the Alternative Fashion show http://www.alternativearts.co.uk/AFW .

The theme was Modern Folk, a twist on tradtions and we were briefed to design a garment in prep for a catwalk on April 23rd, we had a month to make the dress and it was a unique opportunity.

We chose Harlequins and Africa Voodoo and merged them together to produce a dress and headpiece.

My part was co-working to design and print the fabric, then individually designing the voodoo mask on the front and fitting/stitching/sequinning the garment together,

Milan watch out.........

Lifetime Infatuation with fabric

I'm a Printer I'm a Printer.........................

This is one of my Print designs for screen printing, taken from some drawings that I've previously worked on of a small cherub figurine and some pepper pots.

I've specialised, done and dusted from now on I'm known as an official print student, with a mixture of cad work and traditional screen-prints it could be interesting......

Delaine Le Bas- Lovely Textiles

Delaine Le Bas, A woman who knows her Textiles.

Her work has an almost "gypsy"-folk feel, its beautiful to look at and has some stamina in the story behind it all.

Her exhibition "The House of the JuJu Queen" is a voluptuous display of in-house pieces and a eclectic of furniture decorated in fun fashion.

Printing Work

Behold.....

A copy of weird and wonderful Prints I did for my Print Module in my Term Two of the course,

I spent two weeks getting to grips at being an ace on photoshop and how to use the screen print in the dye room.

The prints below are inspired by a little Indian string of bird decorations I was working from, the idea was to take elements and play around to produce patterns which would be printed into scarfs, I thought about playing around with the textures of the little fabric birds and voila!

Redheads: Biting Back

For our end of year essay we pretty much got to pick our own topic, and I thought to myself I want something interesting to talk about, relative to what I'm all about and of course something to do with what I'm studying,

And Eureka I got it!

I chose to write about something that I have pretty much had to put up with for the whole of my life, being ginger. No don't get me wrong I actually wouldn't want any other hair colour, and I'm not just saying that, I have had to endure name-calling, teasing and actually having pretty bright coloured hair since i started secondary school, but no longer does it bother me.

I have learnt with many athings to embrace and after weeks of researching I decided to look at research how red-headed models have recently stormed the catwalk, why and what effect this has on people. I'm not saying the teasing has stopped because it sure hasn't for lots of gingers round the world (particularly male) but it sure is a whole lot better being different!

Tilda Swinton, Viktor and Rolf's catwalk muse for Fall 2003, Need I say More?

For your interest, beautiful redheads set to storm the world................heres hoping.:

Karen Elson was the face of Spring/Summer 2009 Tiffany shoot, The Titan beauty was one of the first up and coming models to hit the catwalk having previously worked for Ysl.

Lily Cole, We salute your as always Lily

First Blog.......

............The inevitable first blog,
well it's basically a link to my already-up-and-running fantastically theory based blog: http://buttonsandbeads90.blogspot.com/
Featuring small(ish) essays from my lectures and theory work across my first year of Textiles
Enjoy