Chains-GOLD!

I found these great snake chains in a wholesale jewerlly shop in Soho. I think the will work really well in my MP as part of my final line up.

Tailoring fabrics

Holland and Sherry are one of the best tailored fabrci merchants in the world. I knew of the at my days on Savile Row and I knew I wanted to get some fabric from there. I Visted there show room on savile row and looked at mixed wool/silk fabrics. To my joy I found the perfect fabric for my collection...(Didnt like the price though!) but worth it. it was a silk and wool..so its was perfect! . I also was looking at House of Edgar . I wanted a Venican wool..with a sheen and there was a black cloth i saw I wanted. This was the best cloth I could find which they stocked!

www.hollandandsherry.com

www.houseofedgar.com

Fabric Research

I went to a number of fabric stores in London in the week. Sourcing fabrics is the best part for me!! I love to explore fabric and material shops to get inspiration. I went to London, Bewrick Street and Soho. There are so many shops in Soho and i can be very hard to narrow down where to look and buy but the key thing is to have a budget and spend wisely. I found allot the stores

to have stocked the same fabric.So its wise to shop around, especially for the plainer fabrics like the silks and linings, it may be cheaper to get wholesale. I went into BOROVICKS, CLOTH SHOP, BEWRICK STREET CLOTH and BROADWICK SILKS. I got alot of samples and it was great o have a large sample collection. This just shows one of the sample range I got from Broadwick silks. This was the best shop by far for me. I found it very inspiring with rich silks and beautiful tones linings.

www.broadwicksilks.com

www.borovick.com

www.clothshop.com

This is the GREAT Alexander Mcqueens Last collection. Yet again he demonstrates absolute genius with creativity beyond any ones imagination. Hearing his death whilst in Paris was devastating. I just couldn't believe it. But unfortunate this is the harsh realty of the world of fashion. He was defiantly one of the biggest inspirations in my life when it came to fashion. I was fortunate to meet him. His last collection was a great link to my final major project. He used allot of gold embroidery and gold work. I love his use of colour , its very regal and rich.

This is Karl largerfield's SS10 collection. It has allot of metal work moulded to the cloth to give a great edgy look! I love the use of the metal. It look sophisticated with looking bulky. It is beautifully cut on the dress. I LOVE IT!! I feel I can realte to this collection to mine. As I am too using metal. This gives me inspiration for how I could use metal in my collection.

DISSERTATION DONE...

As much as I hated writing my dissertation...I loved writing about it. Savile is the heart of me and it was like a journey for me and I learned allot on the way. I have always had a problem with writing essays and now that I have completed the most important one so far to date... I can evaluate how I was. I needed to slow down and check each stage. though tutorials, i got told I was too descriptive in my manor of writing...like a documentary! i had to evaluate the research I had found.

I also was lucky to have had first hand research on my dissertation by getting interviews with influential tailors like Ray Stowers(below his website). I found this to be so helpful but also was hard to do book research as I knew allot of stuff first hand experience. Having worked there for 2 years... it was allot different to what books describe it.

As I was writing, I found all the feelings that I had when I was on the Row, coming back. I didn't realise how much I missed the place and now know I defiantly want to go back and finish my trade off. I want have a trade behind me and always felt passionate about it. The dissertation helped me in so many ways and gave me a purpose on what i believe in.

COLOUR STORY

this is my colour story that has given me my pallet throughout my MP collection. It stemed from Gherys building and Zaha hadid. The images below are my favorite pieces by the architects. Gherys Gold building it beautiful assembled creating rich tones of gold and the harshness of Hadids building inspires me for crisp clean, slick lines and tones on black.

SHOPS AND SIGHT SEEING!!

This has to be the highight of my trip to Paris. To the Flag ship store of Chanel!! OMG- it was stunning , stylish and classy. As I went in... to my left I saw beautiful picture of 'COCO' in her younger days...as I walked through ....there it was THE MIRRORED STAIRCASE!

I had to hold every inch of my strength in to not run up those stairs. The staff were lovely and the store just was so immaculate.

PARIS!!

I went to PARIS last week for Indigo..and it was amazing! it was nice to go with uni friends and Paris is always lovely to see.
Working on the stand at Paris was amazing to show off our work. great experience and it was nice to see what other colleges had done. There was a diverse interest in what clients wanted on my days on the stand. Some really knew what they wanted and did not look for anything else, and some just wanted a bit of everything, construction , print etc. Our stand I felt was much looked more polished and clean. other college stands looked like a college stand where ours looked professional!
Although my work was not the best I had done, it didn't get shown on the stand as much as i wanted it to be, but the first day I did actually sell something to my surprise! It just proves that although it wasn't my best work, someone else took interest. design really depends on the individual... and I'm not basking on my sale but SHOWS that it really doesn't matter if its an objective view on your work..everyone has a view and option.

You can see the scale of how big it was...and this is just one part!!

DESIGN IDEAS

Just a snippet of my sketchbook initial ideas. Relating all ideas to architecture and fashion. I also looking at gold work and how I can incorporate into my work. As I was at hand and lock I will try to use some of my contacts to see how much cost would come up to for gold work embroidery.
Im tryng to stick to clean lines but bold structures. Ineed to refine these ideas into more sophistated designs but feel its a step in the right direction in what I want to achieve in MP.

TOIL ON STAND, design ideas

These are a few toils I have done on the stand to start off my initial ideas. I love the sleeve design and think it worked very well. I'm sure this shape will be a big part of my final line up. Working with paper helps me to realise what shapes I can create withs different fabric.

HAND IN Indigo/ STAND WORK FOR MP

I was pleased to hand this project in and solely concentrate on my MP. up until now I was and find it hard as I was playing catch up with it as I wasn't in the right frame of mind to do that project. So I'm pleased its out of the way and a clean start for this project!!

I was looking at aeroplanes and their pattern to gain some inspiration in cut and toiling on the stand as this is how I generate ideas. I have done some stand work here to get me started with shapes and forms this is from my sketchbook..