Photoshoot with the Emma's

I haven't posted for a bit so here are a few of images from the shoot I did with Emma and Emma a couple of weeks ago. I made all the clothes except the top hat and the bunnys attire.  The quality isn't so good (no memory card, typical) and they still need editing and cropping but you get the general idea....

 

I kind of like that the quality is a bit naff it makes them look grainy and old.

Hey kids! Lets look at INSECTS!

So, I'm currently working on a highstreet project in which I have to choose a trend (La Parisienne) and do some designs based on my trend after putting together a research sketchbook. For my project i've been looking at insects, lovely little insects. Here are some interesting insect facts I have learnt.

• The longest insect is the walking stick insect which can reach 33cm
• When the ant queen dies, so does the entire colony because there are no new workers
• The dragonfly can fly up to 50 miles per hour
• Mosquitoes prefer children over adults
• A flea can jump 130 times its own height
• Honey bees have hair on their eyes
• Ants have a better sense of smell than dogs
  
• If you swap the C and the S in insect it spells incest

Aren't insects good?! I think if I were an insect i'd be an ant, I reckon i'd be a good ant.

Cirque de Cendres

So i've just about finished my element project and gained from it a collection of designs and a few actual garments (dress, oversized t-shirt, cape and harlequin collar). Here are some things that inspired me throughout this project.

 

 

 

 

 

Circus themed clothing is really fun, it's really cute aswell and it's not expensive cause all you have to do is throw together loads of fun clothes and poofy skirts, with a tail coat and a top hat maybe... oooh....

Louis Vuitton S/S10

How, how, how, HOW can you go from this...

...to this...

Oh Mr Jacobs, I love you so, your previous work for Louis Vuitton has been amazing and your own label stuff is just as good. I thought you'd just get better and then you went and did THIS!

 

 

I fell in love with the A/W09 collection, it was one of my favourite ones and pretty much the whole reason I decided to look at the Parisienne trend for my new project. I was so so excited to see the SS10 collection (sad? meh) and what I saw made me feel like someone had ripped out my insides and shredded them. Perhaps a slight over-exaggeration but it felt BAD.

I don't like the wishy washy colours, I don't like the way the clothes hang, the pattern could be nice but it's just...It's just not okay Marc. Sorry. Also, furry shoes are really bad.

Please do better next time :'(

so cute I want to put it all in my mouth

There's some really cute stuff about at the moment, fashion wise. Bows, flowers, bell shaped dresses, little jackets and big hair. I wonder how long it will be until Lady Ga Ga  murders atleast one of these...

  

  

Luella is always pretty cute anyway but I adore the SS10 collection, the prints are so cute and I love the cut out heart shapes on the dresses. 

 

  

  

The colours of the Chanel collection are gorgeous! I love how it looks so 'Chanel' with the little skirt suits but looks really young and playful at the same time. Even the way its been shot is cute, like a little folk party in the woods.

  

  

  

There is so much I love about these, both the clothes and the photographs. I love the tiny little cropped jackets and I really adore the way they've been shot, unicorn merry-go-round and balloons, aaawww!

You know what else is really cute? This tiny little squirrel wearing a tiny little acorn hat, AWWWWWW! *nom nom*

I heart hosiery

There are so many reasons I love Winter, big coats, hats and scarfs, bowls of soup and big mugs of coffee that make my glasses steam up. One of the main things that gets me excited about the nights getting darker earlier is...hosiery!

I love tights, I love socks and call me old fashioned but I even love stockings! It's so easy to transform an average outfit into something amazing with a pretty pair of tights or make an amazing outfit complete. This AW09/10 has some beautiful tights, here are some of my favourites.

 

 

 

I think my favourites are the Mcqueen ones, they remind me of something a woman in a classic western film would wear.

Tim Walker

Now then, once in a while you will come across someone whose work you adore so much that you pretty much fall in love with it, it inspires you, makes you sick with jealously and makes you want to jump up and down and flash your knickers at strangers. For the physicist there is Einstein's theory of relativity, for the musician there's the work of Beethoven and for the budding plastic surgeon there's the work of Sir Harold Giles.For me, there is Tim Walker. 

Not only is the man an absolute genius with a camera, his imagination is remarkable! The composition of his photographs are exquisite and he works so well with colour. His combination of giant props, balloons, perfect locations and gaaawgeous models make really exciting pictures. I'm going to have to stop now or I'll have to jump out of the window to calm down.

Anyway, so what I was intending to get at in this post is basically, Tim Walker has done the photography behind the new Juicy Couture campaign and, well, just look at it...

 

  

  

It's so good. I'll probably end up doing another post on Tim Walker so I can obsess over him some more, but for now, I have to go and vomit with jealousy.

Book Bag

Here is a clutch bag I made out of an old reference book In my first year of college. I found the book on my local second hand market. I have a habit of buying loads of old book (the smell, the feel the colour, mmm) but I wanted to do something really nice with this one, so I hollowed it out, added compartments and used an old belt to fasten it up.

It took ages to hollow out because I used a hammer and chisel and it hurt, it really hurt, I had blisters the size of plums afterwards. It's all held together with nails, wire, glue, blood, sweat and pure willpower.
The hinges are made from old playing cards (another excellent market find) and the panels inside were created by myself, then scanned and printed onto calico.





I also used Chinese newspaper, matchboxes, drawing pins and ribbon.
I'm really proud of this so posting it on the internet is a bit scary, it's the first time i've ever posted my own work anywhere, eep!

Rodarte

Kate and Laura Muleavy of Rodarte are nothing short of being geniuses. Their innovative knitwear collections are so so amazing! Inspired by horror films the sisters use a range of materials, but mainly dyed wools, to create their pieces.

Their new collection, which is 'the story of a girl who transforms into a vulture' uses materials such as burnt cheesecloth, plaid, lace, sandpapered silk and cobwebbed style wool to create pieces that look like armour.

Their S/S10 show had a definite warrior princess style vibe with tribal arm markings, dry ice and metal music, really eerie actually! I think its possibly my favourite S/S10 show that I've seen so far (although Marc Jacobs new collection is pretty special).

My favourite pieces ever are the knitted tights (I'm going to make some when I have some time on my hands because I need these in my life) and the loose knit mohair sweaters which always remind me of the sweater worn by Kurt Cobain for MTV unplugged.

Whilst writing this blog I lost one glass of milk and found three.

Here are 5 of my favourites this month.

1. 
   
   Alexander Wang. This guy is 25, he had a cashmere sweater range out while he was still at university AND he interned at teen Vogue. He is ah-ma-zing. I love the way you can really see how his idea's have evolved throughout his collections. I think my favourite pieces from his A/W 09 collection have to be his handbags, particularly the vest bag, his biker style lace up boots and his androgynous 'boyfriend' shirts which have made me really regret turning my dad's white shirt into a mood board. He's also created some pretty cool thermal adult baby grows, by pretty cool I actually mean, I really need to own one of these and I'm not sure how I'm going to get through winter without one.

2. 
   
   Viktoria Modesta is a pin up, photographer and musician. I discovered Modesta fairly recently in Bizarre magazine and I LOVE her. Her music is alright. I mean I don't think it's amazing to be honest, it's not really my cup of tea but she has a pretty nice voice. Her photography work is also pretty impressive. She looks at lots of different styles and aspects of photography which means her work isn't just a repetition of itself BUT to be honest I'm more fascinated with the way she looks, she's just cool man. I mean, she's an amputee and she's been a bizarre cover girl twice, TWICE! I'm not suggesting in any way that if you are an amputee then any dreams of modelling should be cast aside, that would be harsh, but that's impressive as far as I'm concerned. She's a total babe.
   

3. 
   
   Lily Allen. Yeah so she sleeps with people old enough to be her dad, has a tattoo that contradicts itself completely and apparently finds crack a bit more-ish but whatever I think she's cool. She just really doesn't seem to give a shit. Anyone who is featured in a collectors edition of Elle (FYI it was the London issue) AND has clothes specially designed for a shoot by Luella, Burberry and Giles to name a few, is a total winner in my books. I don' t care if you think Lily Allen is a turd because I think she's the bee's knees so bite me.

4. 
   
   T-shirts. I've always had a bit of a vendetta against t-shirts. Being tall I can never get them long enough, you can pretty much always see my bra though them and they tend to cling to the wrong places. Up until recently I've been the one-who-only-wears-floral-really-and-looks-a-bit-like-your-gran girl, mainly due to only ever really shopping in charity shops (I have a bit of a fear of high street shops, I've worked in way too many and find them very intimidating) which are full of old ladies clothes. Just alately however there are some GOOD t-shirts about. My favourite are probably the american apparel one's because the fabric is a dream however I've even seen some in all saints and topshop with proper quirky designs that I really like, and I really don't like All Saints so that's saying something. Long live the T-shirt!

5. 
   
   LOVE magazine. I was a bit apprehensive about buying LOVE because, well, it has a pretty crap name, also Beth Ditto was on the front cover and she irritates me! Because of this I avoided the first issue like the plague. Yesterday however, I decided I had been too harsh in judging said magazine without even letting my eyes dance across it's delicious glossy pages (I'm infatuated with magazines) so I popped into WHSmiths and bought it, and it's really fantastic! Its more of a style guideline and more about people than a lot of glossies and it's really interesting to read, the writing style and photography is cute too. Sadly it's only published twice a year! Typical.
   

And to end my first blog on a negative note, here is one thing that I really do not like this month: Jordan AKA Katie Price. Will you just LEAVE please? Get off my television, get off my new stand, get off my radio and read a frigging book. Moron.