Christian Dior Fall 2010 Couture: Breathtaking

John Galliano has done it again, this man is simply a genius. Amazing. The line has a clear, thoughtfully conveyed inspiration, and although "flowers" or "floral" sounds cliche and overdone, not to mention a little Laura Ashley-ish boring, Galliano demonstrated an edge and a refreshing interpretation to a usually predictable theme. Even the shoes reflect the the concept: shoots and stems bloom from toes, thin vines climb up legs. The shape of the garments ties in both the present day and also clearly reflects Dior's claim to fame, the New Look: A-line, sculptured, tiny-waisted hourglass silhouette, cinched in smartly. Galliano plays with texture like crazy, including hairy ostrich feathers, bunched and stacked tulle, fringe, and what looks like it might be fleece, plus cellophane hairnets. The colors are phenomenal, colorful and bright, juicy and rich. The stage setup is delicious as well -reminds me of a 2007 Roberto Cavalli floral print brought to life:



View the entire collection here. Omfg I love couture.

Lingerie and Fashion Design: My Internship this Summer

This summer I am living in picturesque Newburyport, MA and working for Bennett & Company, a fashion design company that makes lingerie for retailers such as Frederick's of Hollywood and Victoria's Secret. Though I can't talk about what I do specifically for confidentiality reasons, I will rave on and on about how amazing this company is and how fantastic it is to work for them. A quick peek at their press page gives an overview of some of my favorite aspects of the company: words like "green," "spiritual," and "compassion" abound, accompanied by a myriad of gorgeous pictures of the woman behind the company, Jacalyn Bennett. Jacalyn founded her company in 1984 based in the idea of "a corporation with a conscience," embracing environmental initiatives, human rights and social conciousness. She looks to Gandi and Carl Jung as her inspirations, and her company is guided by the Ghandian principal that personal service “when it merges into universal service is the only service worth doing... service has to benefit all of humanity.” Bennett and Company employs 2,000 people total worldwide with factories in Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and China. The employees at those factories are treated well and paid fairly, and the company factories recognize and follow ALL laws regarding wages, hours, etc as well as receiving benefits like healthcare, housing, welfare and maternity leave. Although many companies these days view outsourcing as an opportunity to pay next to nothing for cheap labour from imporverished populations, Bennett and Company sees it as an opportunity to change the lives of everyone it employs. Employees overseas are treated exactly the same as employees stateside, and everyone is made to feel equal and welcome within the company. (from here)

Jacalyn Bennett, company founder and my boss this summer, is a wonderful and inspiration woman who has received many awards and acheivements, including but not limited to the Best Designed Factory for Silk and Handwork from the Chinese Government. She is as kind and benevolent as she is a beautiful and sharply intelligent businesswoman. It is relieving to me, someone who has never worked within the fashion industry, to learn that not every successful female in the fashion industry is like the judgemental Devil Wears Prada stereotype. I have felt nothing but welcome in my experiences within the company so far, and Jacalyn is an inspiration to me as a successful female business owner who also goes against the grain to ensure that human rights and the wellbeing of the earth are respected and valued.

I am having a wonderful time working at the company and learning so much and I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity! Aside from working, I'm also having a blast exploring the Massachusets North Shore ... more on that coming soon!

disclaimer: I do not represent or speak for the company. My opinion is my own and does not reflect the opinion of the company. All facts and publicity photos are taken from the company's website.

Sometimes I Make Stuff

So remember the shirt my friend was modelling in the last post? Here it is again if you missed it, along with a very special facial expression. .... verrrry special :D Well anyway, this is one of the 3 items that I constructed this semester and incorporated into my final design line. I have yet to post the design line but it's coming soon! In the meantime enjoy this sneak preview! The shirt itself is made of white cotton seersucker and is adapted from a man's button up shirt pattern and has all of the typical accoutrement's of a man's shirt: a placket on the sleeve, interfaced under collar, flat felled seams, you know the usual. I adapted the shirt to be slightly more womanly (my apologies to Richie, its new owner!) by changing the buttons in the front to fasten woman's style instead of man's style (woman's clothing buttons right over left, man's clothing buttons left over right!) I also changed the collar to be rounded instead of pointed, added french cuffes with purple lining, and used the same Egyptian cotton purple lining for the undercollar. If you turn the collar up it's purple too :) I wanted little hints of purple everywhere. The buttons are also purple of course. Then the back yoke has a chevron bias cut for stretch and a little design interest. I incorporated it into my design line twice, once with on the black jacket that I also constructed this semester ... more on that once I upload some pics of it! I will explain every outfit that I designed in future posts.... and you will understand what I'm talking about best if you have ever read the book White Oleander, or seen the movie - both of which are my FAVORITE EVER OMG. SO GOOD. More to come!!

Fashion Blogs that I Love

SEA OF SHOES

The blogger, Jane Aldridge, captioned this pic with "the Chanel satin patent cap toe pumps I got as a gift from Chanel when I had my fitting for my gown." Omg, who is this girl and can I please be her??? She's only 17 and insanely amazing. She wears all designer clothing, which I am pleased to be able to recognize and identify now that I've aced my costume history class :P

YOUNG, FAT AND FABULOUS


This blog is so inspirational for me as a curvy woman! Never sacrificing fashion for body-consciousness, the blogger, Gabi, always looks fierce and amazing. She has a lot of great pictures of curvy fashion models and links to curvy-friendly fashion designers.

KEIKO LYNN

Keiko Lynn has been one of my fashion idols for a few years, ever since I discovered her fashion design company Postlapsaria. She supports herself by blogging and sewing, which I would LOVE to do (and may try for a couple of years after I graduate, just to see if I can!) She's also gorgeous and has an amazing, fun, childishly sweet personality which reminds me a little of myself, since I'm actually a 6 year old stuck in a 20 year old body!

I love the inspiration that these women give me in my career and at school as I study fashion design. What are your favorite fashion blogs? What inspires you in regards to fashion?

My first job as a stylist!

This past weekend I had my first paid job as a stylist! Granted, I was paid very little and will mainly be using the finished photos on my stylist website (work in progress) and in my portfolio. We had very little budget, so I chose clothes for the models out of their closets and coordinated outfits that way, and then did all of the hair/makeup myself using my own personal stash. It went really well and I can't wait to get the finished shots back! Here are a few behind the scenes pics:


it was fun but a LOTTTT of work, I was completely exhausted both days!

In other news, omglia.com has closed until further notice. I just don't have the time :(

Stuff I think is Awesome Right Now

Things I am currently digging.
1. This song.

The beat is SO good but the lyrics crack me up because they're so terrible/ridiculous!!

2. Valentine's Day!! Four words .... pink, red, white, hearts. I LOVE walking into a store and seeing it all decked out for my favorite holiday!!


3. Costume History! It's one of my classes this semester and I am LOVING it, it's so fascinating. I've always loved history and I've always loved fashion, so naturally I adore this class. Right now we're studying the luxurious 18th century. I want one of those dresses so bad. I want to sew one. I want to wear one. They create such a beautiful, womanly silhouette! Corset or no corset, frankly.

This is from Dangerous Liasions, which my proffessor said is one of the most accurate period movies you can find. I will be watching it this weekend!

I know everyone loves Marie Antoinette, but just going by fashion alone my favorite fashionista of the time is probaby Madame de Pompadour, the king's mistress.

She was super fashionable, and always had Eschelle bows on the front of her intricate gowns!
My favorite designer of the period is also the FIRST designer to be known by name, AND she was a woman! She began as a haberdasher, only allowed to add acoutremonts to already finished gowns, but by patronage of fashionistas such as Marie Antoinette she grew to be extremely well known and well regarded. Unfortunately, Marie Antoinette was a horrible customer who never paid her debts and then got beheaded, so Rose Bertin died in poverty - but at least her name lives on!

Fashion Design Portfolio in Progress

So as some of you may or may not know already, my major at IU is Fashion Design and Apparel Merchandising. The fashion design certificate at IU is an extremely rigorous 2 year program that is bigger than a minor but smaller than a major. It covers every part of fashion design: Design and Construction studios, Drawing and Portfolio studios, Computer Aided Design, and Field experiences, as well as Theory and History courses. Currently I am in a lab class constructing skirts and pants, and a design class learning the basics of fashion sketches and portfolio pieces. At the end of the semester I will have 2 completed skirts and a pair of pants, as well as over 15 pieces in my portfolio! But I thought I'd share some of my designs that I've made so far.

"Redesigning the Trench Coat" First look: gabardine motorcycle style jacket with leather pants and rubber boots. Second look: gabardine dress with leather boots + vinyl umbrella. Mood page theme was "protection" so there are weather elements and cameo to symbolize the protection that Trench coats provided the army in WWII.

First I'd like to point out that I have never, EVER drawn anything substantial before this year. I've made some pretty awesome abstract illustrations and doodles but never people or clothing. Also, my design class is NOT an art class: we are not given any direct instruction as far as things like proportion or making a sketch look realistic. What we are given as a resource is a huuuuge textbook called 9 Heads which is chock full of croquis (blank human forms), flats (a garment drawn as if it were laid out on the ground to show construction techniques) and working sketches (a drawing of the garment on a human form to show how it looks being worn). We were then told about Mood Pages or Mood Boards which is basically a collage that expresses the theme or inspiration behind the garment you have designed. Then we were told to go forth and create! Each week we have a new assignment to turn in with two looks, flats, working sketches and a mood page. So far we've designed for the US Open, created an outfit based on the Turban Squash, redesigned the Trench Coat, constucted half-scale garments based on the architecture of IU, reconstructed a full-scale "problem garment," and designed looks to fit into the Halston brand. We are given a week to complete each assignment and although the course is only worth one credit (grrr) we all bust our butts in the fashion lab for many, many hours! I will have a complete portfolio of these and more pieces, including my final line (10 looks around a common theme) later on, but I figured I'd show some of what I've been working on.

Designing for the Halston line. Blue china silk scoop neck dress with yellow ultrasuede belt and matching hat.

I really wanted to develop my own style of designing and drawing that would be easily recognizable. I didn't use any of the croquis provided by the 9 Heads book at all, so I basically had to teach myself how to draw people from scratch. I decided early on to reject the standard high fashion model, which is abnormally tall and abnormally thin. I create designs and draw women that are full-figured, even plus sized. My croquis are all very curvy and even the fit model for the skirt I am constructing is curvy. The more I design the more practice I get so I have definitely improved over the course of the semester!

Dress inspired by the Turban Squash. Sweetheart neckline and bubble skirt with oxford shoes.

Half-Scale dress designed by me and 2 other girls based on the McKinney Fountain

My most recent designs are definitely the best but they are still being graded so I haven't gotten a chance to take pictures of them. But here is a slight overview at least!