My wall space...

This is my inspiration wall at Uni.  I like to have lots of imagery and colour surrounding me whilst I work, although it can sometimes get a bit distracting! My inspiration includes lots of floral, graphic prints, birds, repeat patterns and sparkle!  I have also included some samples of gift wrap that I have collected over the years...I knew they would come in handy some day!  I am looking forward to creating my own repeat prints using both hand printing techniques as well as digital printing.

Beginning of the 3rd Year, my thoughts and feelings.

Finally after months of being away from Uni, I am back and I am very excited to start my third and final year of my degree!  I have been thinking all summer about the final major project (as well as the dissertation!) and I have finally decided to focus on Children's wear for little girls, primarily textile based.  If anyone had asked me at the beginning of the first year what I would like to specialise in by the beginning of the third year I would never have said Children's wear!  Not because I don't like it, (quite the opposite I have always loved children's fashion and textiles) but because it had never even crossed my mind that it was something I would be able to do..I am so used to seeing high end women's wear and men's wear on the catwalk not children's wear. I was determined that in my third year I would create a textile collection for interiors or possibly fashion, how that has changed!

Over the summer I have been keeping an eye out on anything suitable for children, from fashion to textiles and even stationary, gift wrap and cards (The highstreet store 'Paperchase' has been a popular choice on my shopping trips!)  I have also been doing work experience at the children's wear design company Paul Dennicci (they design clothing and accessories for the supermarkets and high street stores)  this is a great experience for me as I would potentially like to work within the children's textile industry.  So overall my brain has adapted from women's fashion to children's!

Many themes for my children's wear collection have been flowing around my brain, but I have now chosen the final theme...it is 'Fairytales' inspired by the original Grimm's stories (but not as gruesome!) rather than the popular Disney versions.  Looking towards the final major project rather than the 'Indigo' project in the first semester my idea at the moment is to create a six outfit collection for Autumn/Winter 2013.  The collection will be high end fashion rather than high street and will have a very special and luxurious feel.  Each outfit is inspired by a fairytale: 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Cinderella', 'Snow White', 'Little Red Riding Hood', 'Princess and the Pea' and 'Hansel and Gretel.'  Although the collection is inspired by fairytales it is very important for me to stress that it is not a fancy dress collection!  It is simply inspired very subtly by the original fairytales that I grew up reading.

So that's all my thought's for now..I have many prints and patterns running around my head right now, I just need to start getting them down on paper and working with them!

Here is a sneak peek of some inspiration fairytale boards!

Zandra Rhodes - Gibraltar Fashion Week 2012

In my previous post I wrote about Zandra Rhodes new Spring/Summer 2013 collection for Gibraltar Fashion week.  Ever since that afternoon where I modelled her clothes whilst she discussed styling factors such as shoes, head pieces and jewellery I have been dying to see the final results on the runway!  However this has proved difficult as there does not seem to be any information about the fashion show, and pictures are limited!  Saying this I have trawled through the internet determined to find some images of the garments that I loved...I have found a few pictures from blogs but no professional ones, which is a shame.

An overall view of Zandra's collection.  Here you can see glimpses of her designs on the models.
Image sourced from: www.smarttailor.com

These dresses were some of my favourites because the cut of them is so flattering!  I love the pattern detail, the silver squiggle over black is so simple but just so wearable..

Below: a contrast to the black and silver dresses above.  This vibrant kimono/poncho style dress is very exciting with gorgeous colours and sparkling prints!

Images sourced from: www.crocsareawful.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/gibraltar-fashion-week-2012/

Whilst searching for these images I can across a blog (crocsareawful.wordpress.com) which highlighted the collection at Gibraltar Fashion week, the blogger asked one of the models how it felt to wear one of Zandra's creations - 'she looked down and said, "It feels amazing, like I am a piece of art."  I love this quote because I felt exactly the same when I was trying on her garments.  They are not just clothes, they really are unique, wearable pieces of art!