//McQueen SS14

I'm just gonna put it out there and say it. Contrary to popular opinion, I can't say I've ever been a huge fan of Alexander McQueen's collections. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate them as spectacular shows of genius design, but on a personal level they've just never really stood out to me. However after seeing images from their SS14 show my opinion has been somewhat swayed. It was powerful and thick with references to strength and female empowerment such as Amazonians, Zulus, tribal priestesses and Celtic warriors. Thus a collection was created that pulsated with National Geographic references and was alive with swishing ostrich feathers and crocodile skin that bordered on the fetish. All in all it was a beautifully strong collection that was so immense it changed one girl's whole opinion on the brand.//

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//Illustrating Fashion

At last I am free! Free from the metaphorical shackles of coursework and free from that treacherous journey I had to make every day in order to get to and from college. In the last few months of college I had to make some sacrifices - my entire social life - so that meant no more blogging for a while. I was also quite lacking in inspiration so didn't want to post a load of twaddle for the sake of it! But I've got some awesome things planned for the summer (using the term 'summer' lightly there, of course) that I can blog about, and before that I thought I would kick things off by giving you a sneak preview of what's been keeping me in hibernation for the past few months.

So, bearing in mind this was my first time ever using CAD programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, these are some illustrations inspired by dystopian art. I created these rather 'deliberately-basic-on-purpose-looking' illustrations by enhancing my own original sketches with the help of Illustrator and Photoshop.

 

Sticking to the same theme, the next illustrations were post-modernist inspired, and were created entirely on the computer.

Quite proud of my first, pretty basic, but still plausible, attempts at illustrating on-screen, just hope I get a chance to do more of it at uni! I've also created a magazine for my Final Major Project, so I hope to share some of that with you in my next post!//

//Spring Shoe-spiration

I've got a lot of love for Topshop's shoes lately, especially their heels. There's a whole load of chunky heels going on in there at the moment, and I'm definitely a girl who loves a bit of chunky heel action. Surprisingly, although the heels are still fairly pricey - mostly in the £50-60 range - I could swear that Topshop's heels used to be more in the £70-80 range? I could be wrong, but this pleased me somewhat. The boots however, still disappointingly high in price, but I have been wanting some 'clunky' ankle boots with all the straps and buckles and whatnot for a while.

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I'm particularly loving the wooden heels, I've been searching for some for a while, so when I saw these Topshop ones I was all over them. I've gone mostly for the black versions of each shoe cause if there is only one thing I have learnt in my 18 years of life so far, it's that coloured or patterned shoes don't get half as much wear as plain/dark coloured pairs. I bought light-tan coloured chelsea boots once, big mistake. However contrary to everything I just said, I am particularly attracted to all things yellow at the moment, hence the yellow pair. Not sure why, just am.//

//London Fashion Week, through the eyes of an intern

Well London Fashion Week AW13 has now well and truly been and gone - so to beat the post-fashion-week blues, I thought I'd share my experience of it all. Although it did exhaust me, I've got to say that it really is something every fashion-loving girl must experience at some point. And it actually is something that everyone can be a part of - the courtyard of Somerset House is completely open to the public and there is such an amazing buzz around - it's an electric atmosphere! Plus there's always the chance of catching a glimpse of your favourite celebrity, blogger, fashion editor - whoever your idol is!

The courtyard at Somerset House.

I have, however, been very lucky to be interning with designer brand Palmer//Harding in the run up to LFW, so I got a big healthy helping of fashion week madness! For the past few weeks I have been working with designers Levi Palmer and Matthew Harding, helping them finish up all the garments in their AW13 collection - admittedly this did involve quite a bit of endless button sewing, and being a shirt-focused brand, you can imagine there's a fair few of these! But it all paid off when I got to work with them on the photo shoot for their lookbook, and then, what it was all leading up to, the big day where we took the collection to Somerset House and presented it to the fashion world in a presentation on Saturday afternoon.

Manolo Blahnik's.

A few sneaky shots I took at the studio photo shoot for Palmer//Harding's lookbook.

Family shot! Everyone who worked on set of the photo shoot.

These are some shots I took of the Newgen showspace at Somerset House.

Although I found it a tad daunting being a 17 year old at London Fashion Week, amongst all these big time editors and buyers, just being there experiencing it all was so exciting, plus I got to swan around Somerset House in a gorgeous Palmer//Harding shirt all day!

Shirt - Palmer//Harding, Trousers - Topshop, Flatforms - River Island.

There's quite a stigma attached to interning, how it's unfair that you get no pay and it's said that often you get stuck with mundane/tiring jobs, but the fact is, that's how most industries work nowadays. I've done a fair bit of voluntary/unpaid work and it honestly is the best way to get a foot in the door and gain experience of something.You just don't know what doors it's going to open for you or the people you're going to meet through it, and in my experiences of interning I've ended up with great little insights into the industry at the most thrilling time there is in the fashion world.

The designers I was working with, Palmer//Harding, had an extremely successful presentation, which is no surprise as their beautiful collection was so brilliantly displayed in the Newgen space. You can check out their amazing AW13 collection, and all their previous collections, here.//

//Paul Smith AW 2013 Menswear Collection

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All I want to say here is: LOOK AT THIS JACKET. At the expense of sounding like a complete cheese ball, it literally took my breath away as I almost scrolled past it on Style.com (such a sorry amount of my time is spent on that website). The combination of the multi-coloured retro print with the fur-lined hood, and along with its general puffiness that reminded me of old school jackets, resulted in a shining beacon that attracted me in an instant. And once again, Paul Smith is still yet to disappoint me.//

//V&A: Fashion Festival

So I attended this event way back in December, but through all the Christmas to-do's and razzamatazz, and then going back to college so soon after the new year (sob), the all important write up I had planned to do completely slipped my mind!

It's an event that's been held annually for quite a few years now I believe, and is just a really relaxed day full of workshops and talks on everything fashion. Me and my cousin started the day with a talk on Visual Merchandising presented by a couple of people from Beyond Retro - it was fascinating to see where they get all their inspiration from for the monthly themes that Beyond Retro pride themselves on.

Next up was a talk by fashion journalist Hywel Davies, and I, being a budding fashion writer myself, enjoyed hearing all his tips and opinions on the industry. After popping into The V&A's lavish café, we headed back over to the auditorium where probably the most popular talk of the day was happening - one of my most favourite London designers, Mary Katrantzou, was in conversation with journalist Sarah Mower. She really is such an idol to me and has inspired my design work throughout college countless times. I literally can't express how awestruck I was throughout the whole talk!

Before rounding up the day with a talk from fashion photographer Peter Zownir, we also took part in a little workshop where we got a whirlwind introduction to fashion photography, organised by Anomalous Visuals. After about a 30 second lesson on lighting and cameras we were left to have a play around in their studio which was so much fun but annoyingly we weren't allowed to keep the photos we took.

The best part of the day, even though it was completely unscheduled, was talking with a really lovely guy who was a fashion writer, and he gave me so much great advice on applying to university and on writing and journalism in general. Talking to him reassured me that you don't have to be an über confident and obnoxious person to make it as a journalist!

// The V&A's café with it's humungous lights that fascinated us //

// 1. Visual Merchandising at Beyond Retro talk // 2. Looking down in the Sackler Centre where the festival took place // Mary Katrantzou being interviewed by Sarah Mower // Waiting for the fashion journalism talk to start //

The V&A Museum have always got a ton of events going on for young people. Check out what they have planned for the next few months here. As well as that, the museum has so many cool exhibitions on at the moment and even more coming up soon, so be sure to check them out here.

Did anyone else go to the Fashion Festival? Let me know what your thoughts were on the day, or any other events that you've been to at the V&A recently.//

//Little Girl Lost

A few months ago I shot an editorial style photoshoot for college, but I never got round to posting it on here. I had to choose a theme which took me foreverrr to decide on, but after much deliberation I landed on 'Little Girl Lost'. I really enjoyed creating and styling the shoot, and then the actual taking of the photos was hilarious (cue odd looks from passing dog walkers as my friend changed in the middle of a graveyard), and then afterwards it was really fun to play around with the photos in post-production.

So I did ever so slightly edit these to death, but all I really played around with was the contrast and the lightening/darkening of the photo and the finished look was this gorgeously tacky bleached out effect which I sort of love!

This one I went back and re-edited to look a little more editorial looking and sophisticated - something which I can't say comes naturally to me!//

//Designer Doppelganger

//Time for some new and exciting stuff!! I've been wanting to start a regular feature for some time now, but it's taken me a while to think up something original that hasn't been done a billion times over on countless other blogs. So say hello to 'Designer Doppelgangers'! I think it's pretty self explanatory, but essentially I will be featuring one piece of designer clothing that has been neatly plaster casted by the high street - don't you just love it when that happens? - or one designer catwalk look that I will recreate using high street clothing only.

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So our first stylish doppelganger is H&M's tribute to Prada's AW12 geometric print silk trousers. Bar the difference in colour, these casual trousers are doing a pretty good job of a Prada impersonation. Slim-fit leg? Check. All over geometric pattern? Check. Ankle grazing length? Checkity check. I know for a fact that these H&M beauties are already a sell out item as every time I get on the train in Central London there invariably is a 20-something girl sitting at the other end of the carriage wearing them. Well, when they're bearing a £34.99 price tag compared to a £780 one, who can blame them?//

Nuclear Wintour

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She is the most recognised woman in fashion. She is simultaneously respected and feared by everyone. Her ruthless power could make or break you. Anna Wintour is the name that even a lonely recluse living in the Outer Hebrides would have heard uttered at least once in his lifetime.

Her daunting reputation of being the most intimidating woman in fashion makes her so elusively unapproachable – even the thickest of skins who have dared to do so have been reduced to tears within seconds. Even friend of the devil herself, Barbara Amiel, was once quoted saying: "Anna happens to be a friend of mine, a fact which is of absolutely no help in coping with the cold panic that grips me whenever we meet."

So what reduced Anna to deserve the nickname: ’Nuclear Wintour’? If I had to pinpoint I would say her twenty-three years at the helm of American Vogue has turned her into the icon she is today, to put it vaguely. Not only did she turn British Vogue on it’s head and revolutionize it in just a one-year stint, she then returned to the States as Editor-in-Chief to resurrect the slowly deceasing American Vogue also. But she couldn't have done all that and come out the other side with the nickname 'Angel Wintour', or 'Darling Wintour'?

What Wintour says, goes. She famously once said "You either know fashion or you don't," and I don't doubt for a second that she one hundred per cent meant it. There's no question that the woman is our very own devil in Prada. In true homage to Miranda Priestley, I don't imagine Wintour has ever yelled at an employee, she knows that a quietly but precisely executed few words in the style of Mrs Priestley touches more nerves than a rant from a raving lunatic.

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Whether you love her or love to hate her, it's only because she is the fashion-omniscient that gives the industry both it's good and bad name all at once. With a backlog full of editorial successes like hers you can guarantee that she isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

//Keep smiling//