lovely blog award!

Shannon from The Stylish Butterfly today awarded me the Lovely Blog Award!  If you haven't checked out her blog already, I highly recommend doing so.

You may remember this from last time, but if not, I am to share 7 things about myself and then pass the award along to 15 other bloggers, both for your own viewing and to spread the love to them as well!  Hopefully I can come up with 7 interesting new things..

1. I go through so many phases in fashion - cutesy girly phases, very minimalistic phases, bridal phases, experimental phases, no-fashion-at-all phases ... right now I'm in an experimental phase.  The McQueen exhibit still hasn't (and probably never will) wear off on me.

2. I am enjoying a new-found love of color at the moment.  In high school I wore a lot of black, and even when I grew out of that I still had a black piece in every outfit, and bright colors were tough for me to adopt.  The addition to highlighter yellow to my "favorite colors" list helped - and just in the past few weeks have I really begun to love color again - to the point where I'd wear (wait for it ...) MORE THAN ONE bright color at a time.  "Back then", that was a no-no for me - jeans were a neutral (so red shirt with jeans was not okay - two colors at once) and there were multiple color combinations that I hated (blue and pink - remember that post I did a bit ago about how I love them together now?) and of course, my infamous hatred for the color green.  Even that is changing now - perhaps it was Prada that did it.

3. When I get a rabbit, his name will be Jonah.

4. I definitely prefer the Brooklyn area (Park Slope in particular - and I am NOT biased because I live there!) better than the Manhattan area.  Especially the garment district.  Of course, I love the bead, fabric and lace selection (and sequin, feather, and fur selection ... ) but the whole super-busy-kinda-dirty-window-unit-water-dripping-on-you aspect just really turned me off from the whole experience.  Plus, I'm not aggressive, at all.  I know it takes a special type of person to make the typical "fashion intern" that is willing to fight for a scrap of fabric at a store so they aren't snapped at later in the day after coffee run #14, but I will always and forever be the person that bumps into someone at a cross walk who says "I'm sorry!" (amazing how rarely this happens downtown) and if someone else gets that fabric first, then they just get it first.  But something about the restaurants, shops and general familial setting (I would need eleven hands to count on my fingers all the babies in stollers down here) is really nice.

5. Herbal things fascinate me - like how natural everything really is.  Aspirin comes from Witch Hazel.  I think that is beyond cool.  And Austrians chew candied ginger on car trips to avoid carsickness, because it helps settle the stomach.  I think it would be really cool to lead a natural herbal life and just drink infused herb water to cure all problems.  Not sure if it would really work, but how cool would your kitchen look with all these glass jars and dried herbs and things everywhere?  And window flower pots.  I can't wait to have a garden.

6. I'm going to try to be better about keeping a sketchbook.  Usually I get all excited, buy a new one, start it, and 20 pages in decide I don't like one of the pages so I need a whole new one.  No.  That's just part of the process.

7. I can't seem to think right now, so I'll just tell you I'm watching Mrs. Doubtfire.


Faded Fashion, Eternal Style
Fashion Neverland
First Impression by AiR
Pearls and Personality
Style After Dark
Sailing to Nowhere
Coconut Wishes
Dress Code: High Fashion
Elasticpantcity
The FACE In
A Fashion Love Affair
HEARTY CHIC
Heidi Hastings' Blog
Hey There Kid
Lily and Karl

continuing the bridal samples

 

Today I finished sewing on the flowers and beaded the centers of them.  You can see how the flowers are concentrated at the waist and "burst" outwards and follow along the neckline - Sam joked it will be hard to beat this one, the bride will probably want her dress like this!

Here are some quick shots of the next sample - on a different silk tulle (with a very different hand and texture), with flowers that have a touch of lace.

hand stitching and bridal swatch samples

These two dresses had recently been used in a photo shoot, so today I redid some of the hand stitching that popped during wear (models aren't always the most careful with the garments!)  I tacked down some fallen pleats on the dress to the left and restitched the edges of the waistband ribbon, and tacked down some loose flowers and pleats on the dress to the right.  It was extraordinary getting to work on dresses like these!

For the remainder of the day, I worked on a fabric sample to show brides when they meet with Sam.  The samples (this particular one is a gathered silk tulle with flowers, but could also be beaded samples or gathered and ruffled samples) will help brides have a visual idea of how they can customize their gowns.  Forgive the lighting - but isn't the silk tulle marvelous?  I'd ever only had an image of tulle in my mind as a crunchy wirey fabric but this is something else! 

Last night I was finally getting inspired again for tailoring - my inspiration?  The splitting migraine I went to bed with!  After a horrible night of not being able to sleep from the worst migraine in the history of my life, it got me thinking - the way your head feels, how movement almost hurts, the stifling pressure, the confusion - wouldn't that be interesting to put into a garment?  The coat design features very tightly gathered and pleated panels that originate from a stiflingly high cowl-neck collar (that presses the head upward, uncomfortably) and the pleats slowly come undone and cowl over one sleeve.  The "confusion" comes into the way the industry would view this garment as a men's coat (due to the closure being left over right), but all visual cues tell us it is for a woman.  The gathering would carry through to the back, where the center-back seam would be at a 3/4 position like the front.

Just one idea - but now I have many!  I was discussing with Sam my color options today for this - she asked if I was still interested in that orchid wool I had found at Mood.  Then we started discussing options for linings (fun bright colors perhaps?) and the question came to mind - what color is a migraine?  So tonight I may try to find some brain scans online or just research the brain in general or how pain might read if it were a color, and maybe get some ideas out of that.  Perhaps the inside of the coat will reflect the internal aspect of the migraine as well.  Who knows!  Many directions to take now.

I also came to a realization last night after feeling a little discouraged - I wanted to visit FIT but forgot all museums are closed Mondays, so I visited the public library instead.  However I am rarely inspired by historical things, and trends don't always influence me as well.  So after feeling a bit down I opened up my McQueen book from the exhibit and read the entire thing - it was breathtaking.  It reminded me that it didn't matter if my ideas were relevant to the past or future, what mattered was that I was inspired to create them and that they are personal to me.  And this is helping me to realize that I am very much a conceptual designer - I am obsessed with learning something new and taking it to the extreme and finding out everything I can about that one thing - and then trying to turn it into something visual like a garment.  I enjoy the research process and ideation process more than anything in fashion design.  Perhaps a more experimental route (or at least a more conceptual route of design, as in not just creating wearable garments but garments as art or with a story behind them) is where I belong. 

More sketches soon!

mitsuwa

Today Megan and I explored Mitsuwa, the "largest Japanese-themed mall in the US".  It is essentially a huge food marketplace, with restaurants inside, a book store, a make-up store (Shiseido), and a store for kitchen goods.  It was amazing!

 A cute house around the corner - we love the blue!

 Times Square

 View of the city from Mitsuwa (NJ)

 My lunch!  Beef with udon noodles, "brown bag" nijira, pickled ginger, and a green tea bubble tea.

 

A draping book I bought - comes with patterns and instructions (with tons of pictures to decode them)

 

 

 A pencil that conveniently has both a red and blue side - to use for draping markings!

 "Natural Lunch Time"?  For packing my lunches.

designer : hussein chalayan fall 2011

It isn't very often that coats impress me, possibly because I don't yet know the work that goes into tailoring or because I am not a coat person myself.  But while on WGSN and trying to gather inspiration for tailoring in the fall, and after getting some ideas, decided to hop onto Style.com and check out some fall collections which heavily include coats and jackets.  I looked at more of the experimental designers, and remembered Henry mentioning Hussein Chalayan over and over again for me to familiarize myself with as inspiration.  Henry, as always, was right.

Quite simply amazing.

Now I have to make a difficult decision: do I make a coat that is wearable, something that I might be able to use myself? 

Or maybe conceptual Rachel might take over.  My fascination for experimental design has been reignited after the McQueen exhibit, and I dare say if I could design conceptual things for the rest of my life I'd be a very happy person.  Maybe I can create a happy fusion of the two.

That being said, my inspiration for tailoring at the moment is the cocoon.  Whether to take that to the extreme and do something engulfing the human body (or build irony into the package by making something huge and snuggly but horribly restrictive to movement, as butterflies, after all, are stuck inside) or something more along the lines of comfort is to be decided at a later time. 

obsession : color blocking

It must be that Jil Sander show again.  I just can't get over it.

Works especially well with full-on saturated colors.  At the moment I am obsessed with combinations involving bright orange!

(If 2011 Rachel ever went back in time and told 2005 Rachel I would love this much color all at once, I'd have thought I was crazy.)

5th avenue

Do you ever look on designer websites and feel your heart sink as you realize that a $5,000 pair of shoes being sold out means there are enough people out there to afford that item?  Well, I experienced that a lot today - but it was exciting.  I explored 5th and Madison today in Manhattan, where many designer flagship stores are located (Oscar de la Renta, Prada, and Chanel to name a few) and it was quite an experience.  Did you know these stores have guards to open the door for you while maintaining watch over the whole store?  They are very intimidating - makes me feel guilty for looking around and touching.

But regardless, I looked around and touched, a lot.  First stop was J Crew Bridal (which has more than just bridal).  And oh goodness, everything in this store was divine.  Wouldn't it have been funny to find the gown I made a version of?  I didn't, but the gowns I did see were simply beautiful.  The store also has many jeweled belts, shoes, bridesmaids dresses (that you could wear again, but really), shorts, and sweaters.  I was not allowed to take pictures here so I simply observed.  It was interesting to view this price bracket for bridal customers - to me, personally, the things in that store were very high end ($300 for a pair of silk shorts, thousands for dresses).  Yet in parts of the bridal industry, J Crew Bridal may be considered lower end or in a more affordable bracket for the non-designer customer, and the quality is quite different.  None-the-less, I thought they were perfect.  There was one navy and black silver-beaded dress that was just divine.

Next I hopped across the street to Oscar de la Renta.  Again I could not take pictures (but I snuck one).  Inside was a woman trying on a long mermaid gown in white with red and green flowers.  Another woman was buying accessories like they cost nothing.  I creeped around to the room in the back with all the long dresses and stole a couple shots of a beautiful beaded pale pink gown.  The garments in the store were from the Spring 2011 RTW collection.

 On the runway!

Afterwards, I noticed J Mendel across the street and wandered over there.  As one of my favorite bridal designers, I thought it necessary to look at their boutique.  Their hours were late, so I couldn't go inside, but I did manage to get a few shots of their window display.

Bergdorf Goodman is a wonderful way to see a bunch of designer garments and collections in one spot - so that was my final stop.  Among the designers represented were Alaia, the Row, Vera Wang, and Marni.

 I KNOW.  My life is now complete.  (The colors were so amazing in real life - trying to sneak a picture means bad lighting and photo quality!)

 Gorgeous detailing from The Row.  This is where my friend Megan is interning for the summer!

Terrible photo but beautiful gown from Vera Wang.

 

I also bought a clutch in BCBG Max Azria (I don't own one - now I do!) during which a piece of construction equipment fell onto a display window and the whole thing crumbled to pieces. 

 

This one here, but in a fun print!

Happy Friday everyone!