Bonjour

I was just sitting outside a cafe and a european man walked by and uttered "bonjour" to me with a glancing smile as he passed. Some of life's pleasures last only a second. Most people I have run into here think that I am French or Italian or Bulgarian, "no sorry - American" "Your parents are parisian then?" "ha ha no." Americans really don't have a great reputation here - many American tourists are rude and of lower intelligence. Workin to break the stereotype. Maybe someday I'll be a naturalized European : )

The past week or so....

I've finally begun to plan trips to Paris (this weekend) Italy and Madrid. It's been hard for me to even think about leaving London, so I've been dragging my feet to plan trips until I found out that a round trip plane ticket is around £35. No kidding. I nearly peed my pants when I checked the airfare rates online. For three days in Paris including airfare and a hotel I'll be spending £80. You couldn't get to Portland for that cheap!



These are my flatmates (minus Aaron) at karaoke night at the local Tommy MacFlynns. I gave in and got up for a song, then found out later that it was a competition! Apparently it has been going on weekly for a while and all of the finalists compete in one night for a monetary prize. By some fluke my name was called as a finalist, and the final competition is tonight but, as my luck has it, I just got strep throat. : P Guess I wasn't meant to be karaoke queen.

This would be the ugliest building if it weren't lit in red.

The London Eye

I love the lines of this photo, such a perfect composition.

This one too

A romantic night at home by myself.

Little lovely things

I realized today that one of my favorite things in the world is a pair of very skilled hands, worn with years of work.

A few other things I like...

Leaves in water

Brown paper patterns
Old worn tools

Mashed leaves

Signage

Vintage couches

This picture was made by a student at my school entirely out of cut pieces of paper. Amazing.

Cheers!

The Camden Market

I live in an area of London called "Camden". It is reputed as being the rather punk/ghetto area of London proper, although London is so safe in general, even in Camden it's perfectly safe to walk around on your own late at night, as long as you're smart and stick to the larger streets.

North of my flat on Camden High Street is a market that I've been hearing about, and even passed through when I was not shopping or they were closed, but I had absolutely no idea what was in store for me there. (pun not intended)

The market doesn't really have a geographical plot, but as you walk down the street the shops steadily increase and are packed tighter and tighter in with sales clerks becoming more forward and vicious as you head into the heart of it. I found a large outdoor area filled with temporary stalls of clothing and decided that this would be a good start to my hunt for a warm winter coat. Camden shopping is also known as the cheapest in London. Everything in this particular square was primarily synthetic, made in China, and had the designer labels ripped out. But they are enticingly awesome designs, so I had to check it out.

I wandered into the stalls, and if I stopped to look at something, in an instant a middle-eastern man would approach. "Do you like that? Try it on. I will give you a very good deal on that. You are very beautiful. I have the best deals in my shop. You don't like that one? Then try this one." He took a jacket and put it on me. When I tried to button it he'd brush my hands away and button it and tie the belt and grab a mirror. If I didn't like it, he'd grab another and another until we had thoroughly exhausted his tiny stock. I said that I wanted to look around a bit more in the other stalls. "You don't like anything in my shop? Why not? This one is very nice on you. It has wool in it; it will keep you very warm. It is £40 but I will sell it to you for £37. Tomorrow is Saturday and it will sell for £50 then. You want to look around? Buy it now and I'll sell it for £35. If you leave and come back it will be £40." Then he got angry and nearly chased me as I left. " Why you not buy anything in my shop?"

As I made my way through the rest of the stalls, it was the same at each. "You like that? Try it on. I have the best deals in my shop. I will give you a very good deal, because you are so beautiful." I stopped to look at a jacket that was very good imitation leather, and when a man approached I asked if it was. "Yes, that is leather." "Oh, but the tag says 100% Polyurithane." "What? No. That is the lining." "But the tag says 'Shell: 100% Polyurithane' " "That is rediculous! They can't do that with polyester! It is leather." Thank god for content label laws.

I grew more and more afraid to even pause to look at something, completely exhausted by the aggressive sales interactions, and booked my way out onto the street as quickly as possible.

I hadn't even reached the market.

I can't really say much about it, it is something too big to explain. It's a labyrinth of shops weaving in and out and around and up and down. I didn't even know when I was underground or outdoors. I can't fathom how so many businesses could possibly survive in one area. Maybe if you told me that the Camden market supplied all of London, citizens and tourists, I might believe you, but this is only one of more than a dozen markets, not to mention the slew of established businesses. I spent four hours trying to find a jacket, and finally about to cry in frustration, I slipped into the crisp mountain air-like refreshingly sterile and open atmosphere of H&M and bought one there. Once home, I felt as though I had just swam my way out of a tidal wave, and milked a delicious beer to settle my nerves.

It was so much worse than shopping in Tijuana. At once I hate it and love it. I never want to go back, and I have to go back.

The British Museum

My draping instructor told me that the British Museum is the largest museum in London, and that he has been there around fifty times and still hasn't seen three whole wings of it. So I decided to pace myself, see a couple exhibits, and return many times :)

When you enter you walk in to a hall and then through another door that leads you to this. The picture doesn't do it justice. You automatically halt when you step through the doorway because the light is so brilliant. Laura coined it "the room of amazing light."

Some obelisk thing from Egypt

The sculptures were my absolute favorite, I always want to sit and draw them for hours.

Immense and beautiful columns outside

I just like this picture

There is currently a huge Aztec exibit at the museum that I didn't see, but they had some Aztec performers come in and sing and dance and drum. It was pretty cool.

Awesome headpiece: perhaps my next couture hat project.

I love this guy's hair

This little dancer had the most beautiful poise.

They tied nuts around their ankles and did a little stomp routine

Ok I swear this is my last post for today - I am computered out!

How to make a couture hat, Vol. I

This is my instructor Prudence showing Laura how to make leaves.

Prudence is a charming eccentric British lady who makes hats for the fashion shows for Vivienne Westwood, Lacoste, Yves Saint Laurent, etc. She is absolutely wonderful. She is one of those very few and far between craftsmen who carries the knowledge of a very old trade and takes her time to make everything so couture and so perfect. When she speaks, everything is "little" and "lovely." "Take your little bias strip to the little iron and give it a little press and be very careful not to press the fold because we want that to have a nice little curve in it. Oh, do you have a little pin? Ok, yes, lovely. That's just lovely." She's also one of those wonderful people who know all the little stories behind everything. For instance, she told us that flappers are not called flappers because of their fringy dresses. The girls of the flapper generation, when they were young used to wear big huge bows on top of their heads and when they walked the bows would flap in the wind and everyone would make fun of these little "flapper" girls, and when they grew up and changed their style, the nickname stuck. And do you know why men have buttons on their cuffs? It's because during the war many soldiers got ill and had runny noses and they'd wipe their noses on their sleeves, and when Napoleon saw this he thought it utterly disgusting, so he had buttons put on all their cuffs so that it would hurt if they tried to wipe their nose on it. Then everyone thought that buttoned cuffs were a Napoleonic fashion statement, and they followed his trend; and it stuck.

Laura making little leaves for her little hat.


So lovely.

Ok time to make a hat. Gather your millinery supplies, your sketch, and find an apron.

Step 1: take a piece of heavily starched millinery canvas, dampen it and stretch it over a wooden form. Pin it in place. The pins all have to go right into the wood, so this was a difficult skill to master, and when I finished my arms were covered in layers of sticky starch.

Step 2: Blow dry until completely stiff

And remove the pins (as demonstrated by Aaron)

This is called "blocking" your base.

Step 3: Mark the shape of your little hat and cut it out very neatly. Oh lovely.

Step 4: Fuse "stayflex" (fusible interfacing - everything has a different name here) to the top of your little hat, and sew millinery wire just inside the edge.

Step 5: Stretch a piece of fluffy damet (no idea what that's called in the states) over the hat and stitch it around the edge.

Oh lovely.

The damet gives it a sort of quality body, so it doesn't feel flimsy.

Step 6: Stretch your fabric over the base and stitch in place.

Ta da! The beginning :)

Step 7: Drape your little bias piece in little ruffles. To accomplish the sort of careless rumpled-up look is much more time-consuming than you would think.

and tack carefully into place with a tailor's tack.

Next week, flowers and eventually a veil :)

More exercises for draping class

We are continuing to drape with odd materials to expand our creativity and use of mediums. The second draping exercise was entirely out of paper, which lends itself very well to creative pleating.

A little jacket and skirt

A sort of three-piece dress: bustier, skirt and back with belts weaving in and out

Front

Side

Back

The back of another dress that has a short bubble skirt in the back

To slope down

into a streight sheath skirt in front

Often when I start taking something apart I find the most beautiful version.





The next week we draped with unusual household items, I chose foil and vanilla-ice scented trash can liners! (They are waste or rubbish bins here, if you say trash can they don't know what you're talking about) (and if you ever wondered what Vanilla Ice smells like, now I know. He smells like cheap candles from the 99p store)

I have decided that for my final I really want to have a transparent garment heavily draped or with creative volume over the top of another garment, so here is where I started experimenting with transparencies.

Side view

Back view

Close-up

And THIS is a perfect example of why we experiment - so that we can rule out the horrendous ideas before they are made into something permanent!



For the next week, to continue my transparency work, I bought an amazing cotton organdy fabric that has the most incredible stability. This first picture I literally crumpled a handful each at the top and bottom and shoved a pin in and it looked this fabulous. When I bought the fabric I purchased the last of the bolt, so I asked the older sales clerk if I happened to fall in love with this and want more, could it be ordered easily? He said that women in love has never ended well for him, but yes it could be here in a few days.

I am obsessed with the concept of a sheer bubble dress that ends like shorts around the legs over a cute little fitted garment, so there's a lot of that here and in my sketch book. My instructor told me "that looks great, but now try moving it up or down or somewhere else!"

This is that bubble dress with pleating over one shoulder with the lines of the organdy sort of echoing the shape of the jacket on the other shoulder. I think it'd be cute with one long slim black sleeve on the (viewer's) right side.

Ok no bubble skirt this time...

Looking over one shoulder (where the arm would normally come out :)



Then I started getting burnt out and took a coffee break where I had a brilliant revelation:

What if I took one piece of fabric and pleated it up to make a sort of turtleneck...

And the pleats opened out into a collar (same piece of fabric, no seams) and then went back in to form the rest of the bodice...

(Yes that is my handsome instructor's blaring wedding ring ; ) covering up the one idea I had that we'll edit out of this design)

This is over-the-shoulder view of the collar/turtleneck

And the back of the collar.

And that's it for draping up til this point