Technical Drawing

I spend most of the afternoon drawing this design on Illustrator, creating a technical drawing. It turned out to be more difficult than I excepted to get the proportions right. I've come to discover that it's really rather difficult to find a good male template for creating technical drawings. Key note to self: spend a good amount of time finding the perfect templates for technical drawings, it'll be worth it in the end! 

A Desperate Phone Call

What do you do when your design tutor rings you at 10:10am asking where you are, because he is an desperate need for your help. I would call it lucky that I was even bothered picking up the phone, usually I don't pick up if I don't recognise the number. 

Anyway if you haven't guessed it yet, Paul asked me if I could be in Hoxton by 4pm to assist dressing the models for the 3rd year look book shoot. Lucky for him I don't tend to have a full blown social life. 

I've got no idea how it happened, but here I caught the light perfectly! 

I'm was surprised how quick the team worked. Literally not spending more than max. 5 minutes on shooting each look. I suppose if you have 101 (not even kidding!) looks to go through and 2 days,. there's no time to waste.

When an opportunity arises it is a good idea to take up the offer, the more you experience, the more you will know how to handle different projects on your own. 

I twas a good experience, met some good people, listened to some great music and had a few giggle on the way. 

Amy Stevenson

Now that the fashion show is over and the top 25 students have been picked to go to the Truman Brewery show. It was time to pack my sewing kit up and say my farewells to Fiona and Nadia, as they didn't get through to the next round. 

Although turning up on Monday at 2pm is appreciated, it was not needed  and I got sent back home, as no 3rd year students were in and the tutors were too busy doing their assessments. 

So after my tutorial today I swung by the 3rd years studio to say my congrats to the students who got through to the Truman show. After closely following Amy Stevenson these past few weeks and have seen her work and passion, I decided to offer my services to her  and she accepted. 

Getting right into it - no time to waste, I was put on unpicking duties. 

I did make me a little sad that I had to unpick her hard work -  as this was the work Amy submitted for the internal show. 

But Amy had her feedback back from Paul, Richard and Gulsom. 

Gulsom, whom is a technician is a hard critic when it comes to sewing. 

While I was unpicking duty, Amy was working hard on developing her next 3 outfits to go into her already 3 outfit collection. 

To be continued... 

A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

08:30  - 1st year students arrive on site - Cameron happy and cheery!

09:00  - Clare and Lisa (Doll) on Site. Hand-in of garments.

10:00  - 12:00  Female models arrive on site for fittings

             (fittings on the 1st 3 x groups that arrive begin)

11:00  - Hair stylists arrive x 2

11:30  - BOYS arrive on site

12:00  - Makeup artists arrive on site

12:00  - 14:00 another 2 x groups of models start fittings

14:00  - 16:00 last two groups of models in fittings

16:00  - 17:00 – final set up of backstage and checking of the

              rails. (Yeah I missed that part, because Nadia had be platting 50m or cord).

17:00 – 1st show

17:51 – interval (I had a quick drink and helped dress a few models ready for the 2nd show)

18:20 – 2nd show

19:11 – END and clear up. - Phoenix after a long day. 

Get A Grip

Spending four precious hours trying to find a specific kind of cord in London is just a waste of time, because its simply just not going to happen! Nadia had scoured some cord, which she needs for her platting, from London Trimmings, but as per usual this time of year things go out of stock before you can count to ten. (I work in Cloth House, I know from experience) Another half a day was spent in the field trying to source something that was similar - I ended up at Goldhawk Road in A-One. It wasn't quite the same, but it had to do. 

In the chaos of not being able to find what Nadia was looking for, I missed both Nadia's and Fiona's final fittings before the show. Nice one Hannah! 

Fiona wasn't pleased to say the least and I received quite a few funny texts on my around London from her complaining about Nadia and her fantastic ability to make decisions . Later on, while heading back to Goldhawk tube station, a whistle tone came out of my phone - a list had come through. An evil list of more things I had to pick up, back to A-One to pick up zips, then back to central, to pick up more zips from Maccollouch & Wallis. Then they didn't have the zip that Nadia wanted, so I headed to Klien's - no success there. A pitstop to Starbucks while trying to get a hold of Nadia to find out what to do. Rushing to Cass Art to get spray paint for Fiona and quickly back to M&W and get whatever was the best option for zips. 

By 3pm I managed to find a Pret and eat my lunch on the way back to Hendon. 

Let me remind you that this is the day before the show. The hand-in is at 9 am tomorrow. This is not cool! Finding myself back in the studio doing my best to help them both. They've been so kind to write me a to-do-list:

Fiona:

• Hand stitch coffin sides. 
• Hand stitch top part of cape. 
• Hand stitch end of zip. 
• Hand stitch the shoulder part CF+CB. 
• Hand stitch facing on outfit 2 (top).
• Hand stitch neckline on outfit 3.

Nadia:

• Cut leather strips 3 cm wide. 
• Hand stitch skirt hem. 
• Hand stitch dress grosgrain. 
• Hand stitch hook and eye for shirt. 
• Hand stitch head piece.
• Spray paint head piece.

Even though I stayed till 11pm I didn't even manage to finish half of both their lists. I took turns, one task for Fiona, another task for Nadia. I don't want to see another hand needle and thread for a very long time.

Field Trip & So Called Studio Work

My morning was spent walking from A-Z around London for Nadia. Zips and finishings needed picking up from Macculloch and Wallis then a trip to Bermondsey to pick up some last minute laser cutting from LaserCut Works, because Nadia asked the laser cutting guy at uni if he could do it, but as it was three days before the show, so it was kind of late notice(?). 

After that I headed back to the studio to drop of the stuff and help out. 

I do love those days were you've been asked to come in and do some work in the studio. But half the time you're just sitting around doing nothing, because they (Fiona and Nadia) won't let you touch anything. Or they won't confess to the fact that they haven't quite thought through why they asked you to come in. 

After bonding the fabrics together for Nadia yesterday, I got the job of transferring her shoe cover patterns onto the fabric.

Backwards & Forwards

Working on Fiona's garments, final detailing. 

Nadia has created this amazing pattern herself and got it laser cut at the university. She asked me to bond it with another material. 

Up until now it hasn't been a massive problem working for two 3rd years, as Nadia hasn't really needed my help or simply neglected my existence - I can't really tell the difference. But I have a feeling that these final few days before the show (Thursday) are going to be fun. 

Drum roll please.... 

Let it all begin!