“We read to know that we are not alone.”

It got to 2am in the morning and me and my friend jenny decided to google 'classic childrens films' and stumbled across a film we both remembered loving and watching when we were little, that film being 'The Parent Trap', the original one not the lindsay lohan remake.. We started watching it and we kept commenting on how glamourous and beautiful the mother was in it. The actress who played her was Maureen O'Hara, an irish actress who is the epitome of the words beauty and glamour.
I love how every moment in the film where there was signs of romance and flirtation it was done subtely and done in a classic way which hinted at thoughts and feelings, a complete contrast to the 'rom-com' genre of films now-a-days which are all to ready to subject women to connotations of such classy words like 'fit' ..
I loved this look of hollywood glamour and proceeded to wiki/imdb/google image search (basically stalk) her, ive never been a massive fun of watching old films before but i am currently waiting to stream the original 'miracle on 34th street' as i just found 'the parent trap' so lovely. which is rather a strange word to use but the whole film was nice and proper and just lovely!

“Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.I mean just because things don’t turn out the way you want them to the first time,you’ve still got to believe in people”

—	Maureen O’Hara

I've got some friends, some that I hardly know

i have been awake for too many hours and worked for even more. I am tired and restless and sat here wanting to write but not knowing what about. I submitted my pdp today, i stayed up all last night doing it sleeping for two hours and then powering through to give my presentation and then go on to work an 8 hour day cleaning. i even hate the word cleaning nowadays.
My presentation was at 10am and before that i had to buy a memory stick, transfer all the work i had done last night that was due for hand in over to it (community of practise essay, action plan etc) and also print this blog. Im not going to lie i hated this blog more than anything this morning, i went to print it from the webpage but apparently you cant?! i had one of those mornings where if there is a higher being out there looking over you, you know for sure he is screwing you over. I painstakingly copied and pasted each entry into a word document and then tried to print it in colour, and being the poor lowly student i am couldnt afford the 946 print credits required for this format and so had to resort to printing double side in black&white.. oh the shame..
By this point i was late for my appointment with Rebecca my lecturer and i was sat in the lift, yes sat down trying to quickly organise 30 sheets of this blog into a folder with plastic wallets that wanted to be stuck together like supermarket carrier bags where you just cant seperate them and you can feel the pressure of people staring and time ticking by..
When i met Rebecca i rambled on about my blog stating, oh i wish i could rewind time that i was sorry i had had to print it out in black&white and now it wasnt 'pretty'?! i sounded like a small child. This carried on through my presentation where i rambled, used the word 'like' about 50 times in every sentance and genuinely wanted to cry. I couldnt even try to impersonate a more confident persona.
After this ultimate fail which was predictable, but atleast for this presentation i didnt get all hot and rashy (lets find the silver lining wherever we can) i proceeded to be late for work, get my breaks taken away from me and walked around like a zombie for 8 hours before returning home getting dressed to go out, getting changed back into my pyjamas when i realised it wouldnt happen and then hanging out with some people who are really lovely and interesting.
I always think that the times where your like me sat in your pyjamas in your room not wanting to see/talk to anyone and then you end up looking like shit hanging out with people and being happy and having those times that you cant plan/recreate/forget.

'We live on front porches and swing life away,
We get by just fine here on minimum wage'

This is a mirror image, of everything im not

I was really really excited to go the fashion and textile museum in London id heard there was a chance we would get to meet zandra rhodes who is a legend in this industry, leading british pop art and designing prints that i have admired since i first got into fashion. So on the morning of the trip i was wide eyed and bushy tailed, springing from my bed, dressing in the best i had and pushing Angie out of the door and hurrying Kayleigh and Abi along, i was NOT going to miss the coach!
When we got to London, after a long journey where we stopped off and i got costa we found ourselves stood outside possibly the brightest building for many miles around,

When we entered the building we were greeted and shown around by a lovely gentleman (who's name escapes me! note to self stop writing entrys to many weeks late!)and we were taken through the ages of 'pop', which basically encompassed prints and gave me lots of inspiration in different ways i could take my designs both for this project in the future and how many different techniques/ways there are of recording what you see and how to put a message across... some of which you can see below..

 

 

 

 Zandra Rhodes came out to greet us and we were allowed to ask questions after she had told us a bit about the prints they had on show of hers and me and Angie were the only people who had any, which i was very surprised about! I wish i could of spoken to her all day, she had so much advice and knowledge about this specialism and i really enjoyed listening to everything she said, i asked questions on the differences between drawing prints 20 years and how the introduction of computers must of changed this hand drawn process so much and i also asked questions about the different repeats you can put patterns in and fabrics used. It was the biggest honour to be allowed to talk to her and i was so thankful and happy i was given this opportunity i feel more than anyone on our course i love print, thats where my heart lies and little things like getting these opportunitys definetely make you alot more driven towards reaching your goal, in the hope one day you can stand in their place and be the designer that a uni kid looks up to.

And all that went away was the price we paid, people spend a lifetime this way, and thats how they stay.

Today i woke up at 7am. 7am.. and not even 7am as i snoozed till 7.20 and then left myself 20 minutes to get ready.. so today was a hat day ! We got an early train and got there at 8.30! Today on the stand was myself, kayleigh, abi, emily, charli, steph and three other girls though kayleigh was poorly and went home halfway through the day >.< But anyway we got there and picked up our passes!! we spent the first half hour walking around flashing our exhibitor passes and pretending we were from our own company.. you know as you do ^.^ When we'd got there our lecturer that was there for the day, Anita wasnt there yet so we left a note with our contact details and went and looked round all the stalls! We did a bit of shopping and it was interesting to look around asos graduate market place and see the work of those who have just graduated and where they were going now and it gave us opportunities to ask questions and learn more about what life will be like after graduation if we set up our own business! Also looking round other universitys was a good opportunity to see all the work of other students as when we all graduate we'll all be competiting for the same jobs! Also different installations throughout the show can inspire us for future projects we do! I loved all the vintage stalls and took photos of lots of garments to use as reference points when im feeling uninspired as i remember patrick ian hartley said to take photos whenever we see something that inspires us and when we need inspiration to look back on these and thats what ive started to do !
When Anita arrived we all split ourselves into a rota based system as we didnt all need to be on the stall at the same time although some girls didnt stick to this and spent alot more time away from the stall than on it! although i didnt mind as i talked to loads of people that came to our stall and got contact details from a woman that is looking for students for work placements at her business in leamington! And a photographer who wants dance costumes made! It really is true that you can make contacts anywhere at anytime and i feel by staying on the stall for most of the day i got talking to so many interesting people and picked up so many business cards! Which i can email about doing potential placements at whether long or short!
Unfortunately we didnt sell many products and there were alot of things in retrospect we needed to work on (which i will write about in a seperate post!) I am ridiculously tired as its now 11.07 and ive been doing pdp since i returned from the clothes show at 8.00!
me, abi and emily ended up along with anita being the only ones that stayed to pack up our stand which although again frustrating (i feel this is a key work to describe certain members of our class) we all got lots of good deals like a £25 bag of bath bombs/candles/body butter for £5! Im obsessed with candles and baths so this made me happy.. although itll mean more baths and less work..

at the csl stand!

csl stand!

beautiful head dresses by another stand

asos graduate market place, digital print scarfs- inspiration from countryside

collection of scarves

horse riding scarves

me, emily and abi at the clothes show in the back of the carmex car!

Best moment of the day meeting henry holland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ^.^ i was so excited to see him there, im a huge fan of his early collections so so happy to be able to meet him!

“Many things - such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly - are done worst when we try hardest to do them.”

On Thursday the 13th me and Kayleigh were among the first people to get to the NEC where the clothes show was being held as although stand design was setting up later in the day as we were part of styling we were taking our jeans and another girls and shoes etc over to meet a girl from our group who had all the garments at 8.30! i am terrible with early mornings and its safe to say i rolled out of bed looking far to shameful to be handing in garments to the catwalk organisers.. When we got to the NEC we met with the girl from our group and were annoyed/frustrated to find she hadnt put any of our styling shots we had photographed onto the bags, hadnt pressed the garments and hadnt included socks for her garments (like we had for ours)! After leaving the garments with us she proceeded to leave and in essence pick up the pieces! Luckily because stand design was coming later on in the day i managed to call through to angie to pick us up a pack of white socks and we would hand them in before dress rehearsal! As for how they were to be styled it was a case of hoping for the best as the situation was out of our hands by this point. Although incredibly frustrating that she hadnt done any of the jobs she had been given to do, it just made me again realise that as long as i do the best i can that is all i can do, i cant physically do everything and as long as im happy with my portion of the project and the part that is my outcome then that is what matters!

After we handed in the garments me and kay had until half 2 when the van eventually turned up to basically kill, i had knitting to be getting on with and we had a look around the stalls being set up, i even cheekily made a purchase from the oxfam stall! A topshop duffle coat that i wanted last year that was over a £100 i got for £25 in practically new conditon! i was super happy and now i can look like paddington bear!! Also it was FREEZING in the halls where our stand was and so when i bought the duffle coat i cosied up into it and sat with my knitting as a blanket ^.^ These photos show the day..

Knitting away as we waited at starbucks for everyone to get there !

Hot Chocolate ^.^

Fashion Mistake wearing twin trousers !

our stand as we found it at the beginning !

Waiting at our stand for hours in the cold!

Looking at other unis stands, i really liked De Montforts Pop up Shop a really good concept/layout/products.

our sign!

Building the circus tent!

rolling our posters for giving out!

positioning our robots!

Dressing the mannequins/abi dressing herself!

Monique doing repairs to our slightly battered magazine robot!

Steph and the sales team pricing products!

Anthony making the circus tent!

Mannequins dressed!

webbing and pegs!



yay circus tent nearly finished!
 

So the van got there at half 2 and we spent about an hour unloading everything and then about two hours unpacking everything and sorting it out, we had to overcome quite a few problems and think on our feet for what arose! For our robots we had planned to have them standing side by side but we couldnt do this as we didnt have enough space for them to stand aside eachother without interfering with the wall we wanted to project onto or the mannequin display! Also we found them very unstable and the realisation that if anyone accidentally walked into they would fall over meant we decided to stand them back to back with one of the stand timbers as support for them to lean against either way, which gave them more stability! Before we got there we hadnt attached any of the boxes, but when we got them there we realised that we needed to find a way to attach their arms as they wouldnt stay on and also attach there feet: for feet we used velcro and for the arms we used the idea of how a toggle would attach to join the arm to the body which worked really well and there were no robot accidents thoughout the clothes show yay!
Other problems that arose were with the projector where we didnt have the correct mac adaptor which was no fault of our own as i had booked everything out but it was the loan shops mistake which was frustrating but we arranged to make sure that the students who were working at the show the following day would have the correct one! Also for digital media the slideshow they had sorted for their mac display with photos/blog entys/competition winners was saved in the wrong file format which again was frustrating for them  but easily fixable over night!
When we got there we also had to work out which way to put webbing/tables etc and this was very much trial and error we started by doing a loose working of webbing and then when we saw what the stand was like when filled we built up the webbing slightly! For the tables: it was a nightmare! We had previously covered some of the boxes we were using to advertise merch with tinfoil (which i thought was a bad idea..) and when they got to the clothes show they were so battered and tattered! our original idea was for them to be covered in tinfoil and then to put the knitting over the top to get this contrast of textures/colours however we had no tin foil to repare the boxes and the other girl who was knitting hadnt turned up! It was annoying as i had spent time knitting a massive piece but it looked messy with the tinfoil ruined and not another knitted cover and so we had to abandon that idea and use the fluroscent fabric angie and anthony had used for their circus tent to cover our tables which looked really good and fitted with the theme of the stand alot more aptly! I think this was actually a good thing to happen, because it shows that even though you have may of spent ages knitting a piece/doing something if it doesnt work you just have to swallow your pride of your idea and abandon it and move on !

“Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.”           

dont regret it if it hasnt happened yet, so lets go

The day before the clothes show we had to do a mock up of our stand so basically go into the common room where there was lots of space and mark out how big our stand was and build it to show our lecturers how it would look on the day here are photos showing the process.. ^.^

bringing all the parts of the robot into our space before constructing

constructing robots, and starting to play around with placement

male robot facing outwards from the 'stand'

playing around with ideas of using Sarah TafTafs Lanterns flat as table pieces

Angie playing dress up with mannequins and mirrored boxes

Digital medias 'baby robot' post box where visitors comments can be posted!

Lady Robot!

Male robot facing inwards

hanging lanterns from ceiling

Kayleighs coventry university sign based on our circus theme



Taking it to woodwork so we could mount it    
 

When we started building the robots we played around with ideas of them on opposite ends of the stall both facing forwards and then facing away from each other, however when our lecturers saw this they thought that the robots should be as we discussed in our meeting more of a focal point which i agree with and so we then started looking at putting them in the middle with them both pointing slightly inwards together forming almost a triangle shape if that makes sense so it could be a photo opportunity for those who visited our stall! I thought this was a really good idea and i felt it was better when we started to work with the space as more of a 3D installation/space which was full of activites rather than almost building walls for our stand out of robots/tables. With this in mind we played around alot more with where our tables sat so you werent blocking people out, with them sitting more central in the stall it invites people to come in and look around! when we started hanging the lanterns we realised we needed alot more and Anna and Rebecca reiterated our earlier idea of having candyfloss clouds! The day was alot about trial and error with all of coming together to work as a group which was really beneficial to our cause as without that i dont think we'd ever of finished!! Me, emily and abi went into town to sort out table covers as they were the last thing to get sorted as everything else int he group had been taking precedence! We liked the idea of using knitting to cover the tables and i love knitting! so we bought chunky knitting needles (wooden ones which ive wanted forever so happy ^.^ dont even care if thats sad) and sat knitting two wools- purple and hot pink like the robot together to create a more interesting colour palette for the covers, we thought this worked well for bringing texture into the stall to work alongside the candyfloss and robot to make a more visually exciting stall with lots of things to touch and feel like a real life wonderland ^.^ we went away and knitted these pieces ready for the following day where we would be setting up! Throughout the day we also all cut strips of fabric and started creating balls of these tied strips for our webbing idea which i mentioned in a previous post, however we obviously couldnt try this out for our mockup as we didnt have the actual structure!
I thought it was a really good idea to do this mock up of the stand as although at the start of the day we resented having to do it as we had lots to prepare for the stand, by actually seeing what it was going to look and how much space we had to fill it gave us targets and ideas and we knew what more we needed of things and also what didnt work so we didnt need to waste time on it!

"I think there is beauty in everything. What ‘normal’ people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it."

At our class meeting where we discussed the clothes show, as part of stand design we were given lots of ideas and one in particular was this idea of using the boxes we had intitially created and building them into 2 robots- one made from fashion magazine to represent Matej kren and one made from fur to represent Nick Cave and his soundsuits.
Monique was in charge of doing the magazine robot and me and Emily Land did the majority of the fur robot. Once the magazine robot had been built we had an idea of size/proportion for our robot as she was going to be the lady and he the gentleman.
To start with we got lots of boxes from all different art departments and built them into the shape we wanted the robot to be.
We then hassled Scarlett until she let us into the fabric cupboard and gave us fur ^.^ i felt so sorry for her for throughout the day we made the robot we constantly needed things from Scarlett! She supplied us with a little long haired fluroscent pink fur and then a short haired purple/pink reflects fur which there was lots more of! We decided we would make the head from the long pink fur and then the rest from the purple as there was lots more of this. We also decided later on when we saw how much pink fur we had left that we would also make the arms from it !
We had problems with sticking the fur as initially we used a staple gun from the fashion department which wasnt strong enough so then we had to go to fine art and sneakily steal a much stronger staple gun from one of the students (dont worry we're not thieves the fine art teacher told us to!). This worked fine until we realised the staples could be easily pulled out and werent very secure.
We then decided to use a glue gun which secured the fur to the box smoothly and would actually stay secure as we needed something that wouldnt keep coming off throughout the clothes show! Because we didnt have much fabric we made pattern pieces for each of the different sized boxes and used these to minimise wastage and made the boxes look alot neater!

Building the robot from boxes

Pink fur!

Purple fur!

Before we made pattern pieces and before the glue gun >.< learning as went always important!

 fur head !

fur head on robots body!

learning that we need to create pattern pieces and then doing so.

learning no staple gun would work and using glue guns insead look how neat the sides look!

yay fur head and fur body!

Angie making arm pattern pieces!

me and emily gluing the arms !

yay fur head, fur body and fur arm!