Dr Martens turns 50

The legendary British footwear label Dr Martens celebrates it's 50th year with an unmissable fashion and music project. on the 1st of April they launched a small collection of limited classic boots and shoes, available in black and red. As well as launch the limited edtion boots they have gathered different acts to help celebrate the aniversiary. Noisettes, The Duke Spiritand the Black Rebel Motocycle Club have have styled the retro boots with a 2010 twist.

Fashion Week in APRIL!!!

Can't wait till September to get your next fashion fix, well your in luck! After reading my monthly issue of ASOS Magazine, I've discovered that fashion week isn't as far away as we thought. The Alternative Fashion Week is runing between 19-23 April in London's Spitalfields Market. Over 70 new designer gradates will feature in the show, previous graduates to showcase include Garth Pugh and Jasper Garvida. You can catch the sublime to sensational at 1:15pm daily. As well as the show, inspriation can be found in the fashion market where you can get one-off pieces or take in the street style, which last year caught the eye of Vogue.com.
but wait you haven't heard the best news yet!.....IT'S FREE!!!

Fashion as a Forum

Along side producing a collection I have to write a Fashion based essay. For assement we we're given a genral question which we then had to inturpretate. To make things easier we were advesied to write about an area of fashion we found interesting. After struggling to find a subject I could write about I decided to base my essay on High Street VS Internet. I thought it would be easy, but when I first tried to gather information from the library, I relised that the Internet is still a new technology, and therist still haven't writen about it yet. It was also hard to find information online as well. Struggling to gather the my research made me change my essay slighly. In the end I wrote about the future of shoping, this included how we currenlty shop and how upcoming technology could change the way we shop in the future.

When I was at school I wrote a lot of long essays and I was very confident when it came to gathering information and managing my time to write them. Unfortunately that was years ago and I hadn't written an essay since my GCSE's. The thought of sitting down and gathering research wasn't appealing and I didn't find the set lessons helpful at all. I thought most of them were irrelevant. Due to these factors I didn't manage my time well and put the essay off till the last minute; which I now regret. It's not that I didn't pass the essay, but I know I could have done much better then I did. This has now moitvated me to read more thorey based books and I'm determinded to be better prepared when it comes to writing the Disatation next year.

The link below will show the essay I produced.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AVDZ6sGu0H3CZGdoMjc1cTZfMTdmMjdkdmdkZg&hl=en_GB

Learning Lunch with Maria Grachvogel

As I mentioned on a previous post, I was invited to attend a learning lunch held by Lectra and Maria Grachvogel.


Before going I didnt know what to expect, I knew there would be demonstrations on how to use the Lecra programes, and Maria was going to talk about how she uses them with in her company, but I had no idea I would leave feeling inspired about my own work and my future with in the fashion industry.


The learning lunch started with a brief talk from Ruth Howcroft, a representative from Lectra; she's also the link between my university and Lectra, she has come to see us a couple of times in the studio.


Once Ruth introduced the talk and gave a brief overall of the learning lunch, she handed the talk over to Maria Grachvogel, where we viewed a live interview. Grachvogel disgusted how she built up her business, starting small and not entering fashion week until her business had been going for a couple of years and all the kinks had been worked out.


I really enjoyed the talk because it was so casual and relaxed. I felt so free to openly ask a question without felling silly or insurcure and it was nice to talk to a designer one on one. Grachvogel was easy to talk to and came off as a nice, genuin person who was very happy to share her experiance of the industry.



Before Leaving I managed to get a picture of me and my class mates with Maria Grachvogel. Thanks to her own dress, you couldn't tell she was heavily pregant, and she was still able to wear killer heels!!!

Mrs Prime Minister at LFW

London-based designer Osman Yousefzada had a very special guest at his London Fashion Week show, Mrs Prime Minister, Sarah Brown, was seated in the front row at Somerset House.

Sarah watched as the British couturier reveiled his new A/W collection. There were high collars, textural contrasts, and even floor-skimming maxi dresses, while one standout evening dress featured jewelled segments on the pockets. Mrs Brown, who chose a navy blue ensemble made up of a blouse by Wallis, jacket by M&S Autograph and trousers by Brit Lintner, was firmly focused on the designs.

Mark Fast DoesVoluptuous!

I wish I could congratulate Mark Fast for using a range of different sized models for his A/W show at London Fashion Week ,but Canadian designer, who claims to be the saviour of larger ladies, didn't do it well.

He didn't do Miss Renn no favours by making her wear an ill-fitted red Lycra frock which was stretched over every inch of her voluptuous body.

I think before he tries to use healthier looking women to showcase his work, he needs to improve his size gradings first!

Maria Grachvogel A/W Collection

This week I was lucky enough to attend Maria Grachvogel's show at London Fashion week. Due to the Competition I'm currently doing, which involves both Lectra and Grachvogel, I and three others on my course were invited to attend the show to help us with our projects.

Although I have seen her clothes up close before, I found it really interesting to see them being worn, you can really appreciate the Grachvogels skills when you can see first hand how the clothes fit the body in all the right places and this is enhanced even more by the way she uses her prints.

Even though I wasn't in the front row and I had to stand, I still thought I had one of the best views in the show, it was an amazing spot to view the clothes and to take my own pictures.

I've noticed when ever I view fashion shows online or in Vogue, you never get to see a back view, which is a shame because some of the key features are on the back of a garment. This is definitely the case in Grachvogels designs and I managed to capture front and back views of all her garments shown.

I've uploaded my favourite pieces from the show and a recording I made at the end of the show to give a feel of the collection as a whole.

I love the detail on the bust and the waterfall at the back of this dress.

You can see in these pictures how the prints work with the shape of the body.

This is my favourite piece out of the whole collection, it fits the body perfectly, the print is eye catching and flows with the body, I also love the open back with the boarding waterfall effect.

As well as attending her show, me and my class friends are also invited to a Learning Lunch this week. At the lunch Maria Grachvogel herself will be demonstrating how she uses the Lectra Programs throughout her design and construction processes. Hopefully I can learn some new methods and apply them to my project. Once I've attended the lunch I will blog thoughts and new techniques.