it's 4:30 and not 4:45

...it was a bit of drama, but just one hand-in left.

Anyway, I didn't mention the complete drama of moving around on the reflective summary at all. I had it on my skeleton notes, but somehow it didn't quite make it in. Despite the initial shock, I think in the end I handled the matter better than last year. In the end, the written piece was 2,306 words long, down from the original 2700 (and that was without the moving drama.)

I'm under stressstressstressstress because I'm getting into a situation I had not been in before. It's as if I have to read the minds of some official with a stamp. Sometimes I wonder how far can a visa or passport be faked for is to pass undetected?

My laptop's left click button has sunk in. Even when most times I tap on the touchpad instead. (And Delete button's a bit temperamental. Pets are like their owners, some say.)

Anyway, \ˈləv\ and %*&$ from this annoyed person.

do I have to type it out thrice?

After a few seconds' worth of violence against the laptop (on count of a non-optimally scripted page re visiting Indonesia without a visa - how ironic did that sound?), I am *sigh grunt glower* retyping whatever little I typed before and lost. Quite possibly one of the last posts with a Y3 tag. Lessons from the restaurant floor for the design studio.

Sometimes, whilst it is not busy and there isn't much to do other than waiting for passer-bys to turn into customers, I would feel angsty because it was as if time was being wasted away. If there was nothing to do, I would start to come up with thoughts like "I wish I wasn't here so I could do something else more productive"... which is a bit pointless considering I was physically at work and nowhere near equipped to do the tasks I went through in my mind. This also meant that at one level my waitressing performance was affected - not to the point that my work noticeably deteriorates, but running suboptimally at part-time work because my mind was preoccupied with something else was doubly irritating. It was one of the reasons I took a break from part-time work to concentrate on my studies. So anyway it was done, I took a study break which was helpful, but I probably could've done something else to handle the whole situation better.

Anyhow. I was working again yesterday.

It was a busy evening to start with (which was good even though it was a bit of a hassle), and it grew progressively quieter. There was one point at which I was pretty desperate to get customers I sent my colleagues and myself to distribute promotional flyers on three separate occasions throughout the night. Business or no business, time flows on. It's just preferable to make money for the business as I work.

A friend's brother-in-law stood by this principle when he was mildly harrassed for leaving his workplace on time and before his manager leaves. He said that his assigned jobs were done, so what productivity does he serve by staying back when there is nothing else to do? There is a saying that says 'as long as things get done things will be alright'. It is somewhat true, but it needs updating. Things need to get done, and I'd rather get as many of them as I possibly can done.

I cannot sleep peacefully

...because the reflective discourse (can I hand in a mirror?) is due in on Friday. Amongst other things like knitting a garment, embroidering a garment, and beading a garment. So that's anything between an essay and a garment, and an essay and three garments....... depending on your reading. Oh, and please remember the portfolio. Did I mention visa too?

I am in s***.

Anyhow.
A few days ago, feeling rather dejected after rushing across London to find out that 'sorry this [CR] laser cutter does not cut plastic', Anne and I went to our favourite biltong seller on Liverpool Street. We bought a bottle of cider out of thirst and hot weather, only to realise nobody could open it. So I decided to go to hers (of course to taste the cider!) We walked to the appropriate bus stop, and waited.
A man on bicycle went pass. He looked like this guy, but older.
And Anne said, "wasn't that Giles?" (she once worked for him)
"With that much grey hair?"
"He looked old."
Oh. "I thought he's supposed to look much younger."

Next commuting tale.
I was sitting on the bus on my way home earlier today (it's still Tuesday in my head) -slumped, deflated and hungry- when a DOM sat next to me. Now, DOM stands for dodgy dirty old men. So a DOM means one dodgy dirty old man sitting next to me, with a hand that is magnetised towards my thigh. Feeling cross, I hissed an excuse-me and strategically positioned 2kg of yarns and my slingbag between his seat and mine. A few minutes later, he took it as a cue to conduct a conversation:
"Where are you from?"
(Who do you think you are, a border official at Heathrow?)
"Japan?"
(Stare forward.)
"Thailand?"
(Getting warmer.)
"Hong Kong?"
(Meh.)
"China?"
(Still wrong.)
"................."
(Look out the window)
"...Korea?"
"Nevermind." (which is the only other word I uttered to him.)
He got out two stops later.

Seriously, the rate at which people say 'Japan' and 'China' (HK included) is phenomenally blasé. I wonder if next time I should say Armenia or Kuwait instead. I stand up for my country, I don't let stakeholders know my nationality even more, and I dislike the ill-ease of my passport too. Or maybe it's just Europe picking its navel whenever I beckon my sight there for some trade show, like what this HSBC guy said in some pamphlet re investing in Asia. Maybe Europe's just too snotty to move on. Or maybe UK's got too much nannyish health and safety considerations. It's as if the creative thinking energy is redirected from tackling problems to conjuring up imaginary scenarios in which citizens become exposed to danger because they do not realise a heating cabinet is hot, or that a packet of nuts contain nuts.
More creativity is being used to coerce people into fear of what could happen 0.03% of the time.

Anyway, it's bed time, knitting time or typing time.
I choose the duvet. Take care!

moreness

On Wednesday after college (and as work started), I made myself a scribble-list of things I wanted/needed to do re college work progress. In the past week I had been caught up with 'lots of other things', and focus is definitely one of the things I need to exercise in abundance.

Roughly, the work is categorised into two sections: the paperwork (portfolio - not my favourite bit for those who know me) and prac work. This term, the project is self-negotiated. Initially I wanted to do two outfits of a new collection, until a wise soul in form of a classmate looked at the pile of stuff/work I brought to the first tutorial session and mentioned 'book of samples'. That comment got passed on to the tutor, who (after some consultation and in light of time available) made me choose either 'a book of calico silhouette samples' or 'a book of embellishment samples'. So I chose the latter one. I need to learn to knit and embroider properly, after all...

Portfolio work is alright, sometimes.
It is alright when I am on a momentum, and all the pieces/materials for flatwork are gathered on one table. It is not alright when bits haven't been printed off, template figures are missing, etc etc. Now that I have done my templates and almost all images are printed out, it's high time to hit the portfolio work.

Next bit: the reflective summary.
I've been keeping an eye on the girl-next-bay (me sitting in computer lab) on what she is doing for her reflective summary. To be honest, I feel jealous of her lovingly hand-written and panda-embellished journal she is scanning, which of course I do not do. (I blog, and whatever I do not cover on the blog is written down... when my hands are free.)

On the plus side, keeping my hands free of journal-writing enables me to type super-fast and bead super-fast too. I find it quite funny I managed to go through one 100g pack of seed beads (which is well over 1500 of them, by the way I count it) within one sitting of beading. It took three hours, including the time it took me to dash off to the beadshop and exchange some of them. I guess however much I hate to be interned to bead dresses doesn't really run parallel to the fact that I bead my samples.

On the not-so-related study front, I have not been doing any illustrative work for the past week or two. I know I planned it some time ago, but since it isn't exactly in the unit completion requirement it keeps getting put off till I don't know when. I've got half of the things I need for it, and I was originally delaying for some more goodies (rolling pin and rolling guides)... until I checked out that the guides were for sheets 1.5mm thick. Pah! No gingerbread in my memory is of that thickness. So uneven hand moulding it is, then.

I'm a bit worried about my progress for the coming week, especially since the upcoming Tuesday morning is earmarked for non-college work, and since I'm taking on a few more shifts at work (not exactly avoidable unless I want to lose the job and networking for good.) I wrote myself a list of things that I need to do, but whether by Tuesday evening all things have all been accounted for is something I do not have an answer for. And why does duchess satin cost so much?

Well, nevertheless, I will try to be as balanced as possible. No late nighters, seven hours of sleep a day, and a regular dose of culture. That means books, movies, exhibitions maybe once a week? I want to read more Orwell; or more accurately, I want to read funny satirical shorter pieces like Animal Farm.

Take care.

on femalefolk self-classification

For the common man, one is usually referred to as 'Mr' in English.
For the common woman, there are three terms available. They are 'Miss', 'Mrs' and 'Ms' respectively

In the past decade or so of Anglo-Saxon form-filling, I have become rather inveterate in classifying myself. However, I find myself switching between the three and having some sort of mixed reactions to the experience (which in turn feeds back into myself, who would condition her responses/actions accordingly in the next time around).

Ms
I was a fan of this appellation due to the fact that it hides a multitude of information regarding the female person. A bit like Mr for the femalefolk, with the exception that it may have a bit of a personal tarnish due to someone I knew yonks ago who was referred to as 'Ms'. She was quite possibly in her late forties and unconventionally relationshipped. Made me think whether I was happy lumping myself with a possible divorcée, spinster or mistress. And, since I was planning to get married and realised how temporary a bourgeoise privilege of being called proper 'miss' would be, I switched to...

Miss
The current default classification. I have been using it with some sort of glee, until I reclassify myself when purchasing Eurostar tickets as 'Adult'. At which point selecting the option 'Miss' gave a rather unpleasant tug. (I was purchasing tickets for two on a certain journey, one for this Miss and another for a Miss who could still get away travelling on a cheaper Youth ticket. Although probably the other Miss would have preferred to be classified 'Ms', or 'Mr' just for the sake of stomping the excess girliness.) Is it sprouts of societal pressure? Probably. Does the fact that "this miss and that miss are homonym" mean they stem from the same meaning? By means of linguistic history, is being female and unmarried inseparable from being a, *shock* *horror* failure?

Mrs
It would be roughly translated into Indonesian as 'ibu', with which I have been intermittently referred since as young/old as 21. Recently I classified myself as 'Mrs' on a form, although it may have more to do with the French referring female adult customers as 'Madame' (and the only other option being 'Mr') than socially/legally being joined at the hip with a male person. I see it as a bit of an identity crisis classification - I've long been referred to as someone else's sister/daughter/[insert relationship status] and I quite like being recognised as a person of one's own, instead of someone else's auxilliary. But then, hold this view as a temporary preference, because it may change for a multitude of reasons (which may or may not be covered at a later point in this blog.)

A few more tangential points to cover...

Eurostar
Website sucks big time. First my browser failed me, then when I retried the website complained that 'I had taken too much time on completing the purchase', decided that I was therefore unworthy of the £69 return fee and tried to charge me for £119. To make it worse, I was purchasing for a friend who qualifies for 'Youth' ticket as well as my own 'Adult' ticket and selected the correct options accordingly, but the site kept on thinking that 1 Youth [cheaper] + 1 Adult = 2 Adults. **t**.
I cleaned the cookies and re-tried for the third time, only to be greeted by a white screen saying 'erreur'. After checking that no money was deducted from my account and another cookies-cleaning session, my fourth attempt was rewarded with.......
...the bank suspecting my card might have been used for fraud. (Two transactions on the same web vendor, the exact same amounts, some twenty minutes apart.) Sometimes the software-run box-ticking gets too much. I'll have to risk missing the cheap fares, and do a trek to the bank to kindly get the bloody transaction bar off my card pronto. And call Eurostar. Eurostar website, you suck.

Knowledge
The important truth is that success stems from how knowledge is applied. Knowing much may as much help as distract. So, there it is: apply and do. Having encyclopaedic knowledge isn't going to help much if it isn't being used for a definite and achievable goal within a specific timeframe.

Sampling
Fashion college has made me into a tangibly sceptic person, re-questioning myself and demanding physical proof/dissertation that a certain thing is not aesthetically pleasing. In some sense it's good to know and communicate what one expects another to produce, but on a greater level many things cannot be toiled.

Dressmaker v Designer
Many so-called sewing blogs are run by, um, people who seem to be not making much test garments before setting off to do a completed garment. [Academic] fashion designing, on the other hand, is not quite satisfied when a completed garment is not the culmination of some obscene numbers of test garments. Within the functioning fashion design industry, what is the average/usual number of toiles that tend to be made prior to the final garment being produced? (Please don't tell me a flat 'it depends on the design' answer because I'm not looking for theoretical responses; I'm doing statistics here.) And what is the practical dividing line between dressmaker and designer? Do dressmakers stick to simple shapes whereas designers do not? If that was the case, what would Phoebe Philo's AW10 collection for Chloe would be classified? A dressmaker's work? A quasi-dressmaker's work? Is her professional status as fashion designer rescued by virtue of using leather (or slapping bits of leather where wool or some other traditionally dressmakery fabric would have gone, e.g. on pocket welts etc) on every single garment sent down the runway? If it were the pocket welts, how can I still feel insufficient (despite having done similarly with pocket welts) whenever I see my friends' works?

As you can see, my undergraduate degree doesn't cleanly solve the problem of infusing confidence into my practical work. It adds a dose of cynicism/scepticality, I shall say. Quite dampingly enough.

Okay, enough blogging for now.
I think I managed to clock out some extra 300 (wishfully 600?) words for the reflective summary assignment. I guess that's one of my strengths, intrapersonal knowledge. But then, maybe it comes with the plain passage of time instead of some innate talents or supernatural gifts (I don't quite know for sure.) Or maybe this unsureness is just old-style British non-show-off-ance instead of American all-can-be-done attitude.

Anyhow.
Good day, everyone.

pettering about

I was looking at this post and thought "how nice it is to have an overweight, strokes-friendly ginger cat." Except that, from past pet-keeping experience, it would be a pretty expensive affair.

Cats are nice to stroke and dogs to kiss... I kinda miss my dog. I'm definitely happy not to have to pay for pet fees, though.

Yet in response to Suhu's non-reward quiz/meme, I said my chosen pet would a pterodactyl.

P.S. I also went to teach dressmaking today, in the grand tradition of accounting/maths/English private tutoring I've done in the past. My student and I finished a dress she had made earlier, and re-styled a top. Knowing the right demo/hands-on practice balance and setting the pace are things I'm learning on the job (those hair modeling sessions help give an idea!) Also, the endless sample-making college work requires was definitely helpful enough to take my worries off from the fact that we were ripping and mutilating what is essentially a pricey branded fashion merchandise. Only when I walked home did I realise the graveness of what we had been doing.

Take care.

things...

Hello.

I had my hand-in earlier today - maybe about two hours ago? But it doesn't mean the storm is over yet. There are things I need to finish for the show/photoshoot (both garments and accessories), as well as tidy up/pack/clean the flat. And visa stuff. It's a holiday that's bound not a holiday...

Let's say I feel a bit lost and off the hook without my work. I definitely dislike the deadlines and learning the hard way that I still need to be more decisive in developing designs. If there is something I learn about my personality in times of trouble, it definitely belongs to the 'blue screen of death' variety. Or 'rabbit hops on front of incoming trailer'.

I like pattern-cutting and sewing up samples, although I tend to stress and have a bad luck making final/press samples out of expensive materials (well, maybe I haven't clocked up enough experience?) Yesterday, I was happily doing two of these cream-coloured tailored jacket when one accidentally brushed against the machine needle pole (oiled) and got stained. And to think that I had wiped the work surface clean! That's one thing to watch out for. Spitting domestic irons are another category to watch out for. And, despite their pristine appearance, domestic sewing machines can gobble up white threads and spit them out grey.

...and I need a haircut. As well as decide which portfolio project to take on for next term. Out of the two: image-making and research, which one do you think will be great for me?

Awh, I'm just gonna take a break and actually surf the net proper. And eat good food. And sleep.

Take care!

gossips from the sweatshop stable

Greetings.

Yesterday I heard a third-year student purportedly spent £90 for a pair of tights. (what, made from gold? or maybe uranium...) This course surely has amazing hidden fees, indeed. I must say the extra £1,400 is closer to the average figure each student would probably fork out to complete their final year. To make things worse, there is no longer free B&W printing available on campus, tutor attendance hours are cut, and there is no colour photocopier in a building where tutors constantly ask for colour copies (there used to be one but who knows where it is now?) 'Insane' and 'administratively messed up' give good allusion to the state of chaos my college puts itself into...

This morning, I broke my machine's needle again. Five times. All under an hour.
From thinking it was jinxed to actual statistics, something must definitely be wrong, no? Either way, it's a downtime for me. I called a machine engineer to take a look at the problem but he's scrabbling for time allotment because I asked him to come before the weekend.

To be honest I feel quite lost without a reliable, working sewing machine.

it doesn't really make sense

Why do I still blog?


Thread cops run out...


Stocks of pencil lead are drained...


Because sometimes, I try to look sullen (sleepy?) in the tube...


...and college work drives me mad I wish money and time grows on flowers free to be picked - by me, that is!


Well, this was the third needle I broke in the week. Maybe it's the near-prodigious amount of sewing, or simply I was being too rude whilst tugging and manipulating fabric at the machine.

Anyhoo.
Have a nice day for you, and a productive (21-hour-long-awake) one for me.

prescience

Well.

Many things seem to be happening in my head a few months before they actually happened. People call it deja-vu, maybe? Today it happened twice. The first - classified under 'unconscious' - was when I was talking to a kouhai about last week's fashion academic life new pet peeve in the IT room (and ensuing little wisdom learnt.) And this fella's usually stationed near the giant hot rolling presser. Which, somehow, has been pre-reharsed in a dream sometime last summer. Oooo... okay. Maybe the strip lighting glared a bit in my sleepless eyes.

A few minutes later, proceed to email-blog-Facebook rounds.
(Courtesy of college facility and as a by-product of finishing my monthly internet allowance about 13 days into the month.) Aha, normal weekend, a few dozen new updates here and there. Oh, .... Oh. I see. Mmmmmmmmm.

Cue in a mental replay of this (does anyone knows where to get the alien shoes at 3:30 from?), having aurally overdosed on it last weekend. It is a better sleep-preventing drug than coffee, though. [A good timekeeper at under 5 minutes, and it got my productivity up too, but can't do it three days in a row.] I've caught myself ra-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ing and swinging my head around whilst pattern cutting, so that's probably enough illustration of how much listening there was last weekend.
Cue in conversation shouting to Person XYZ, "what the hell are you doing? stop tarrying around and either do it or not, learn from your bloody mistake"... in August/September-ish? So vivid and punctuated with XYZ's trademark why-did-you-bring-it-up-lozah silence. (Maybe 'critic' or 'busybody' provide better-suited alternatives to 'lozah'.)
Cue in fashion sketches for personal consumption made over the weekend. Not relevant to the FMP - so not, other than cutting into valuable sleeping time.
Cue in Y3 T3 file list, which - according to my laptop- is about a month old. This file has crazy bats*** notes of what I want to do next term (i.e. what is not relevant in the immediate future but I'm keen to do before graduating anyway.) Which kinda goes with the fashion sketches, the mental convo, and Gaga.
Cue in November mental note on Person XYZ's behaviour. Oh, now it does make sense. Note that I never physically carried out the convo threats shouting with Person XYZ. Oooo, spooky.

It does get very, very spooky if I thought about the range of dreams I've been having in the past decade. Things like running away from an infectious scary thing/demon/soul-eater which leaves me tired but too worried to go back to sleep (as I have fallen back into 'Part 2' of certain dreams before.) The loud mental shouting, as they take on more ordinary tableaux, are not as scary, but post-even recognition gives an even stronger chill because it is so prescient and much more probable to take place.

Back to fashiony things.
If you were wondering whether I make my own clothes, well I don't do it very often. The sampling process for making one outfit (lovingly cut x 1 as my paper patterns read) gives approximately the same amount of mental hassle as that of five or six of the same thing for making multiples. The final fabric cutting and sewing for making multiples is more of a hassle given the larger amounts of fabric, but one can establish a rhytm and end up with a better time-spent-per-garment result as opposed to sampling just one thing. A brussel sprout split is smaller than a brussel sprout and therefore less bitter, thus my tastebud dictates. Which goes with costing principles.

This leads to: fashion creation is a circular loop. There is street trends, then high-end designer, then somewhere more commercial like this, then... ASOS copy for £5? [Sometimes.] Or maybe that thing in Spitalfields market was discarded excess stock or production leftover.

Anyhow. Shudder. Not for the circular loop, but for the prescience. Go back to the first bit of the post to read it. And maybe because of the cold. Multiple possible reasons.

(The general contemporary art school dogma is inspiration can come from multiple sources at the same time without predetemined flow and linear timeflows can be disrupted, although I dare part with my industrial sewing machine if anyone can re-jig time for me and get me a few extra weeks before hand in. Well, maybe these guys can oneday. )

Take care.

Mental note: Sassenach version of cullen skink = potato+leek+onion cream soup with flaked haddock poached in milk. Wouldn't last a day.

bleurgh

Logging onto the university online noticeboard system, I encountered this lovely and helpful-but-could-they-have-told-us-earlier-than-today notice on Reflective Discourse (i.e. what you learnt from the academic year.)


Let's zoom in a little bit more...


Ouch.

I somewhat expected them to expect third-years to drum up something more academical-reading, but to the extent of referencing one's own diary? What kind of tortured soul am I supposed to be, Orson Welles? Does it not pleasure the teaching staff enough to see us final-year students going through the grind, only adding to the hoi polloi that we should be caged literary souls alongside that of OCD'ed freaks as well?

One thing I learnt is, design tutors tend to forget things more easily as opposed to technical tutors, who keep track of minutiae increments filed in mind. It does make me wonder whether successful designers end up having goldfish attention span length (hence the Galliano-like behaviour spectacles.) This year also gives an outlook on how tutors mark one's work - the system employed to enable tutors mark academic work makes it look as if it's certainly worth behaving like a donkey early on during the year as tutors set their expectations on various students. It is after all an academic circuit and not quite the professional fashion show circuit. But then, sticking to the regime helps develop professional discipline.

Referring to professional designers, it does make me rethink of my work experiences to date. There is no shortage of professional designers who [is forced/chooses to] merchandise*, as opposed to design, to round up their collection for the showroom, which eventually makes money for their living. Maybe because the design units are too small? Maybe there should be more duo designers to share the grey matter burden?

And now, to the issue of geographical cluttering.
Fashion capitals exist not only because of the resources promptly available (as for Paris and Milan) or number of designers clustered within one city. Culture plays a big part, too. For example, Indonesians would be aware of the fact that Jakarta spins money whilst Bandung comes up with ideas. The extensive endowments towards the setting up of public cultural spaces such as well-curated museums and performance halls has given most of Western Europe its cultural heft. (And the fact that it used to colonise vast swathes of the world, with artefacts available for not-so-voluntary picking on the natives' side.) Call it the rich man's cabinet like Banksy did if you like, but going to museums does help. I didn't exactly have an idea of what makes quilting it is, despite the wealth of craft books the college retained and that I read through, and all the shopping/market research that entailed (the shops only had those lousy square-diamond-quilted stuff as copied from Chanel. Ew.) I proceeded to hand-quilt a jacket lining for a friend's Christmas present, got thirdway through, went to the museum (whilst waiting for my visa), saw a quilt from the 15th century and realised where I went wrong. And how dedicated they were back then: white coarse threads on white fabric, with lousy needles, and nothing showing that is bigger than a pinprick on a quilt 4 metres by 6 wide. Try doing that under candlelight, if your eyes won't give out on you. (But then, they had the whole village and it took them a good few years to complete, I only have myself and maybe a few helpers and a few months to outdo that by a factor of three.)

Indonesia is still very weak on the culture dissemination factor, which is why I cringe everytime I think of going back to Jakarta for good. Lack of good museums, lack of good publications, and it can take a good two hours to reach the other side of town. Madness. I try to find jobs over here too, on this island and across the Channel and Atlantic pond, which is why I find this year so draining. Home and EU students can kick back their job hunting until after graduation by virtue of being able to stay back without needing a visa after graduation. Some tutors occasionally seem unable to comprehend the matter at hand because they need no visa to secure jobs around the world, and consequently thinks that me doing the job hunting early is having mixed priorities. I think they just don't get it. (Maybe I should try marrying an EU national for the passport. Two hours can get me to another country over here.)

Or, as one recent graduate put it, karena kita bukan seperti mereka. Discrimination still runs; maybe rather unintentionally because it's harder to employ non-EU individuals, but could also due to the whole past-colonialism issue (G will be happy to fill you in on this.)

This post definitely deserves the Y3 tag.
If there is one major issue I hold against the college, it's for its abysmal administration. Getting one's timetable released after the term started brings the term 'fashionably late' to a new level, albeit one that is callous instead of chi-chi.

Alright then, that's enough reference material for now.
I don't like complaining on my blog, but for the bloody discourse then I complain it is.

Take care.

*merchandise: re-presenting the same garment cut in different fabrics and different colours

little laborious enjoyments

My family had just caught up with the Skype phenomenon... hohoho finally... but anyhow.

I was talking to my sister earlier over the phone, and whilst we had a little bit of commiserating over our little patch of not-so-illustrious luck in life, I had to admit I enjoyed the following:

- genuinely using up stationery
I had always been an avid stationery purchaser, and having accumulated a sizable stash, now I am just starting to gnaw at it (read: using it in a productive manner.) There is a sense of accomplishment, besides the slight panic, when one discovers the pencil lead refills in that little tube has gone flat. Same goes with erasers, which previously were replaced because (a) I was bored of them or (b) I lost them. Also, for being able to use four different pairs of scissors with legitimately justified different reasons: fabric, sticky tape, paper and threads. And a pair for kitchen business.

- looking at different, interesting things
Exhibitions, museums, library roaming, taking in street trends. Looking around with justification, and side effect of not actually taking time off work. Or being inspired whilst actually not working. It generally lasts for approximately two weeks at the beginning of every project, before hermit studio mode kicks in... which takes something like, three months? six months? That probably explains why some legendary fashion designers have equally legendary interpersonal skills (but then, it's not always the case, there are nice fashion designers out there these days.)

- fabrics galore
Many of those around me would attest that I have a passion (unhealthy obsession?) for satin ribbons. I can recall enjoying the touch of them since as young as three years of age. So, my little desire of running my hands on different textures of fabric actually gets an academic/professional justification these days. I don't design with satin that much these days, but I still use the first half-minute of entering any fabric store to run my hands up and down bolts of satin fabrics. It's such a joy.
Oh, and please don't cheat and try to sell off any satin-weave fabric as silk to me. I can tell.

- having a physical result at end of heavy toil
Actually being able to show and tell the results of my work is one of the joys of doing what I do now. Not just spreadsheets or arguments, actual physical stuff. It comes with a side effect of non-recognition of endless preceding failures (only the good stuff gets presented and circulated around) and distinct amnesia of "it actually takes hard work to get to the glamour bit", but hey. I can wear my final pieces around town. Spreadsheets sit on nicely labelled yet nondescript virtual corners of a hard-disk; printed out, their blank reverse sides become notepaper (if they are blank. Otherwise they get shredded right away.) Oh well, to each object their own end use. Old clothes bits end up as rags for shoes.
The downside is, if the produce is c***, I wouldn't want to show them around. And people will think I've been spending the past few months doing nothing, since nothing was being paraded around.

Take care, people.

uncomfortable cossetting

To illustrate how deeply and almost singularly enmeshed I am with the task at hand (i.e. major project which counts for two-thirds of graduating mark), I have missed quite a few bits of news like this and a few other deaths. Rather late given the fact I used to work for the conglomerate, and only because a fellow ex-worker said something about it on Facebook (which I don't check often/thoroughly these days.)

Cooping up to work drives productivity high, but at what price?

moda panica à la студент

According to R Phillips (yesterday), a design practitioner is supposed to get through something in the range of 3000-4000 drawings a week. Which works out to be around 500 drawings a day, more or less. Which made me wonder how he managed to do his supposed part of practising design.

And which, last night, resulted in this:




Seems like I need to learn to parla italiano, or 中国語を話しなさい, or 러시아어를 말하십시오 for that sake.

Just for fun, lovely readers.

discomfort produces results

Pardon the title.

Having been raised in the little-supervision-and-maybe-not-enough-discipline camp, I have noted that I tend to work best under pressure. Not undue pressure, but just enough to perk up concentration and effort. Such as times like these... ah, for goodness sake I am meant to pattern-cut, not wail on my blog.

Anyhow.
Look at what I did last night! Here comes visualbite:


(Guess how it went for me last night.)

So yes, probably mild hunger is good. Although prolonged hunger is not preferred, and rational-sounding hunger ("I must be 8-stone skinny" types) are not quite physiologically justified.

And after attending a visual communication lecture earlier, why didn't we have this talk two months earlier I feel like this blog needs to be typed out or laid out in InDesign... any pointers, dear readers?

Take care.

this plus this plus that

I've been trashing my living room floor with photocopies, tear sheets and fabric scraps for the past some time (was it November when it had some semblance of a normal living room?) Yeah, yeah - blame three projects running at the same time, blame my preference for a warm bed, blame the overcommitment, blame me in general...

Anyway.
My course is notorious for the lack of academic writing its students are expected to dish out - the lack of reading other than visual imagery vampirism. Or, exposure to non-picturebooks.
I've also been happily traveling around a very small area on the continent (as dear blog-reader once read/heard/came across), picking up bits and bobs of fabric. Whatever fine fabric, or dream material, or strange invention I would sample in the faint hopes of actually marginally benefiting a textile manufacturer. And preferably share the courier cost with some other folk from my intake. Oh yeah.

Almost three months down the line, I find myself replying to a forwarded email on how VAT charges work, and how much should be paid to the supplier and courier respectively, etc etc etc. (It's not 20 bloody percent, it's 7.6) Managed to come up with two possible alternatives, which is probably doing not much comfort to my courier-share other half and probably not what a tax consultant would give to its customer. (Note to self: you have just reduced your chance of working in tax/finance consultancy. Cue boos.) But then, non-awareness of tax and tariff is everywhere - myself included - and probably it's good that there is some sort of information available to clarify how much charges are applicable to different types of goods, and at which point in time they become payable. The commerce degree makes me comfortable mucking around numbers and reading self-looping circular logic of T&T. I may have just found myself a niche area in fashion I can work on.

I am truly my mother's offspring.

=.=

Why am I doing tax stuff at midnight?!
Whatever happened to designing and cutting and job-hunting?

In light of £45 courier charges, I. Must. Order. Fabric. In. One. Shot.
Next learning hurdle: How to buy just enough to sample, all in one order.
I guess this is what Adele meant by 'they didn't teach us this stuff in college'...

Marsha,
wanting a daschund,
been reading Suhu lately.

[ex]changing minds

I'm quite happy to have design tutorials again, even when it means working myself crazy over the things I need to prepare (why does mmy head feel so giddy these days?) It means there is someone I can bounce things off with.

Also, I suspect my assigned design tutor is probably happier with Hoxton-type folks, which I tend not to be, even though I live in Hoxton. My mannerisms are probably too Sloaney for college folks. Or mumsy, depending on who you hear from. Last night I went to bed early in the morning - a combination of late finish at work, bus-waiting and a drawing spree - but it was very strictly in bed at home, granny style, and living in the heart of clubland hasn't increased the appeal of changing and trotting down for a long night at the clubs... although it's helpful to have a 24-hour neighbour dealing in electricity and gas. And two doing late-night (early-morning?) trade in kebabs and fast food.

Last weekend I met up with a certain ex-Miss (from 3 years back). She, her London-based friend and I went for tea, and only from this non-domiciled girl did we find out that M&S has a beauty line! How strange is that. Note: actually, how normal is that, considering that apparel companies have a hobby to branch into beauty products.

Coming back to designing, I'm finding myself to be a serial polygamist when it comes to sketchbook and log-keeping. Two sketchbooks (each with mutating functions), a to-work-on photocopy pile, a reject-but-potential photocopy pile, endless loose sheets of paper, drawings on bits of design on torn-off-from patern paper. And a somewhat catalogued database of digitally collected imageries and photographs. I do think a lot. And I find myself to be quite scatty, too.

Sewing-wise, this has led me to start bagging cut-up fabric pieces that belong to different garments into a bag of their own. Hopefully this approach would help.

And, erm, actually, I quite like darts in sleeves... if they are somewhoat horizontal. Because they blend with elbow-area wrinkling (thanks to Bertrand.)

Shoes are in the pipeline, although for now I am rather freaking out and feel like running around like a headless chicken. This giddy head addition isn't doing me a favour, either.

Have a good day!

the bait too bloody obvious

Pet hates
- "where are you from? did you go back home this summer?" (on first design lesson)
- "do something with batik/ulos/songket/[insert your favourite textile tradition here]"
- certain types of I-am-too-proud-of-my-country final year collections
- 50 collections of laser-cut dresses, or 50 of digitally printed collections, or 50 collections illustrated on gaunt boxy-shouldered tweepy females, or "I am inspired by draping and bias cut" x50... just anything in quantity within a graduating year
- chiffon on satin evening dresses (next, please)
- darts

Also, but what is it with these?


Visual juxtaposition? Re-exercising Antwerp RA's third year brief? Or can he get away with this because he's bloody not colonialised to be classified as 'ethnic'?

Bruno said: vassever. Bloody hell to whatever 'do this' or pet hates. The more "multiple readings" I can cram into a collection, the better. Whether the exercise is seen as me bending to their [so-called] cultural will and the inevitable forces of globalisation is auxiliary.

I'm off to bed. Good day.

food thoughts

Did anyone who reads The Times notice that AA Gill and somebody else (I forgot who and which paper - but one I read recently) both did reviews for the same restaurant?
Review-wise, it has to be said my favourite columnist so far is still the characteristically unapologetic Giles of the Coren fame. If only he comes in vacuum-packed portions...

That aside, it's one paper down. A few more tribulations to go :))

Enjoy your Sunday!

essay orgy

I decided, quite begrudgingly, to follow the 'me exploring contemporary art' thread to write my essay, to be handed in at the end of this week. I have my own interests and I have objections about being fashion/garment-making vassals of artists whose works I 'explore', and I'm quite angered/disappointed by the intellectual boundaries the tutors in charge have set for this essay. This is not my first degree, I can think more independently in relation to my fellow classmates, and I felt that the tortuous college fee should somehow justify a fruitful and satisfying learning experience.

Anecdotally, a Harvard student once complained about the teaching he received, since he is 'a customer of the institution'. To which a member of the staff rebuffed, he is 'also a product of the institution'. As a customer-product, the way I decided to make peace with this contradiction is to subvert the generation of this 'product' of college the way corsets are used nowadays to signify postmodern feminine independence. And write the high-art-lite stuff they like. Sceptically speaking, three full-time members of staff (whose responsibilities include teaching around 15-20 hours per week and need on average 42 hours p.p.p.w. to sleep) handling 200+ essays over a period of four weeks - there is only a limited amount of time a member of staff can 'shower' his/her marking attention on my essay before they have to move on to another one.

Another interesting point I learnt so far is that the art/design/cultural discourse arena in London is actually so interlinked with each other... so 'small', you may say. Here is the reason why:

Tracey Emin (infamous) went to Maidstone College of Art

¦¦

Janis Jeffries taught there when Emin went to study

¦¦

Angela McRobbie gave a talk with JJ (which I attended)

¦¦

'Claire' was friend with McRobbie

¦¦

'G' was related to 'Claire'

¦¦

'H' is [socially] related to 'G' and to me

So - the conclusion?

...from the essay orgyist, take care and have a good day.