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.

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.

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.

mysterious symptoms

The weather gets colder, the woolies come out, and the clocks roll back an hour: it's time to dig out Tiger Balsam. I've been hovering between states of coldness, flatulence, recurring hunger (not that I didn't eat normally) and mental distraction before speculating... hmmm maybe this is what people call masuk angin. Or cold.

Thank God and my dad for the Tiger Balsam.

P.S. I will go to bed earlier (like, 10) and wake up at 4:30. This is a regime I want to ingratiate myself to. I work better in the small hours.

defense or counter-attack?

Hello again.

In the past few days I've been swimming around the issue of getting visual images that are tangible enough to present and contextual enough to write an essay on. And, as three days have passed since the initial 'your images are too intangible' verdict, here are further observations I've made:

Communicating with tutors
The 'initial finalised' visual imagery I chose speak to me and I can design from them; not so for my tutors. It seems like they want something noisier, loaded with symbolisms and layered with multiple meanings. The difference between what I see and what they want to see are like yōkan to trifle.

Dealing with noise and confusion
Back in Melbourne, I would've gone off to a cafe with a [boy] friend or two if I were stressed. But since good coffee in London is hard to find, and since I have an Italian stove-top coffee maker, I prefer to prepare and consume food instead. The food prepared and consumed range from meat loaves to apple crumbles, with a good dose of coffee washed down with water in between. As a result, I'm working my water filter more than a family of four would for a day's usage (filtered water is used for drinking, boiling, making coffee and filling up the electric steamer.)

The 'f' habit
'f' is a letter I would press when I'm laying out structure for a blog post. Why?
...............................
Because it's a key with a tactile 'orientating' bar I tap with my left index finger.

She does Guido Crepax too
Well, we'll see. Seeing her work reminds me of East End-flavoured mondofragile... or like my sister's enameled girl-kiss-boy necklace, but skinnier. I do notice cwc-i tends to favour this style genre for illustrations. And yeah, I checked her out because of her surname (wonder if Gina moves within this girl's circles?) But no, I found out about signore Crepax whilst visiting Milan - his books were the only ones I couldn't find on amazon.

Later bits
Alright then, that's it. I didn't buy fabric on Tuesday. I'm writing some parts of my proposal - there is a certain part of market placement I favour. I'm good[-ish] at doing market positioning but that doesn't mean the "thou art made for fashion marketing" label is a descriptive label for my sole existence in the industry. Maybe, as G&G mentioned, it is a favourite pastime the specialised British/English creative industry circles tend to do.

Take care!

the other side of the table

Hello again people.

The final academic year has started, and trips around Europe have now become a recent past. Since one of the final year units involve a 'reflective summary of professional and personal journey' throughout a year, it is rather second nature for me to blog (again.) The difference being, it would take on an emphasis on the relationship between professional results (i.e. academic work) and my personal circumstances. How do they influence each other? I guess we all will come to see this point in the not-so-distant future.

Below are a few topics I have come up with during the first two weeks of the year:

Lack of visual imagery

The role of imagery in contemporary fashion is undeniably pivotal. Which is why, when it comes the researched images around which my final collection will be based, my tutors (and some classmates - over time) let out an undeniable moan of 'there is not enough visual imagery'. I don't like borrowing images per se, tend to create my own set of imagery (drawings anyone?), and being from the camp of "if it is published in a book then it's a bit stale" didn't help either with the image-collecting. Yes, I do take pictures. Yes, I do draw. Finding pictures which I like, complete with a common thread? That's a more difficult task for me to accomplish. Either I don't like the individual pictures, or the common thread would be deemed too weak. I went around as far as the British Library to find images, only to be greeted by blank stares from its librarians when I asked them how I could find historical illustrations.
One of the tutors commented that the research I did will make a good sociology book along the line of Catherine Mercer's talk. So far so good, except for the fact the course is a visual one. (Do self-generated images based on tables and graphs comply just so?)
I find that I can write cultural studies essays well, and I can research images for 'shallow' design purposes (i.e. non-contextual use) well. Marrying the two is probably the challenge I have now.

Being on the other side of the table

During the summer term in the last academic year, it was easy sailing: it was a group project, I decided not to place any consciouly blatant personal aesthetic interest in it, and therefore I had an easier time being directed to achieve a specific visual and tactile outcome. There was one girl in my group who was decidedly gothic whom we had to calm because she really wanted to do space age dark glamour... the unadulterated concept and shapes wouldn't fit into the client brief we were given (how many people who are into this magazine are into gothic anyway? most likely nil.) Sooo, her aesthetic was scaled back.

This time around, I am on the rejected side of the table. Top it with what seems to be a lack of 'tangible visual imagery', an essay due within two weeks and you get the semi-wreck I am in. Except that, in my case, I appear way too relaxed for people to notice the stress.

Reaction

One of my favourite modes of dealing with stress is cleaning: chuck things away, de-scale the sink, de-grime the bathroom, cook some apple crumble (well this is what I did in the past few days anyway.) When the red-hot emotional tension is off and the academic challenge is on, what am I to do?

Maybe I'll start looking at other cultural studies essay topic that are listed on the online announcement board. I'll keep you posted on that.

OK, off to fabric sale now...

behind the studio

I hope this post covers a bit of what I've been going through this term - work experience at a fashion company.

I opened myself to a slew of areas I could stick my hands and teeth into: research and design, manufacturing, sales/marketing/management and media positions. I believe I was well-equipped to tackle any of the above areas without much problems, and my CV probably has enough backing in its own right. I took two sessions and whittled down my CV from four pages to an unbelievable page count of two! Apparently the placement broker halve every page number figure we came up wth. Or maybe it happened only to me and another girl.

The hunt for internship started in September, and by early November I was frustrated since I clocked only two interviews with paltry reception and became quite desperate to secure one in order to pass this term's learning objective (10-week internship and a 3000-word report on the internship.) Early December came, over half of the class seemed to have secured an internship and I still belonged on the unsecured side of things. Should I take the Melbourne offer and miss a winter? Or should I go back to Indonesia for a decent internship? I was rapping my fingers on the desk and wham - three offers came in hours apart from each other! They were all studio jobs in design and development. I picked one and rejected the other two.
(I realised I've been making choices out of threes, so maybe it's time to learn to be patient and reasonably wait for 'that one offer' to come.)

I've got to admit that I'm quite lucky relative to what my classmates land themselves onto. The hours are 10-6 weekdays, with the unsavoury-yet-almost-ubiquitous weekend extensions a few weeks prior to a catwalk or a trade show. The extensions themselves can run either at quite reasonable hours or simply be nothing more than a desperate attempt to create show pieces (or even core collection for some time-challenged designers), although I doubt people would actually be sane enough to sew and embellish at 2AM - interns may be endearingly kind to do it for your, though. According to the sample machinist at work, this is usually the case for higher-end brands. No thank you, I love to droll along supermarket aisles and have my dinner at home before the short hand points to 9. I'm glad this isn't my lot.

Other than that, I had minor trips to source trimmings - four trips so far out of 33 days.
Two trips to deliver garments.
Four factory visits.
I scourge over their purchase invoices and try to determine where they get their supplies from and who ordered what, and learnt that they tried to push people to purchase in GBP because it's financially more advantageous due to current exchange rates.
I learnt that there are 10,000 different classifications of garments and uniforms currently used for exporting purposes (with different tax implications) and that the company uses about... 50 of them, maybe?
I learnt that grading a dress into one size costs £90.
I learnt that saving fabric is not always the method that saves the most money (depending on how you value your time laying out the pattern pieces), that cabbage is a curse of the outsorcer and a right of the manufacturer.
I learnt that many who work in fashion design are either vegetarians, pescatarians or partial to marinated olives.
I learnt that 'factory' really meant CMT employing less than ten workers, that you'd need to converse in Polish to understand the gossips around the machines, that Angela McRobbie's book frighteningly represents the reality and is a more elaborate explanation of why my mum was opposed to a career path in this industry.

These factors lead me to three conclusions:
- let's look for a paid internship in a related but different area
- maybe I should look for a career in the academic field
- what about post-study work experience?

To be continued - I need to go to work.

why education matters, and a degree is now worthless

This is an important talk on the current state of educational hierarchy and its increasing lack of relevance towards economic progress and, conversely, the future workplace.


What do you think?

(work in progress)

Print elective - sketchbook compiling done; samples ironed and in order; waiting on printing and additional last-minute samples (I still have a session next week) before sending sketchbook off to be professionally printed. Exercised software muscles and became proficient in InDesign within 24 hours.

Cultural studies elective - have read relevant materials extensively; currently preparing essay draft to be checked this morning.

Research - ...don't ask. Need to finish garments somehow, have a proper photo shoot (hence finishing garments) - this weekend - somehow, and prepare double-sided A2 poster/foldout by next Thursday in the morning.

I don't even feel compelled to go grocery-shopping D:
Two more weeks - I just need to hang in there and make things happen.

(seeing double)

This comes from today's (Tuesday's) elective Print session.


It looks like a Rothko.
Maybe the exhibition poster did rub on me. All that time spent waiting in the tube...

Okay, back to flat work.

(Monday's thoughts)

So I asked my lecturer/seminar leader about my essay plan.
It was properly done, but to me it felt as flat as a bottle of Coke left open.
He told me to wait until next lecture's material is properly explained next week.
(Oh, OK... I'll wait.)

This week's cultural studies seminar on the persistence of sweatshops was one I had been waiting for since the term started. It is refreshing and a lot more grown-up to have fellow students sharing their thoughts on the issue with an academic slant and less on the sweatshops-are-evil-let's-eradicate-them bent. Maybe it's because we've been immersed in the subject of fashion for some time we have come to understand that it's not because of fashion itself sweatshops exist even today; it's the desire for obtaining possessions that turn obsolete sooner in the eyes of society that drives the hunt for 'value fashion' and keeps Primark, Topshop, M&S et al in flush business despite general economic setbacks (recession, if you like.) And it's precisely this desire for all things new that makes us less willing to spend more on quality pieces on the basis that we will throw the soon-to-be offending garment away in a year or even a few weeks. Despite this attitude, clothes are still made/produced in a very similar sequence. So eventually the value savings are subsidised out of production costs: fabrics, factory overhead, labour. The icing on the cake rests on the fact that branded goods are produced back-to-back with seemingly commodified mass items, often in the same factory - no need to call names here. Even if brands are caught in the publicity of how dubious their supply chain is, they have the easy option of whitewashing their hands and award their contract onto another subcontractor/manufacturer down the road from the one they left.

I also want to point out that the Fairtrade/organic label refers to how the textiles in a garment was acquired: how it was grown/collected and processed into cloth. What it doesn't refer to is how the said textile is then processed into clothes. So, buying Fairtrade/organic may guarantee the wellbeing of the farmer that grew the cotton for your shirt... but what about those who cut and made it up?
My dislike on the Fairtrade/organic garments movement arises because it is being increasingly used as a branding feature by being represented as 'good', 'clean' and 'politically correct' to the consumer whilst hiding what could be flagrant abuse of workforce. I'm very sceptical on the issue, and therefore do not buy Fairtrade or organic products by rule. (On a tangent, I prefer free-ranging eggs over caged ones, though, because they justify the extra 20p for half-dozen by their better flavour.)

Since this is a blog, and not a medium on which I would write an unannotated academic essay, I shall take a different approach on the issue.

I have bought and worn things from Primark.

Not because I want to say "it costs me so little to look good."
Not because I plan to throw away my clothes after three washes (the general consensus for a £1.50 Primark tank-top is to throw it out since almost nobody in their domestic sensibility owns an £600 coverstitch machine to fix the unravelling seams.)
Not because I like the aesthetic sensibility.
I had to get outfitted for a job pronto, and given the meagre pay, blowing hundreds of pounds on a spiffy black shirt-and-trouser combo isn't on my definition of being reasonable.

Exercising ethical judgements then becomes a luxury statement - you can afford to be ethical with your clothes because you can afford to do so.
What do you think?

Other than that, I talked with said lecturer about doing a dissertation (instead of a collection) for my final year. He was happy with my expression of interest, but I will still need the blessings of my course leader if it was about to happen. Ultimately it boils down to what I want to do after I graduate: research or manufacture?

I don't have the answer for now.

He also said that I'm like this enough to do well on a dissertation (given my background and past track record). Which sounds v. flattering on first instance and grows darker as I looked up its meaning. Theoretical! Hrm. A certain Mr picked me not based on my essay, though, so there must be something else he is seeing. More hhhhrrrm.

Which brings me to the point...
Architects have their practice and write their manifestos into books that end up on academic reading lists of architecture students (seven out of 14 for Kingston Uni.) And who exactly wrote the articles on academic reading lists of fashion students? A considerably smaller posse (around 3 out of 19.) No wonder the general public sees fashion studies as a coffee table-style pursuit of the impulsive.
What is preventing practising fashion designers from publishing 'meatier' books? And what can be done to overcome this?

...with this post, I think I have done justice this blog deserves.
Comment away immediately, readers ^__^

(research leads to...)

A few days is probably enough to reduce blood-puking likelihood to negligible. I'm quite happy doing my flat work these days, even though 'these days' would probably mean two or three more days before I throw myself into the chaos that is toile-making. In the meantime, I helped a classmate scour for evidence of hip-hop by Lagerfeld at Chanel, and found a picture of that infamous corset (two little links for you curious lot.)

... but nevermind the impending brunt.
Here's a small snippet from my classroom:


Have a nice day :))

Beggin'

Possible purposes of creative visual research:
- see what everyone else is doing
- spot trends (existing, directional etc...)
- find a visual reference to what's conjured up in one's mind
- make one sick of repetitive imageries

So, at the end of the second week, I can squarely say I still like research but the intensity of doing so makes me want to puke blood/shred my brief into pieces/....... [insert something mildly destructive here]. I get the point of doing so, though, which means I'll stick to it for another week or two.

What I'm up to is possibly just covering half or two-thirds of the things we were supposed to look for in the past week. It seems like the next fortnight will be a bit of a scary hell for me. Especially when one ran out of printer ink twice this week (time for stationery shopping.)

Note to self: get half-dozen of printer inks back home.

P.S. third-year students are apparently in a worse rut - some had been told that one's proposed collection is 'too narrow', another 'is trying to do too many things at once'. The respective remedies proposed by board of senior tutors were then, respectively, 'more silhouettes' and 'focus and redo research'. They are to present full-sized samples next week. Congratulations!! You just enrolled yourself into a year of roller-coaster, nausea-inducing experience that is final year collection project.

Good luck for those in third year...

And now, off to uni.

(allotting time)

Details of my academic week contact time this term:
Cultural studies - 2 hours
Discipline/practical elective subject - 3 hours
Research (technical) - 7 hours
Research (design) - 7 hours
Computer skills - 3 hours (every other week)
Industrial placement prep - 2 hours (every other week)

Sub-total: 21.5 hours
Self-study time: as much as contact time on the very least
Total: 45 hours

Number of opening hours for technical site: 52
Number of library opening hours: 55.5
Number of relevant college sites: 4
Number of projects to hand in: 3

Conclusion: nightmare ahead.

Adorned in Dreams

It's a bit freaky to look at the list of compulsory readings for this term's elective cultural studies (titled Production and Consumption) and realize that I had read most of them at my own leisure in my first year. I repeat: at my own leisure. *shudder*

Well, to me it means I still need to revisit them for note-taking.
It also means I need to find something interesting in midst of 'compulsory readings' that will propel me to go and read more books listed under 'Resources', and other loosely related bits and pieces of academic writings. All these, and I'm still keen to read The Tale of Genji. Maybe I should have six eyes that can read/digest three different books simultaneously.

(I wonder if I should have taken Fashion Photograph instead?)

(is it, or is it not?)

Here are a few quotes I trawled through in process of completing my cultural studies essay...

Not only have men been reluctant to wear clothes that exude sexuality but they have also been loathe to indulge in other behaviour associated [emphasis added] with sexual display, including shopping.
--- Jennifer Craik

At least on the surface, consumer culture appeared, and indeed appears, to be beginning to deliver the individuality and difference that it had always promised.
--- Steven Miles

There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl [emphasis added]. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is suitable for the boy; while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.
--- The Infant's Department (June 1918)

One thing that fashion is quite categorically not is an expression of individuality.
--- Rosalind Coward

Value systems are inevitably embodied in our dress.
--- Elizabeth Wilson

Is fashion, then, a shallow subject? Think again.
Also, a suggestion on what to do to a wedding gown post-ceremony.
Seize the day :))

(compliance v mutiny)

On Thursday morning, there was a [rather unpleasant] news circulating that one of the tutors declared that all students in my degree's intake are to submit their illustration projects on Monday - a good seven weeks ahead of the original schedule. Needless to say, it was an unpopular (if not unreasonable) change.

...and how am I dealing with it?

Some of my classmates helplessly thrown themselves into the chaos that ensued.
A few vowed not to sleep over the weekend so that they could finish the illustrations.
As for me, I first tried to recruit other students to boycott the hand-in... and yet vacillate between compliance and mutiny.
(Oh, well...)

Hey! Get out of my way

Before we start, let me share something awesome a person on some part of the world has done with paper and cutting devices. Great video.

With nine days to submission/project completion, I still have plenty of things to do in hand. Oh, and also a wedding to attend.

Yesterday I went to Shepherd's Bush to buy more fabric again (yeah... we know the drill.) I was quite pleased that, despite the astronomical cost of jersey fabrics, denim is quite affordable at around £3-4 a metre. Now why do designers charge outrageous prices on jeans again?? Must be branding. (Uh-oh.) Anyway, I set out with £10 in pocket, confident that I'd get two metres of denim and use the change to buy some fruits.

The fabric store I went to was unusually busy for weekday early afternoons... hmmm... must be fellow students frantically buying fabrics. I couldn't find the bolt I wanted and so joined the long queue of customers waiting to be served. After an inderteminate amount of time (thanks to Wania for waiting for me), the guy who served me went high and low to find the elusive bolt of denim... only, after checking the storeroom twice, to find it was completely gone and there'd be another week before the store is having it restocked.

Great... not.

So now, my denim is no longer thick, stiff and grey-white; it's either mottled blue-brown or brown-khaki and - most importantly - soft and easily mouldable. Definitely a point to be grateful on, especially when I just spent an entire morning trying to sew on patch pockets with every type of threads I have on hand and failing miserably.

...and I guess KY's feat of French seaming an entire pair of trousers is the stuff of legend (the website ain't his.) It ranks highly on my list, along with Anne's feat of perfectly sewing a sleeve opening into the bodice's armhole.

Guess that means I still have plenty to learn.
And if you're wondering what fruit I got with some change, it was £2.40 worth of plums.