LONDON FASHION WEEK

My Sportswear Project- This is going well I feel. At the beginning of the project I set my sights on designing skiwear inspired jumpsuits to be different, but as I discovered that nearly my whole class were doing jumpsuits I decided on swimwear. This kinda makes sense seeing as though I want to become a Lingerie Designer one day and this is more suited!! I looked at various swimwear designers for inspiration and discovered some great designers that I hadn't even heard of such as Zimmermann!! His Designs are Amazing! (See Below)
I purchased my fabric for my design in London and me being me I had to get the best so I spent £75 on fabric!!!!!!! .....and yes after I thought about it I did feel a little sick but oh well!!!!!!!!!
I had to change my design as the expensive fabric which I chose wasn't exactly stretchy and easy to sew on! So for that part I have changed my lace up cosy into a 'cut-out' bikini and the sequined neon pink fabric, which cost me the earth is only being used on the bust part of the garment hahaha!! I'll still make it look amazing though!

Fashion Week- Last weekend I worked at London Fashion Week and it was amazing (but this I did not think until day 2)!!! Me and my good friend Sophie shared a hotel room in Marble Arch for the duration and as I kind of expected the worst Soph refused to even shower the first night as it was that bad!!!! Anyway... the first day of the experience started on a saturday and as we didn't know our timetable when we booked our hotelroom we booked 4 nights from the saturday-tues, then when we got out timetables we realised that our group started at 6.30am!! I rang the hotel but by then they were fully booked so Soph and I woke up at 2:30am and I drove us to a friends on the outskirts of London to park the car. We then got the Tube straight to the Science Museum with our cases!!
We were met by Adela Straughan, our contact from ‘the doll’, who appeared very friendly and welcoming. We were asked to leave our belongings in a corner and informed that we would be helping to set up for the event for the day. We were shown to a lift and were informed that there will be a very large delivery of bottled water and we would have to carry the boxes to the appropriate room for the guests. This was extremely exhausting and the boxes were super heavy but our team of workers seemed to plough through this task and make it out the other side without collapsing, which was a relief. We were given similar tasks throughout the day, and by the end of the day me and sophie were just about ready for bed!!

The next day the real work started, (the proper work) and it was amazing!!


My first show - Felguni and Shane Peacock - the dresses were sooo amazing! I actually text my boss at Richmond Classics and asked him to look at the dresses for the shop!
For this show my model was called Palloma and she was lovely, I was in awe of all of these amazingly tall skinny girls!! They were all really lovely and I was actually quite surprised. I kind of knew how to act around models and respect their space as I have been in there situation kind of before so I was just very polite and helpful and didn't suck up and it seemed to work as they all seemed to like me.
Krystof Stroznya was the second show that I worked on and my second model was called 'Masha'. She was a beautiful blonde brazillian model who I'd been warned about as being a 'stroppy Diva' so I brased myself for the worst but she turned out to be really sweet, and she thanked me and gave me a hug so maybe the guy who told me that she was like that was the problem!!???
The designer Krystof seemd very down-to-earth and lovely but his show was sooooo unorganised!!!!!!!! he didn't even bring enough shoes for half of the models to wear so they had to keep swapping them over, and the show proved v.stressful but we seemed to get through it and pull it off so thank goodness for that!!

Day 3 Pam Hogg - This was a cool show!!!! Daisy Lowe, Alice Dullal, Jamie Winston was among the famous celebrities/models that we were dressing and they were all lovely! Pam herself seemed very genuine and friendly and her collection was so awesome! They were bright, sparkly, lycra jumpsuits so quirky and unique yet so current!! I saw Peaches Geldoff, the older lady from Britain's Next Top Model... many many famous faces!! It was great such opportunity to work with people like that! (I was not allowed to take photo's but a took a sneaky couple so I'll upload them soon!!
My model was called Anook and she was a simple, easy to work with model, she was v. pretty but maybe not as striking as the other models I had worked with..

The Final Day - On the final day we were called in to work at 6:30am! I had a Music Industry meeting the previous night and had a bit of a headache from a few glasses of wine so was not enjoying the early rise! We then were sat around for nearly 3 hours not doing anything because the designer had brought his ownteam and they were not sure if we were needed.. we were (needed) in the end (at last minute) and I dressed a model called Drielly she again was a very lovely girl and was easy to work with but one problem.. the shoes she were given were nearly two sizes too small!!! I felt sooo sorry for her as I watched her try and squeeze her feet into these tiny shoes and then the buckles were so bent I had 3 people helping me to do them up!! I'm really surprised she didn't collapse on the runway!!

We finished for the day around noon and had 6 hours spare until we were called back to de-rig for the evening. So me, Soph and Jen took our swollen and bistered feet off around London to find our fabric for our Sportswear project. After a painful stroll down Berwick Street I found the most sparkly and in-your-face neon pink sequinned fabric and shiny purple lycra and thought "Perfect!"- see I kinda like doing things a bit out there and unique! I got chatting to the man in the fabric store and he was telling me a story of how he met his wife in Bournemouth and yadayadayada.. and as I was a bit tierd and getting to the point where I was drifting off I didn't think twice and spent £75 on my fabric!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only later did I think about it and felt a bit sick : ( !!!!!
We went to topshop and other shops and did the rounds and then we crashed out in starbucks and could hardly move! I took my bleeding feet out of my shoes and rested them on top of my shopping bags and just dreamed that I didn't have to go back and de-rig until 11pm and then get back to Hatton Cross and then drive back to Bournemouth!!!!
After a couple of hours in Starbucks we decided between us that we'd ask the people from the Doll if it was possible to not stay for the de-rig and we explained the situation and hey pretso they said we could go!!!!!!!!!! :)
So we dragged our cases onto the rush hour tubes and squeesed in amongst the passengers all the way back to Hatton Cross where my producer Cliff happily picked us up and gave us a lift back to my car at the Studio and we got on the road home whist breifly stopping at Fleet for some much needed KFC :) We got home and passed out for the count at around 10pm!

All in all the trip was amazing but soo tiering!!!!!! and expensive!!!!!! but would recommend it to anyone as it was definatly a great experience!