New Year, Perhaps a New Me?

So, I need to apologize for the hiatus. Life got in the way, and life became more interesting, and I lost interest in my blog. Go figure. But, I have officially graduated college (won't walk till the spring - college only does it once a year), and did everything I hoped for. That's right, I made a 3.88 cumulative GPA and am therefore graduating Magna Cum Laude (truthfully I wanted Summa Cum Laude, but this is ok too).

Right now I'm in the process of finding a job, and hopefully a career. I also started dating a great guy - got to kiss him on New Years too - and am starting to wonder where my life went. Sadly I'm in a bit of an artistic rut. It's like the world is without inspiration! Granted I have been sewing some stuff - just finished a skirt about an hour ago, actually. My little sis got a nifty apron for Christmas and I made my older sis a set of monogrammed napkins (designed the monograms and everything).

Speaking of skirts and the like, my wardrobe has begun to change. Starting with a good cleaning. Walk in closets are only good if you can walk into them. I'm also now the owner of a lovely "big girl" suit from Ann Taylor. My capstone class thought I was nuts for feeling a suit was appropriate for the fashion world, but I work with furs at the moment and hope to work in a corporate environment later, suits are very much smiled upon there. I also bought a cherry red romper today. It can double as a regular shirt, and once it gets warmer I plan on wearing it to death.

Also - my shoe collection has grown quite a bit in the last month. No, I'm not complaining, merely stating a fact.

These were a Christmas present from my baby sis!

These came about due to wearing out the heels on all my other black heels.

New Years' Eve... Surprisingly comfy too.

Birthday gift from my godmother.

Sadly I'm not allowed to wear these yet, they're for my big sis' wedding.

My closet isn't the only thing that has gotten a cleaning overhaul this past week. My desk is now capable of housing my sewing machine, computer and iPad (my Christmas gift from my dad - yes he is that awesome!) all at once. It's kind of epic... so is the pile of papers/garbage that I need to take out because of it.

I hope I might get back in the swing of writing this blog now that I have nearly too much time on my hands. Might have to try doing some "what I wore" pictures, who knows - I've joined Pinterest, perhaps Lookbook is next.

Happy New Year's!!!

Another rainy day

Therefore another day called off of work. At this rate I will officially be living the poor college student dream! Just in time for my last semester EVER of school. Oh the irony. Ah, well, c'est la vie. I will say that with all of these days off of work I have come to do some rather "productive" things. I use the quotes because some may find what I do productive, others might not. As it is I've started to look at apartments that I could move into come January (as long as I get a job in Chicago); I've caught up on Lonny Magazine; And because of getting called off three days in a row last week, have started to run. Say what?! For those of you who don't know me by name, or even face, I'm not a runner. In fact what I've been doing is a slow have jog/ half walk routine in my neighborhood. However, I've decided that I have two/three (depends on how you wanna look at it) goals that I want to achieve with this before the start of school on September 5th. The first is that I want to be able to be able to run/jog for five minutes straight without being winded, and the second is to be a bit more flexible in the forms of being able to touch my toes and do the right leg splits. Now I could do all these things my junior year of high school, so I know I could do it again. If I don't, then I don't, but it's a goal so at least I'm gunna try!
Besides my personal life, this blog is related to fashion/inspiration, is it not? So because of this I'm going to express my love for my newest obsession: Kate Spade. Whenever I look at the stuff it kind of makes me wonder how I was not an adoring fan before now! But I'm a believer now and that's what matters. And I must say: Forgive me father for I have sinned. I'm lusting for this skirt!

city lights lillith skirt

Isn't it fabulous!?! It's cute, full, and has New York City (I'd prefer Chicago myself...) lights printed at the bottom. Makes you wish you had $400 to just randomly blow, right?
The other piece that I absolutely adore form this collection is there newest novel clutch:

Pride & Prejudice clutch

Gotta say, this clutch would be boss to carry around. I have a few friends that don't carry purses, but just might carry this because it's Pride and Prejudice. Not to mention the script with the pen nub is just too cute. Perhaps in another life I shall be rich and will be able to afford these.

Wanna know what the best part of Kate Spade is? There is nothing on the market that I hate. There are those pieces that I love more than others, but there is no look, bag, shoe, or color scheme that I hate. It's kind of nice to finally realize that there is someone out there that caters to my taste. What's more is that I used Kate Spade as my launch point for my project for my Merchandise Management class. I created both a line and sales plan that caters to the child of a Kate Spade lover. Perhaps I'll show you all my Katie by Kate Spade line next time. I was rather proud of it. Now if only my teacher would post my grade...

P.S. This is what I want my sis' bachlorette party table(s) to look like:

Why not?

A simple question, but not always an easy one to grasp and over come. You see, for one of my Fundamentals of Design projects we needed to design collections (3-4 pieces will be submitted) so we could learn the creative processes, the marketing process (who's your customer), how to choose fabrics, colors, etc. Now I decided I wanted to do something very wearable: wool pencil skirts, cable knit sweaters... very J. Crew/Ann Taylor/Ralph Lauren. But that was the problem... there was nothing new or spectacular about the pieces. I wanted them to be marketable; she wanted something "New". In fact she told me she just didn't like the designs. SAD PANDA!!! But by this time I've become attached to the designs, so revamping was a hard idea to wrap my mind around. There were a few pieces I wanted to keep, but how? So for a week I sat an stewed over new ideas, and decided on a Lolita concept. Showed my teacher some of the ideas, and she loved it. Great! But what do I do when I still have the other sketches on the brain?!?! So I went to Jerry (my Fashion Product Evaluation teacher, and the Owner/Head Designer of the XOXO brand) and freaked out on him, begging for advice. After explaining what I had done, and what I thought about doing I said "but I don't think I can do that" - in reference to the Lolita style - and he said "Why not?" I was so caught off guard. Of all the people I thought would look at me and say I was right to assume it was a bad idea, he did anything but. Instead he pulled out some older fashion forcast books and some historically themed paper dolls and said: "Here. Do research." To make a long story short I took a few books home (trains and large amounts of books don't compute ladies and gentlemen) and have since revamped everything, and it's 100 times better. Only stipulation: I show him the designs on Monday. I'm kind of excited.
Here are a few of the preliminary sketches...
These two were from the original batch, and the ones I loved most:

And these are some of my new ones:

No colors yet, but I'm getting there.

One of my major forms of inspiration for this venture was actually the Art Deco fashion designer Erte. Wait... Lolita and Art Deco?!?! What?!?! Believe it or not, what that man used to do with fastening, especially buttons, on his coats was AMAZING!

Here are some pics of the paper dolls I used:

Another inspiration was the designer Schiaparelli. What that woman did for suits...:

Bye, Bye y'all! Have a stylishly fantastic week!

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

Perhaps I should just move my update day to Thursdays? Sadly the problem is, no matter what day I update on, I feel as though I have no time. Half my week is spent feeling as though I can't breath! That's what happens when you are trying to learn how to market a business, design a venue from scratch, how to construct a garment let alone how to design a garment... and I'm trying to get an internship, and keep my winter depressive state in check. I must say, if my eastern humanities teacher wants to keep doing a class of meditation once a week I'd be happy!

In other news, I've been addicted to saving inspiration pictures. My poor computer memory probably hates me, but it's rather hard not to! Especially when I keep making inspiration boards. So now I have pictures that range from the anniversary Barbie fashion show, men jumping like dorks, make-up ideas, and a couple of interior and exterior ideas to boot.

So for your delight, more color boards and pictures. Hurray for starting the weekend with color!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun


Colored Toile


Bunny Picnic

I'm late...

What can I say, flipping out while wearing a waist coat and a watch is rather adequate description for my personality. That, and I love Alice in Wonderland.

So I didn't write yesterday because I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to finish my first major visual project. How is this one major? Easy, unlike all the other ones, this one gets a letter grade. What was it? I had to make an inspiration board of a Spring/Summer collection with pictures, color pallet and swatches of fabrics (no, they didn't have to be the real thing, but they needed to give the illusion). We did not get to choose our designers. I was actually ok with not being able to choose my designer since it allowed me to try something new. And new I got. How is it that I have never looked at Emilio Pucci before?!



Then I looked back at older lines and realized what a "Pucci print" was... not a big fan. Don't hate them, but not a fav.

Other than that, I was woken up this morning by my dog getting a head rub from my exposed foot. Good to know my dog thinks outside the box, right?

Creativity = No go...

OK, maybe not a complete "no go", but it's definitely lacking. However, I'm trying to mend this by attempting a little side mission.

MISSION: "What I Wore" Drawings

I was inspired by Viet-My Bui over yonder, namely these. The thought that went through my mind was: "That's fantastic!" or: "I should do this so I can finally catalog what exactly I can were in public (i.e. work)!" It really all depends on what kind of detail you believe I think with initially... Personally I tend to believe my mind is like a blue-screen on an old computer, where in the lower right hand corner you have the message : Computing...

And before you point out that I'm comparing myself to one of the most intelligent creations of the 20th century, let me remind you that a computer is only as smart as its user a.k.a. it's pretty stupid.

On top of this mighty little mission, I finally found the pattern I want to use for some sewing projects of mine. No, I'm not that amazing and can draft my own patterns; I just wish I was. But for all you people out there who question my sanity in buying costume patterns, I'm actually using one of those silly patterns. No, not one of those easy, "sexy" costumes, but this:



SAY WHAT!?!?!

Technically I'm only going to be using the chemise/ shirt pattern from the girl in green, so don't freak out too much. Why? Because all I have to do is lengthen it and get rid of the lace cuff (a.k.a. not cut out the pattern piece) and voila! I have a tunic dress for my own enjoyment. I'll be making two, actually. One that I had been planning since this summer (it had this amazing corral print), but never got around to (I didn't go to the beach as much as I hoped), and the other will be a blue, jean-like cotton fabric that I was originally going to make a romper with.

In other news: my internet is being special, I have way too much homework, and I get to go site- seeing for class today... awesome.

Also, I will hopefully post my "What I Wore" drawing from today later (sadly the others were left at home...).

Ta!