PART FIVE | DESIGN ASSISTANT BLOG

Mon 13th April

Met Georgia today, she's specialising in print. She showed me her line up and the garments that she'd more or less completed, I was suprised to see that there was not a lot of print used in her collection, her three looks incoporated three liberty prints, all floral, which she'd sublimated which gave the prints a camoflage feel. Almost all of Georgia's garments include hand stitching with thick yarns in pastel tones and contrasting neons, lot's of hand stitching going on, v. cute! I wasn't needed for a few days.

             

Wed 15th

First day interning, shitting myself. When we met, Georgia mentioned that she'd asked to be paired with someone who was good at hand sewing - haven't the foggiest why I was picked, I don't think i've touched a needle since foundation FMP. My first task was to tack the underneath of -cut out circles which the edges were hand stitched, all on an outer layer of some funky trews- to the inner trouser leg, on the seam. A very straight forward task which took me a very long time - but i've always been slow, even with my own work; sometimes it's because i'm unsure of what i'm doing and at 20yrs old i'm still scared to ask and the other 50% of the time i'm taking my time, being careful, being slow and steady, winning the race. Next I began tacking the seams of trouser legs flat, good practice for my slip stitch, I did a pretty darn good job too, unfortunately side seam is all I managed to complete before I realised it was getting late and I still had a couple of samples to complete before the following days' collab hand in.

Thurs 16th

Hand in complete, quick breakfast break, straight to the studio. Todays I was sent on my first outing, running about buying bits and bobs on Oxford street: I went to John Lewis, Morplan and MacCulloch and Wallis (walked into M&W and you know when you see someone you follow on instagram in RL, had a lil starstruck-type moment cause the girl who works there takes brilliant selfies on her journey to work and always -and I think purposely- captures other people on the bus in her selfie backgrounds #sass #banter). Wasn't able to pick up any 7" zips, only 9", nor could I get one in a peach tone so I had to sub for baby pink and it was down to me to choose a coordinating green zip for a green liberty print. 

Also, didn't realise there was a John Lewis on Oxford street so i'd stopped off at Brent Cross for no reason really. Although I did manage to score a pair of topshop jeans for £4.50 so who's buzzin! Might have done a little bit of shopping for myself after everything had been ticked off the above.

Corinne's list: 

- fake tan (essential obv)

- new Hairbrush

- something new from topshop sale if there's anything in my size/cheap enough, which there wasn't but I bumbed into three friends down there, what a cowinkydink

Also, also, why is it that Oxford street is just full of stabucks', costa's, pret's n that but when you're actually looking for one because your third year said "get yourself a starbucks or something on my card too x" you can't find one.

Friday 17th

Late start today, my only task was to cut binding for a pair of trews. This honestly petrified me and took me a good while to complete; I wasn't sure on whether Georgia was bothered if the binding was going to end up having seams along it, made the job harder for myself 'cause I forgot that pattern masters already have width measurements marked on them, forgot to not roll back and forth with the rotary cutter and cut into where the seams of the binding would be THREE TIMES, I just let her silently inspect them. 

Mon 20th

Spent the morning playing around with the Liberty fabrics, placing and pinning them under the sleeve where they'd show through the circular cut outs. Once the final placements had been decided, I cut them out, fused them with Georgia's assistance as I'd never used the heat press-like fuser next door, cut them again and began tacking them to the inside of the sleeve. I'm rather enjoying this hand stitch practice. After this I sewed on my first ever popper onto a white mesh jacket with heavily hand sewn yarn details before Georgia showed me a load of her samples. I can see exactly why we'd been paired together, her work is so colourful and fun (not to toot my own horn or owt) - overheard that she's won the colour competion a couple of times too, I'm not sure what place she came but that made me a little bit hopeful - does this mean I have cool, colourful work too/have potential for the colour comp/is this why we were paired together? Who knows. She pulled out this piece of blue foam wrapped up in neon yarn and I honestly had to stop myself from shouting 'yas'. We had a little think about potential shoe designs and decided that the following day would be shoe day.

 liberty print placement on sleeve, me fass, shoe ideas yes gal

Tues 21st

Have thoroughy enjoyed shoe day! Simple tasks completed today included cutting and sticking and wrapping foam up in yarn. Around lunch time I had to pop to Goodge street for some sheets of foam, got side tracked by the new printed goodies in paperchase (going to go back at some point and buy that sparkly, fluffy top watermelon pen), managed to get everything easy peasy other than some dark, opaque, neon tape. Hunted in rymans and found nothing, hunted in tiger and found a potential and then a heart shaped notebook, heart shaped kitchen sponges and a heart shaped, pink nail brush for myself and then just stole some neon tape from paperchase 'cause I couldnt be arsed going to pay for it, plus i'd already opened it out of the packaging to check the transparensy so it was just quietly slipped into my back pocket. Turns out Georgia didn't need it, but the deed had already been done.

Shopping list and sample. Cut a couple of patterns for the inside and outside of the sole then cut the patterns in foam and used copydex (another first) to attach it all, my last job was too make a pattern for the soles of one pair of platforms, Georgia likes the idea of using her sublimated liberty prints for the soles which would also be covering the yarns that wrap around the heel and sole of her third pair of platforms.

I wanna customise shoes and accessories for everyone! Nomsa got to cover AF1's in modge podge and pink glitter today, like, urban wear goals y'no. Possibly my last day helping Georgia out today, I'll only know in the morning whether there's a last few jobs she needs me in for and on show day. It's been cute seeing all the print girls' collections, I think seeing what you're capable of doing in the print room definitely confirms for me that print is the specialism for me, I wish during the rotation we were shown all the print techniques and not just heatpress with transfer paints and foiling; I think my final prints could have been so much more tactile, the grid prints I did would have been lovely if they were flocked!

 

 End of the day. Seeing as i'd finished early i thought i'd make a start on the essay but instead i wasted 2 hours chatting to everyone and anyone and then just sauntered home. Snapchat from lew-lew miming 'drop that kitty'. yes yes.

Thurs 22nd
Show day! Wishing i'd volunteered to be a dresser now. In at 8.30am, 2 coffee's down, had been sat down the majority of the day. A liberty print came loose from the fusing on a sleeve so I quickly slip stitched that bad boy back in and there was nothing more for me to do. I could have popped to brent cross to buy bra's for Georgia ('s models who didn't want their nips on show) but I made halina do it - she wanted to get a new pair of sandals anyway.

Jessie was off her bonce all afternoon on coffee, I can't remember how we got onto the conversation of pets but she showed me a photo of her poochie, Princess smiling. (Highlight of my life)/diy sos gal on the vans job, thought i'd repair these shoes to wear thinking that i'd be on my feet running about all day. nah.