Beautiful illustrations by Niky Roehreke.

Love the bright, collage style of images two and three, and the delicacy of image one.

Slight similarity to Naomi Preizler’s drawing style in the top image I think. See her work in my previous post:

http://pipdanielle.tumblr.com/post/18673301562/oh-dear-i-have-discovered-another-magazine-that-i

1. One Spring Morning.

2. Tote bag illustration for Billy’s Boutique in California.

3. Illustrated fashion piece.

Images from http://www.nikyniky.com/

I, a Fashion Communication & Promotion student at The University of Huddersfield, visited Ryedale Folk Museum on Thursday 17^th May for a unique opportunity to view some of the collection there.

Edward Harrison, the collector of these fine items, was there himself to answer any queries we had, and to see how we were getting on in our research.

We were set a task to investigate the items on our group’s table. My table had items from 1900 through to 1930. The items included were a bathing costume (interestingly once belonging to Edward’s Mother), embroidered lobster and shrimp motifs, a luggage roll, women’s magazines from the 1920’s, a fashion book and a photograph of a bathing pool from 1927. I and the rest of my group soon realised that there was a seaside and embroidery link between all of these items.

Being from a communications degree, I focussed on looking at the magazines on our table. These included ‘Woman’s Life’ and ‘Home Chat’; there was also an embroidery transfer magazine named ‘The Home Journal’. I was surprised to see that the content included in the vintage magazines does not differ so much from what magazines comprise of today.

Features in the magazines included – Gossip, fashion, beauty, real life stories, fictional stories, dieting advice, recipes, embroidery and pattern cutting order pages. The main notable difference is that ‘Woman’s Life’ and ‘Home Chat’ tried to cram all women’s interests in to their issues e.g craft, fashion, beauty, cooking. However, today we have a much larger variety of magazines which cater for each different genre.

From this research I created an A3 board (pictured below) displaying my studies. On the board there are photographs of different parts of each magazine and written information on my findings…

“A pattern cutting project was developed at the University of Huddersfield to inspire students when developing collections and to emphasise cut as a luxurious and creative force. The exhibition is comprised of creative pattern cutting in calico curated from selected pieces from final year student collections. The showcased calico toiles encourages not only investigation of the pattern, but emphasises each student designer’s philosophy towards cut and an examination of the three dimensional form in its calico stage. What emerged were some extremely interesting and varied approaches that ranged from both the creative and technical standpoint.”

Above is a summary, taken from the exhibition’s leaflet, of the exhibition’s meaning and purpose.

I have visited this exhibition twice now, and think it is well worth a visit. ‘Insufficient Allure’ consists of two rooms, the first smaller room contains the opinions and explanations of some of the students about their work. The second, larger room contains all of the student’s toiles, displayed on mannequins and in photographs. A small section of loaned designs from ‘Leeds Museums and Galleries Collection’ is also on display in this room, with work from Ossie Clark and Jean Muir included.

Above: Keri Cowdell, Final Collection Toile, 2009.

I recently had a browse around Huddersfield Art Gallery.

These are three of my favourite pieces from the gallery.

Top: Richard Gee. Dancing Tree. Oil on paper.

Bottom Left: Jake Attree. Looking up King Street. Oil on canvas.

Bottom Right: Small section of… Tony Chisholm. Srebrenica. Charcoal, chalk and pastel on a recycled decorator’s dustsheet.

My college fashion show from last year :)

My collection is the circus themed one - 4minutes & 16 seconds in.

Taken me forever to get this footage, but finally got it!

I also feature in the video for a second right at the start, look out for me in a pink and black patterned dress! Haha.

I have just finished reading “Me Before You” by Jojo Moyes. WOW. What a book.

This is the first book I have read for a long, long time. After being swamped with College and University work, I simply got out of the habit of reading and focused all of my attention on this instead. I realised that my brain was being taken over by fashion, fashion, fashion constantly, and although I love fashion it all became a little too much. I thought that a book would be the perfect way to escape from reality and sneak off in to a little world of my own. I needed to re-start the habit! And I am so glad I did.

The book is about a girl called Lou. She is twenty six and has been with her boyfriend Patrick for seven years. She still lives at home with her Mum, Dad, Grandad, Sister and Nephew, and has never really ventured out of her home town. Her relationship isn’t really going anywhere, and neither is her job. Out of the blue, she loses her job from The Buttered Bun tea shop. She then has the difficult task of trying to find a new career, eventually ending up being a carer for paraplegic, Will Traynor. The job and meeting Will brings an array of new experiences for Lou, changing her whole outlook on life. 

This book is a must read. I never thought I would feel such emotion simply from reading words. It made me cry in parts, and I generally don’t cry easily. It is a truly moving tale, that really must be read to appreciate.

I feel that the book relates to situations that a lot of people I know at home are in - samey jobs, samey routines, and never trying new experiences! Not only has this book inspired me to continue reading, it has reiterated to me that I never want to be the girl that does nothing with her life, (not that I planned to before or anything, ha!) but it makes me feel sorry for the people that are. There are opportunities for everyone out there, it’s just whether we choose to take them or not, or instead settle for the same mundane lifestyle that we are used to.

My predicted trend for Spring/Summer 2013 - “Scarlet Fever”.

I put this board together in Photoshop, using my own and others in my trend group’s images. I feel this will be quite a strong trend and will bring back life to fashion in the streets of Britain!

YAY! Here are my other two boards for the trend “Nature Fascination”. These complete my set of four.

Top - Research board.

Bottom - Design board.

Here are two of what will be four boards (I am yet to complete the other two). 

These boards cover the ‘world cultures’ theme (spring/summer 2013 trend) for my proposed window. One is a research board (top) and the other a design board (bottom). I have added mannequins and the M&Co brand logo to my 3d work, and also designed decals to be added to the window whenever the shop have promotions on.

I have laid the boards out in a more structured way, hopefully making them easier to read and understand.

I’m hoping that you can see the improvement!