Friday Late V&A - Give It Away

I went to the last V & A friday night late event at the end of November. The event it was called give it away, about entering into the Christmas spirit with a night of open source design events curated by students from The Royal College of Art's Design Products course. Engage in the alternative Christmas market workshops in the Grand Entrance, and make something to take home with you. Or line up for skills-sharing sessions taking place in the Sackler Centre. Also, students will be presenting new project ideas so take part by championing those you think should be developed.

The stall I felt inspired by the most was the vegetable/fruit dyes fabric printing stall, making interesting patterns. Located in the sackler centre lunchrooms. The creators were two girls: Marta Bakowski and Dafi Reis Doran. This joint project between the two girls, showed how they took an old fashioned traditional technique, to produce new contemporay textiles. The girls are looking it to ways of making the natural food dyes pernament on fabric. Food products used to create dye were:

- Beetroot = purple
- Orange = acid yellow
- Cabbage = green
- Blueberries = blue
- Red Onion = red

Manipulating fabric, with natural products I find quite interesting. A similar idea is the product Nature paint, made out of cornish clay. My boyfriend Steven, has just finished a project with this product. He is currently on the creative advertising masters course at Falmouth. It is a eco friendly paint, which comes in a powder in a packet, instead of a tin, you just add water. Apparently the man who created nature paint, at marketing events he will drink the paint. As it contains no chemicals, to show it is harmless.

Dior Illustrated Exhibition

Last week Wednesday, I was lucky enough to go the new exhibition at Somerset House. Dior Illustrated: René Gruau and the Line of Beauty. It was a beautiful exhibition, I enjoyed seeing first hand fashion imagery. Imagery used for ad campaigns for the brand Dior, through 50s, 60s and 70s. Mainly used to promote the brand's perfumes in magazines. There was also some garments on display, I liked the hat resembling a paintbrush and palette. With the colours of the paints, in chunky pieces of oval fabric with small coloured crystals.


Grau created mixed media illustrations using goauche, indian ink and watercolour. The illustrations were lovely to see up close, to be able to see the paint strokes was beautiful. I thought the designs, even though from mainly the 50s/60s still looked very contemporary even today. I also like the Erin Petson image, which was inspired by Grau's style. With a striking red and gold paint for the top of the girl's outfit. My favourite pictures are the ones that conceal the face, such as the one with the man holding a bunch of peonies in front of his face.

The exhibition runs till 9th January 2011.

Redesigned Website

Earlier this month I redesigned and updated my website. I have now created a fashion illustration page, which I never got round to doing in the past. Above are screen shots of the new site, in comparison to the old site I am really pleased with the outcome. My website includes a shop, this blog, and a portfolio of my textile and illustration artwork.

My Current Display - Harvey Nichols Bristol

My current display is in the Bristol branch of Harvey Nichols. It is a instore display situated by the escalators, and also the accesories department. It started in July 2010 running through to December 2010, so pop in if you live in the south west area. Only the womens fabric dolls are on show in this store.

Friday Late V & A - Catching Shadows

As part of my job, I was lucky enough to work on the last Friday Late Night, Catching Shadows. In celebration of the exhibition Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography, an evening of performances and installations, talks and film screenings. Explore the amazing processes involved in this art, from its inception in the 19th Century to the present day. All will be revealed as we uncover the science behind camera-less photography!

For the event I helped with the set up, of the anonymous collaborative artists, Luzinterruptus. Their work was a lighting installation positioned in the John Madejski gardens. I am the middle figure in the last photograph. The day consisted mostly of being in two black gazebos, in the south right corner of the garden. Stuffing the dolls with plastics, dressing the dolls in black garments. Also sewing lights to the dolls, in specfic positions.

Their description of their work: 'For the occasion we created an installation of human shadows, using 100 inflatable dolls, contemporary plastic sculptures. The figures were dressed in black and shut inside gigantic white garbage bags, to which we added strategically placed points of light to achieve the effect of authentically trapped shadows. The original idea was to have them standing so that they seemed to be living beings in distinct postures, but the tremendous night wind, decided for us and ended up giving an unexpected aspect to the installation, which was finally converted into a dramatic cemetery of shadows waiting to be buried.'

It was a pleasure to work with the artists, and I wish them all the best with their future projects.