'Four Roads' by Jason Rhoades When you’re waiting on your student loan, you cannot go wrong with a cheap and chic day out to The Baltic, Gateshead. Today I went along and signed up for a visitor’s pass that allowed me to take photos of the current exhibition from the Jason Rhoades. With only one floor open of the ‘Four Roads’ two floor spectacle sadly, I only got to see one half of the exhibition. Jason Rhoades was an American sculptor who, when he graduated from UCLA, got tied up in the 90s art scene. After finding patronage with the David Zwirner Gallery, New York, he displayed his first construction of a Garage called the Cherry Mikita. The ‘Four Rhoades’ exhibition displays all of his work created over 15 years (Including the Cherry Mikitia) up until his death. His ambitious scale installations reflected his larger than life visions. In order to construct them, Rhodes used off the shelf consumer goods and assembled them in such a way as to elevate them from their normal beginnings. His experiences living as a straight, white, middle class American male with a rural boyhood and strong creative drive inspired his work. As a whole, his work is an attempt to transform a jumbled mess of nothings into something ordered and meaningful. For him, the saying greater than the sum of its parts is indeed true. Like all of his installations ‘The Creation Myth’ from his systems collection is a large scale construction. It represents a model of the artist’s brain. The chaotic wires, loud music smoke and pornographic images gave me a sense of disturbance, though I found the work true and honest. I wonder if the artist conceived the pieces as one complete picture in his head before assembling them, or if they were simply the result of a trial and error approach. I suspect that the answer is a mixture of both approaches. |
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Today I got the privilege of taking part in a talk with Sandra Tsang, the Marketing and Events manager at NE1. She is majorly involved and passionate about driving Newcastle Fashion Week further. The event has massively developed over its short life span. Running for only 5 year, I was impressed to see what it had already achieved. Sandra spoke about brands as big as Topshop and celebrities such as the Black Eye Peas getting involved to make previous years such a success. I took advantage of the first-hand information she delivered for the new Work Based Learning project. Now the pressure is on to come up with a fantastic fringe event to ‘WOW’ Sandra Tsang.
Finally! I completed my Practice Enrichment project. I went back and forward changing my ideas and I was not enjoying the project. I felt sorry for my brother and artistic friend Liam as I asked them what they thought after every doodle. When I came to a final decision, it was finished in the same night! What took me so long was picking an idea to run with. Once I did that, i got into the work and enjoyed it because I like being creative. I would defiantly consider using my own illustrations in a future project but only if I had a clear idea of what I wanted. After all the stress, I love my final illustrations. I am amazed with the effect you can creative in an illustration without being the next Leonardo da Vinci. I think my line up would work well for a brand like All Saints as it has a distressed feel created using the screen wash method. My favorite method was collaging then adding my own drawing on top. A scrap piece of screen washed paper found in Steve’s room turned out to be my savior in this project. It was my main inspiration for ghostly theme and I used it on both my illustrations and line-up.
After completing two projects in the past week, I’ve been rewarding myself with one too many lazy days. But during this lazy day I have found my new favourite fashion blogger. Her name is Natasha and she is a London based model and blogger. Natasha’s picture was shared by @modeblogg on Instagram and I was instantly drawn to her fabulous outfit (especially her shoes). I was already struggling to decide what to pack for the upcoming New York trip so I couldn't help myself but to sit on my laptop a little bit longer and scroll through pages of her own fashion blog for inspiration.
What I love about Natasha’s outfits is that she goes all out to create a full head to toe look. The accessories she wears seem to be her statement piece. Her style is right up my street in the patterns and shapes that she wears. Another bonus is Natasha doesn’t build her outfits on designer clothing. She mostly uses high street brands and I have been surprised to see that her amazing outfit was bought from H&M, Topshop, Miss guided and ASOS. On Natashas posts she also talks about her what inspired her look. The 'La Dolce Vita' post (floral co-ord, see images) was inspired by D&Gs spring summer catwalk. The only thing I could fault about the blog is it is time consuming to navigate back and forth to have a look at each post. Regrettably, I went onto her ‘Shop’ page where Natasha’s clothes are listed and linked to the shop website; Problem being I want to buy them all! Looking at this blog I feel inspired to create somthing similar of my own. During the summer holidays I have decided i am going to take my passion for outfit building and create my own Blog about my day to day outfits. Watch this space. http://www.bisousnatasha.com/ No, don’t get your hopes up this isn’t my review about the ‘Savage Beauty’ exhibition. However, this is a post to tell you that I have just booked tickets to go and see it on the 4th of May 2015 at the Victoria and Albert museum. I coincidently saw Vouge tweeting about the event just a few days after I watched the documentary ‘McQueen and I’. As part of my contextual studies I only got to see 30 minutes of video in college, but I was so fascinated by McQueens creative talents that I had to watch the rest when I got home. When is someone going to make a film about his extraordinary life?
I will be posting about the exhibition as soon as I have been, along with all the other exciting things me and my Shoreditch friend Bibi get up to that day. But I will just have to look forward to it until then! McQueen And I - Youtube Monday was defiantly a day to be raring to go. I had been warned about two important workshops that would take place this day for my Branding and Corporate image project. So far in the project I am creating a Dr Martens X House of Holland collaboration. Continuing on from this, my next stage is to brand and market the collaboration. The first workshop was based on exactly this. As a group we jotted down methods in which promotion marketing materials can be applied so that by the end of the task the class had come up endless list of suggestions. This task sparked a few new ideas. I was influenced by the idea of a launch party as a marketing concept to promote my collaboration. For that morning, I was also asked to bring in a range of packaging. I brought MAC carrier bags, real techniques makeup packaging, a Vivienne Westwood jewellery pouch and an urban outfitters swing ticket. Once mine and the rest of the classes packaging were organized into categories, I analysed each group to determine how to make my own packaging successful. Daring branding that experimented with images, colour and texture were most prominent. One category was a ‘random’ group for the one offs. Here I found A Mulberry ‘Thank You for Your Purchase’ and Receipt holder; effective in making a purchase seem extra special. For my high end collaboration I would consider making something similar for exclusive packaging. The afternoon workshop was to refresh my memory on press releases (another part of my branding and corporate image project). In the past I had looked at press releases briefly. Layouts and information required to make a press release were the main things I wanted to recap. I read examples from Topshop and New Look which helped and I noted a full list of features which I had forgotten about.
Today I went for a lesson with sewing and fabric fanatic Lynn. In the lesson I learned how to identify the difference between designer, high end and mass market garments. My small group took a look at three examples of jackets, all at different price points. Each member of my group already worked in retail and when the jackets were put up against each other I instantly knew how to order them in price. From where I was sitting I found it hard to reason why I ordered them the way I did. When I looked closer at the garments, I could see obvious differences from the fabric, cut, tailoring, lining and buttons. Lynn also showed me a few more less obvious problems and some secrets on how to spot them. One thing I found interesting was the pattern alignment. Lynn told me different brands from different markets have allowances on how off the alignment could be (something I had never even considered beforehand, but will now always look out for). I could relate the lesson to working in retail and I was interested to find that in any job in the industry you have to be aware of the quality acceptable for your brand. My future ambition is being a fashion buyer; this lesson has taught me warning signs to look out for in a badly made garment and how it is down to the buyer to notice these signs. Also, if I ever find myself being rich and famous I will know if I am getting my money’s worth on a Chanel jacket!
I love these two photos and I took in Topman flagship store, Oxford Street. Walking onto the magical ground floor of Topman, the first thing I noticed was the central display. My eyes followed down an array of hovering prisms onto 4 mannequins positioned in line. Like robots, each mannequin held the same stance armoured with a stern gold mask. Dressed in smart, the mannequins wore skinny suits in popular festive shades of navy, bottle green and burgundy. These colours, mixed with gold used in the masks, prisms and podiums, warmed up and tied together a very cold angular display. This futuristic display was a clever, contempory take on a Christmas display that worked well in the trend setting store. Bionic, trendy men off to a formal Christmas party; Something I have never seen before.
The photo of the denim department gives off a rustic ambiance. It was emphasized by visual merchandising of the high stacked jeans and dangling, factory lights. It was like the stores own mini denim warehouse. This photo would not be as effective if the jeans weren’t folded with such precise and order. Being a denim specialist at Topman Sunderland (where the floor size is not even an eighth of the Oxford Street Topman) I was blown away when I saw how many pairs of folded jeans there was. I know from experience how long it takes to get a pile of jeans to such a high standard! The denim department was exceptional as if a team of elves had been in overnight. At the Topshop/Topman Oxford Circus tour I took time to chat to the staff who worked in the Personal Shopping departments. Their job was to build outfits for customers who had especially made appointments for a consultation with a stylist, whether it is for the ‘Mother and Daughter’ pamper outing or the ‘In and Out’ party outfit crisis. Working for Topman Sunderland, I only get to do this when I find that rare customer who wants my help. To be specialised in a stylist role for Topshop would be a dream job. I am passionate about styling and get a thrill from seeing a satisfied customer. The personal shopping rooms were also beautifully furnished to deliver a VIP experience. I relish the idea of working in a high end environment. When I spoke to the stylists they said ‘9 /10 times the customer will end up spending money’. A little tip a she told me was to ‘always consider the customer and not to try to dress yourself’ and to always be ‘confident in an outfit but be truthful to whether it looks good or not’ that’s how she has ended up with regular customers who trust her opinion. The guys at Topman mentioned that Arnold Schwarzenegger had visited the department and bought a leather jacket. I exceeded in styling on a re-branding project so I hope there are more opportunities on this course to put this advice into practice.
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CategoriesAuthorI am Olivia Davies, aged 20. This is my blog for Fashion Retail and Enterprise. Archives
April 2015
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