I am working at the moment on a couple of printed repeated patterns for my next collection of womenwear. I think some of you may know that I concider myself to be quarter Japanese (quarterJapanese, quarter Tibetan, quarter tigress, quarter Scottish)…
Ok, now seriously, it’s no secret I adore Japanese art, I admire the sense of aestetic that only the Japanese eye can see and it’s no wonder that some of my alltimes favourite Fashion Designers are Japanese (Junya Watanabe, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto).
I recently started looking on traditional Japanese samurai armours and these are so beautiful and inspiring; the textures, the construction, the silhouette, these definately kick the traditional europian knight’s armours up the ass! Together with traditional Japanese printed icons from artist such as Utagawa Kuniyoshi, the concept for this collection literally built itself.
I decided to look at construction vs draping and concentrate on short dresses with prints of a japanese theme as well as d-constructed garments and soft separates. I think all these brought to my attention that although fashion may seem as an endless struggle at times,I still love it. I said it before, but its just how I feel; if the last thing I am thinking of before I go to bed is dart manipulation and box pleats then I guess fashion is where I need to be!
I joined a Printed textile class which focuses on Screen prints onto fabric, and created a three colours print. I have also took on a very ambitious-driving-me-crazy kinda project to create an intricate full-on-crazy Japanese print. In digital this time, it will be printed on silk and cotton satin. This print has drove me crazy for days, of course it is my fault that I can’t just settle for a nice simple design… but I’m quite happy with the results, and I think it’ll look amazing on a large scale.
Please take a look on both prints here, I hope you’ll think that sometimes going crazy actually pays off.
And on a completely different note (yes, I do it again), my beloved husband has a good heart (ah-ha!!), and he is cycling from London to Brighton for the Nightingale nursing home charity ride. We all hope he’ll survive it or perhaps will have an epiphany that smoking doesn’t help when it comes to exercise… but honestly, I am so very proud of him, yet again! I wish I can do it myself, but having bad knees and bad back means he will do it for the both of us (and it is knows that I feel sorry for myself after a few hours of excercise anyway). So if you want to show your support and donate just tiny winy £10.00 we will both appreciate it, and it’s for a good cause so you can sleep better at night knowing you did something good today. Here is where you can donate a little bit for Danny’s ride. Oh, and he is doing it on a really small (but pretty) bike… that should earn him some points too, right?
I love you baby!!
