A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

08:30  - 1st year students arrive on site - Cameron happy and cheery!

09:00  - Clare and Lisa (Doll) on Site. Hand-in of garments.

10:00  - 12:00  Female models arrive on site for fittings

             (fittings on the 1st 3 x groups that arrive begin)

11:00  - Hair stylists arrive x 2

11:30  - BOYS arrive on site

12:00  - Makeup artists arrive on site

12:00  - 14:00 another 2 x groups of models start fittings

14:00  - 16:00 last two groups of models in fittings

16:00  - 17:00 – final set up of backstage and checking of the

              rails. (Yeah I missed that part, because Nadia had be platting 50m or cord).

17:00 – 1st show

17:51 – interval (I had a quick drink and helped dress a few models ready for the 2nd show)

18:20 – 2nd show

19:11 – END and clear up. - Phoenix after a long day. 

Get A Grip

Spending four precious hours trying to find a specific kind of cord in London is just a waste of time, because its simply just not going to happen! Nadia had scoured some cord, which she needs for her platting, from London Trimmings, but as per usual this time of year things go out of stock before you can count to ten. (I work in Cloth House, I know from experience) Another half a day was spent in the field trying to source something that was similar - I ended up at Goldhawk Road in A-One. It wasn't quite the same, but it had to do. 

In the chaos of not being able to find what Nadia was looking for, I missed both Nadia's and Fiona's final fittings before the show. Nice one Hannah! 

Fiona wasn't pleased to say the least and I received quite a few funny texts on my around London from her complaining about Nadia and her fantastic ability to make decisions . Later on, while heading back to Goldhawk tube station, a whistle tone came out of my phone - a list had come through. An evil list of more things I had to pick up, back to A-One to pick up zips, then back to central, to pick up more zips from Maccollouch & Wallis. Then they didn't have the zip that Nadia wanted, so I headed to Klien's - no success there. A pitstop to Starbucks while trying to get a hold of Nadia to find out what to do. Rushing to Cass Art to get spray paint for Fiona and quickly back to M&W and get whatever was the best option for zips. 

By 3pm I managed to find a Pret and eat my lunch on the way back to Hendon. 

Let me remind you that this is the day before the show. The hand-in is at 9 am tomorrow. This is not cool! Finding myself back in the studio doing my best to help them both. They've been so kind to write me a to-do-list:

Fiona:

• Hand stitch coffin sides. 
• Hand stitch top part of cape. 
• Hand stitch end of zip. 
• Hand stitch the shoulder part CF+CB. 
• Hand stitch facing on outfit 2 (top).
• Hand stitch neckline on outfit 3.

Nadia:

• Cut leather strips 3 cm wide. 
• Hand stitch skirt hem. 
• Hand stitch dress grosgrain. 
• Hand stitch hook and eye for shirt. 
• Hand stitch head piece.
• Spray paint head piece.

Even though I stayed till 11pm I didn't even manage to finish half of both their lists. I took turns, one task for Fiona, another task for Nadia. I don't want to see another hand needle and thread for a very long time.

Field Trip & So Called Studio Work

My morning was spent walking from A-Z around London for Nadia. Zips and finishings needed picking up from Macculloch and Wallis then a trip to Bermondsey to pick up some last minute laser cutting from LaserCut Works, because Nadia asked the laser cutting guy at uni if he could do it, but as it was three days before the show, so it was kind of late notice(?). 

After that I headed back to the studio to drop of the stuff and help out. 

I do love those days were you've been asked to come in and do some work in the studio. But half the time you're just sitting around doing nothing, because they (Fiona and Nadia) won't let you touch anything. Or they won't confess to the fact that they haven't quite thought through why they asked you to come in. 

After bonding the fabrics together for Nadia yesterday, I got the job of transferring her shoe cover patterns onto the fabric.

Backwards & Forwards

Working on Fiona's garments, final detailing. 

Nadia has created this amazing pattern herself and got it laser cut at the university. She asked me to bond it with another material. 

Up until now it hasn't been a massive problem working for two 3rd years, as Nadia hasn't really needed my help or simply neglected my existence - I can't really tell the difference. But I have a feeling that these final few days before the show (Thursday) are going to be fun. 

Drum roll please.... 

Let it all begin! 

Busy As A Bee

Nadia's trousers are too tight on the model! And she's was working on her final trousers as well! Tutor and technician trying to work out what went wrong. 

Nadia gets told that she should always toile in fabrics that have similar properties to her final fabrics. 

Fiona trying to come up with a creative idea to present her line up to the panel at the fashion show. Here we are trying to heat transfer her line up onto acetate.  

 

Fiona also wants to make some face masks, heat transferring creepy faces on to acetate. 

Fiona's fitting. 

All coming together slowly. 

Bibs and Bobs

I wasn't able to finish of the shoulder pads yesterday so I continued working on them today.

For The Love of Fashion

So after spending 16 hours on fabric manipulation, Fiona got told that the result was too bulky. And so the unpicking began and a new method stepped up to the game - if only we had done that to start with, as that only took a total of 4 hours. 

All Day

As it happens in stressful times disasters strikes - Fiona's shower broke and needed the maintenance guy to fix, which turned out to be a bit of a hassle. 

So instead of meeting at 11am as agreed, Fiona ended up meeting me a 6:30pm. Lets conclude that that is a long time to be delayed. In the meantime she asked me to research; David Nash, Christo & Jeanne Claude, Chris Jordan and Joseph Beuys (they are all environmental artists). 

Fiona also asked me to pick up her embroidery from the print technician Sonia - plus ask her about printing on acetate. Sonia suggested using a method called sumblimation printing, which I had to Google when I left, as I had no clue what that was. You learn something new everyday! 

Shepherds Bush

I was sent to Shepherds Bush to collect as many fabric samples as possible of a Duchess satin. Not neccessary an easy task, as there aren't many places that sell it and even few places that are willing to give out fabric samples.