suzuki night market. melbourne.

Whenever I told people I was going to Australia they always said I would like Melbourne the most. And when it came to shopping i definitely did. It had so much to offer in the way of vintage, with one market standing out in particular... Suzuki Night Market.

The market ran only through the summer and was almost like a mini festival. It had food, bands, interiors and best of all clothes. It was all about sustainability so everything had a handmade and personal touch to it.

It was every Wednesday and we only stayed in Melbourne over one. Had I known this market was on I would have definitely rearrange flights.

The highlight of the market was definitely the "Wozwaste" stand. All sorts of useful things, from purses to large shoppers made out of old carrier bags, tooth paste tubes and even old cassette tapes.

the best cafe. ever.

On the Gold Coast in Australia I got taken to the most amazing cafe I think I have ever been called Gov's. It is full of old interiors, art and furnishings, and you can buy anything within the whole cafe. It is spread over four large areas and as I have always had an interest in interiors, as well as the creative ways in which different things can be displayed together I was in my element.

We spent around five hours in Gov's that day, and here are some of my favourite things. 

If I had a house big enough it would definitely be like this.

skip diving.

Today I have been helping my boyfriends parents clear out their house ready for when they move on Friday. One of the houses on the street had a huge skip full of all sorts of goodies and some leather suitcases took my fancy.

After watching Kirsty's Homemade Home on Channel 4 I got all inspired and decided to go for it. The hinges are broken but repairable, but I have one already (My Dad's from when he was a boy scout) that has become a sort of mirror stand in my room and looks quite cool. If I had a trendy boutique it would take pride of place with some lovely scarves falling out of it.... but I don't. Well not yet anyway.

project board.

Coming towards the end of my life at university, and the final project is geared a lot towards how we present ourselves at both graduate shows we show at; Graduate Fashion Week and BIAD Graduate Show.

For the BIAD show we each have a stand and have to create three boards which not only promote ourselves but also our work.

The key board is A1 in size and has a project area within it in which we have to present the idea behind our dissertation.

Here is what I have come up with.

a beautiful wedding.

I visited Australia in December 2010 for five weeks. It was pretty much the best thing I have ever done. I always said it was a once in a lifetime experience but there is no doubt in my mind I will go again. Hopefully within the next few years.

The reason my boyfriend and I went was for a wedding that had a very vintage/handmade feel to it. I spent the day of the wedding (as well as the four days in between the wedding and touching down in Brisbane) setting it all up which was quite a flashback to my first job in which I worked on around three weddings a week at a hotel based in Derbyshire.

The Bride and Groom had got wind of my experience, and the few days I was around before the wedding I helped them out with all manner of things.

When arriving I helped Emma (the bride) plan how to set the tables out at the reception given that it was meant to be outdoors and the weather forecast was rain throughout the day. They had hired a house to have the wedding in, and were unsure as to whether the tables would work inside.

I was entrusted to set it all up in the four hours between the ceremony and the reception. I had help from Emma's Mum who was a star when it came to tidying and cleaning as I am a little messy.

So colourful. Such a shame the sun didn't shine.

Handmade (by Emma and I) tissue paper pompoms hung on the stairs....

...and on the ceiling.

Gift table.

Gorgeous floral prints used for the swing tag style name cards.

The napkins were handmade by Emma's Mum.

A range of cocktails in large glass jars.

 The best sweet (or "lolly" as the say in Aus) selection I have ever seen.

The flowers were a mix of real and fake, all sat nicely in recycled glass bottles.

The wedding looked absolutely amazing and Emma and John put so much time and effort into finding all the gorgeous props and accessories. Helping them out wasn't a chore at all. I love getting involved with this kind of thing and they bought my boyfriend and I dinner to say thanks. Getting paid in food is definitely the best.

graduate fashion week preparation.

As my dissertation has been entered for the Marketing Award at Graduate Fashion Week in London I have to talk about my work to the people who will be judging it. One of the aspects to my creative outcomes was a large format poster that displayed the photo shoot I wrote about previously. 

When I say "large format" I mean LARGE. It was created as a means to market the Sew&Sew business through the use of guerilla marketing. It displayed just thumbnails of the photo shoot, with the Sew&Sew blog displayed in a small frame in the bottom left hand corner.

The dimensions for the final piece were 2.6 metres long by 1.1 metres wide. I need to scale this down to A1 which although is still big, in comparison seems tiny. 

Here is a photo of me 5 foot 2 inches laying next to the final piece.

the bluebell country inn.

The Bear and The Bluebell Inn are two family run pubs in the heart of the Derbyshire countryside. After seeing some of their promotional material they had previously done I asked if they would like any help. They have a real rustic feel to both the pubs which I think is really lovely and very current so helping out with their promotional side would actually be quite enjoyable.

The first event they have coming up is their first ever pub quiz, in aid of cancer research.

They have given me the details of the event and the only other thing they have said is that they would like them to be kept very simple as they already have a broad customer base. I am going to get to work on some ideas for them to pick and choose different aspects, so we can come up with the final design sooner rather than later.

party invites done.

Today I finished the party invites for my friends 21st. She is so happy with them and has sent them out to loads of people which is great. All the people who have seen them so far have said how great they think they are! Just the party to wait for now. Just got to find a hippy outfit! Shouldn't be hard with all the great vintage shops and fairs going on around Birmingham at the moment.

Here is the final product.

And the original again for you.

styling.

For my dissertation I decided to do a photo shoot so I had some images to use for my promotional material. It was quite a last minute thing, but it ended up being one of the things I learnt from most throughout my dissertation.

My house mate Josie who studied Fashion Communication wanted to do a photo shoot too for a magazine she had to do so we decided to collaborate.

We both wanted to do a really raw shoot, that took inspiration from street style using vintage and second hand clothing. I am lucky to have two friends Carl and Amy who run a vintage clothing market called The Hanging Rail Market who we borrowed some clothes off for the shoot, as well as using our own clothes and accessories.

We used my veeery good friend from work Ifrah Khan as the model. She summed up everything the shoot was about and was absolutely amazing on the day.

Here are some of my favourite photos from the day.

I taught myself so much doing this shoot with Josie, from putting the looks together the day before, to photographing Ifrah on the day. Love this.

graduate fashion week competitions.

I was at work the other day and had a sneak peek at my blackberry....and noticed I had an email from a lecturer at university.

I assumed it would be about the next deadline, or money that needed to be paid so ignored it. Went on my break later on and read the subject was "Graduate Fashion Week Competition Nominations" so had a look and read that I had been nominated for an award at Graduate Fashion Week.

My dissertation is being sent off for judging this week and I couldn't be happier. At least this gives me confidence that I haven't written 12,000 words of complete rubbish! Phew!!

placement.

In January 2010 I carried out a placement at Office shoes head office in London. It was six weeks and I absolutely loved it. I rotated around the different departments for the first week or so and then settled in nicely in the Visual Merchandising department.

Kerrie in the VM department was really welcoming and trusted me with a variety of tasks. I did a number of things varying from store visits to arranging the spring/summer 2010 merchandising guidelines that all stores were sent.

It was during this time that I really developed the basic skills in Photoshop that gave me the confidence to try new things and experiment more.

These are some of the trend boards I did:

 Androgynous

Woodstock

These were done using Photoshop. On previous moodboards Office had done they weren't always using Office products on them to translate the trends. From working in store I thought it would be a good way to translate the trends to the staff - especially those who don't understand them quite as well.

The Buying Director told Kerrie they were the best boards she had seen.... No biggie!

party invitations.

Since handing in my dissertation I haven't had such an excuse to play around with designing things on Photoshop as much. My best friend Frey was saying how she wanted some party invitations for her 21st birthday party. She is having a hippie/peace themed party in her garden and described it almost like a mini festival.

I kindly offered to design her party invites for her which we decided would be based on the "Three Days of Peace and Music" poster used for Woodstock Festival in the late 1960's.

Here is the original:

Designed by Arnold Skolnick; Wikipedia

Going to get to work on these straight away.

my dissertation.

Around a month ago I handed in my dissertation. I have never worked so hard on anything in my whole life. We had to come up with a business idea and write a 12,000 word business plan, as well as come up with creative work such as posters, flyers, a website, a bag, a photoshoot... the list goes on.

The business I came up with was called Sew&Sew: 

“To bring the Make do and Mend culture experienced after the second world war up to date, playing on the core vintage and second hand clothing trend, by getting the fashion-lead public doing their bit for the environment as well as their bank balances by reigniting the passion for handmade fashion.”

Some of the promotional material I created is shown below (There is more to come....)

 Flyer.

 Poster.

My photoshop skills were put to the test but I was really happy with the final results. I put my final dissertation together using Adobe Indesign which is an amazing tool to see a full book like document come together.
Below was the final document that the brilliant company Street Print located in the Custard Factory Digbeth put on their StreetPrinters Twitter profile.

My Dissertation the day I collected it from Street Print

I got so into the business idea I would love to go ahead with it for real. Decisions decisions.

the end. but also the beginning.

I am coming closer and closer to the end of my degree in Fashion Retail Management. The last three years I have studied away at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, completely oblivious to what the future holds, except now, the time has come.

The future I was so scared of, can no longer be brushed under the carpet. I have to face the music, and do grown up things like find a job (maybe even a career).

Wish me luck.