Vivienne Westwood

So i picked up my Vivienne Westwood book yesterday had a quick flick and fell head over heels in love with her again. I went off Viv for a while only because she started to go so boring and so mass produced and i loved it when people use to say whos Vivienne Westwood?? Now my brother knows her and if my brother knows who she is that means the mass market has it on with their nike tracksuit bottoms...

I lvoe Vivs old collections if i could get my hands on her knitwear ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Then it clicked Viv did exactly what i am doing...

To be continued



22 Novemeber

Been melting plastic into PVC for the past 2 days.. its become more of an obsession that a chore its so fun and the effect is amazing...

After my tutorial i went home an collected loads of coloured plastic bags and took them in this morning and just created my patterns and got the colours right. My knitting was so dull because i couldnt get the correct colour yarns and my stitch i want to be more exciting and Izabel agreed with this when we spoke.

My drawings are very melted looking if that is even such a word. They look really smudged and swept accross the page giving them the same look as the plastic does when melted into materials.

Really enjoying it going to get some more techniques done over the next 2 days

Stitch 'n Bitch

Spoke to Izabel today about my work in Stitch as i missed monday and didnt feel i was on the right track and my colour scheme was all over the shop. She was really dissapointed at the colour scheme i used for Knit and allthough i should be making decisions for my colours etc i always work better when bouncing ideas and have feedback and i didnt get any in the Knit block and i feel thats why i didnt enjoy it as much as i would have.

Stitch has been really exciting this week i stuck to my colour scheme i used in knit of the royal blue, golden yellow and red but today changed it after speaking to Izabel. She liked my series of drawings i had done looking at pattern and she helped me create the textures and layers that i need to do. So this weekend i have to find loads of coloured well appropriate coloured plastic bags that i can melt into material and create the patterns in bright harsh colours.

The few i did today look really successful and now im excited to start again on monday.

Life o Life o Life

In the living and dying exhibition at The British Museum there are artefacts from all over the world that show how people think about life....

What would you collect to symbolise how you think about life??

Quilts, i think quilts hold so much history and stories. Everybody has a favourite blanket, throw or quilt from when they were young or even when they are old, one that they relate to certain memories of their lives or certain people. I still have my 'cwtchy' blanket in my mums cupboard. Its something you can touch and feel close to somebody by smell and comfort. They always have a feeling of warmth and home.

The Quilts exhibition at the V&A was when i really truly fell in love with quilts and the narrative behind them. They symbolise so much of a certain persons life from their wealth to lack of it and to how they lived their everyday lives. They are an amazing way of gaining information in textiles and history as to how people lived and survived.

I think the symbol is everybody needs warmth, love, family and home in life.


What would you collect to show the difference between your ideas and those of your parents or grandparents??

Lightbulbs. This is a really hard question and at first i thought something to do with technology then i came to the conclusion that the lightbulb has changed in every generation and reflects life well since many many hundreds of years ago the candle was the lightbulb and i think lightbulbs are a good reflection of how we live, when my great grand children are around im sure we wont even have lightbulbs when during my time we only have to pay 10p for an eco bulb.

Brixton Baby Pt2

My found stolen and captured objects and images!

I found a small childrens toy on the floor, Electric Ave.

I took a CD off a side table in a cafe

A picture of pound shop plus

My chosen 3 are very different i have chosen an image and 2 objects and allthough they are very different they come together successfully i think to create a good refelction of Brixton through objects and images.

Known for its selcetion and vast array of pound shops my image shows Brixtons pound shop plus no.3 Electric avenue, on closer look the £1 store is part of Brixton foods and this is the case with many of the shops. The image suggests to me the wealth of the area well lack of it. Its a dull image with nothing going on around it, the colours are very bland, white grey and red there is nothing inviting.

I picked up a CD from a side table in a cafe i think it was allowed as there were a few there to choose from. Im yet to listen to it but im getting intrigued writing this as to what i may hear. Its a good representation of the music and culture of the area with its strong afrocaribbean influences. I know from past experiences in London, up and coming music artists and dj's use the opportunity to get their work out there by free CD's. "Dj Sponge, Buncha Ballers mix CD" Interesting cover but has the same colours as the image i chose.

I found a childrens toy on Electric Avenue, its a small chidlrens hand size girl wearing a red dress with white socks and red shoes. She has mud on her shoes that im yet to wash but this gives her a bit of personality. She is of mixed race which i found ammusing as Brixton is home to so many cultures and races and the toy reflects this. I think she belonged to a little girl and she is likely to have been from a mixed race background.

Allthough my objects were chosen randomly they all have the same colours, red, white, grey. Red was a very dominant colour of Brxiton because of its Jamaican community (red yellow and green). I found Brixton a really dark and eiry place to be. All my objects suggest to me a sense of identity and belonging as well as poverty. We have the image of a person who would shop in a £1 store in this area as well as the young girl from a deprived background and the struggling music artist trying to make a living. I didnt intentionally pick them to go together but they stood out to me as they represented brixton and have followed a trend.

Brixton Baby

I had never been to Brixton before this week was my first time. I was a bit weary going on my own so my flatmate tagged along to help me spot different things. I find taking someone who doesnt have a creative eye means you have the best of both worlds as she spots things i wouldnt. Eddie Grant once sang about Electric Avenue, it wasn;t until i saw the sign and experienced it for myself it hit home what he was talking about. "Now in the street there is violence and a lot of work to be done, no place to hang out our washing and i cant blame all on the sun. Oh no we gonna rock down to elcetric avenue and then we'll take it higher" Brixton market is definatly the place to go for some inspiration and allthough i went in the afternoon it would be interesting to go when the market is setting up early in the morning.

Brixton is a district in South London, London borough of Lambeth. It is multiethnic community with around 24% of Brixtons population being of African and Caribbean decent. Brixton has become famous for many things over the past few decades some of which include the brixton pound. Electric Avenue being the first shopping arcade to have electric lighting and the Brixton murals. As with most London Boroughs Brixton has a reputation for its gangs, sex, drugs, and taboo culture and several gangs are headquartered in Brixton. In 2003 the independant reported that around 200 "hardcore yardies" are based in Lambeth, some operating as members of "firehouse posse" or "Brixtons cartel crew". Allthough a scary statistic and with such high gun crime rates Brixton has the character that most London boroughs do not with so many cultures worlking closely together in one area.

The people of Brixton dont like to have their picture taken for various reasons, the only one that allowed me to take a picture was the fishmonger but he would not look directly into the camera. For crime reasons, religious, or just protecting their innocence it is easy to see why when reading the police presense that dominates their area. I visited a local record store to get into the vibes of the African and Caribbean influences and upon leaving was greeted at the door by 2 police vans, 12 people were arrested for hiding illegal immigrants, these poeple were ones that i had asked to take pictures of at the meat market.

"People have always smoked cannabis in Brixton- everyone knows that, people have walked down the street smoking spliffs for years."

la la la la laaa... frock me!

Stella and her McCartney

So Wednesday 3rd November i had a very memorable night. It was my first real fashion event and by event i mean invitation threw the door, new dress, shoes, finding a side kick and taking 4 hours to get ready, black cab and midnight stroll along Bond Street...

Boucheron and Stella McCartney had teamed up to showcase the latest in fashion and jewellery at the Boucheron Diamond boutique on Bond Street. The week before i had been in touch with a lady about internships at Stella McCartney and this is how i bagged my invite.

The cocktails were out of this world, the canapes were most definatly not iceland and the jewellery knocked spots off H.Samuel!!!

So what did i wear?? I didnt know what to wear till an hour before. That day i had gone into every shop on Portobello road to find something suitable but nothing made me feel amazing or looked right. But i threw all my dresses on my bed rummaged through the pile and stopped and wondered how Carrie Bradshaw makes it look so easy breezy when she goes on a date with Big.

Chloe shoes, Betsey Johnson coat, Topshop Unique Dress, Topshop Bag

Testing 1 2 1 2

So i just opened my blog and its a bit like where do i start? I mean i could go on to write pointless rubbish that doesnt mean anything to me or you an i could just post all the albums on my laptop that are labelled inspirational photographs an other s**t. But i'll spare us both...

Its my 6th week of my degree at Chelsea studying textile design. Juts finished my knitting blocks which were eventful and frustrating but fun at the same time and im going into stitch tomorrow. Its been a pretty eventful 6 weeks from visiting Brixton which i will be writing about, to having my collection of commemerative royal mugs stolen from my locker which was really gutting and upsetting, ive been ill, ive been to hospital so yeah pretty eventful 6 weeks!!!

Ive started collecting more mugs but i had some really rare mugs in that collection that i doubt i will find again especially ones my mum had given me that were my grandmas

Im goign to post a few blog posts today only because it looks so bare! I always follow Tavi Gevinson the style rookie and her blog is bustling with things. Not really a blog follower im sure i will start to become one now i have started my own. I did decide to write one for my FMP at Camberwell last year which can be found at http://welshiedoestextiles.blogspot.com/ not sure it will make sense unless you see my final project but yeah thats my old blog...

Izzi