After the fashion show: feelings and thoughts from the Evelina

Please note: This post, was originally written on 21st June, and I have simply copied and pasted rather than re-editing because I simply didn't want to dilute it.

After the massive high of the fashion show I now find myself in the Evelina children's hospital in London waiting for my 3 year old to return from kidney surgery and I am feeling very reflective.(21st June)

I have closed the Curve Couture studio for a whole week, an unprecedented event since I was on maternity leave. Despite the hugely inconvenient timing sometimes life comes first, and this week is no exception.

So while I have a few hours to kill instead of dwelling on the current events, I am writing my blog to bring it up you up to speed with how Brighton Fashion Week went down.

The week long run up to Brighton Fashion Week I spent mostly wired, tired and downright determined to finish what I had started. At the beginning of the week I had all but the men's corsets and breeches and skirts, shorts and bra's finished. It sounds like a lot; and it was. Aside from this I still had three commissions to complete that week...so it was full on stress.

I had some great assistance from Zoe Van Spyk who is cutting her teeth in the workshop whilst she puts a fashion business proposal together, as she is a wonderful fashion designer in her own right and the hugely creative Zoe Della Rocca who came up with the styling for hair and make-up from my original brief. I will be introducing Zoe Della Rocker as a guest blogger very soon for the Countryphile style as she had such a massive creative vision that the peeps at Brighton Fashion Week had to hold us back.

So, we were busy, super fricking busy. The night before the show we were working until the sun came up and after a sleep that was way to short, in my opinion, the time had arrived to shake our tail feathers and show just what Curve Couture is made of.

Well, as it turned out, St Barts in Brighton (a church more renowned for taking the assumed dimensions of Noah's Ark than fashion) was packed. The ornate windows and beautiful brickwork being a great foil for the drama that was the Showreel Show, the first of it's kind in the world where the world of vintage,costume and cosplay strut it's stuff instead of the elitism of a strict catwalk show.

For my part, I didn't get to see the first half as I was too busy backstage dealing with 'on-the-day' problems such as lost bags, shoes that didn't fit and the surprise of a quick change for one of my wonderful male models Joe...as he had been booked back to back on the designers either side of me. Stress. A fashion show, like any event, is full of nerves, stress and high emotions as well as unexpected changes, problems and an aura of excited expectation.

Whet your whistle:

photo by Sarah Olivier, model Ellie Watson

New Years Resolution #1: Illustrate

As part of my self training for next year top of my agenda is fashion illustration.

I have been having a little self retrospection over the past week or so whilst evaluating how I want my business to grow and prosper. Some of this time has been spent looking in my old sketch books. Here is a snippet from my first fashion sketchbook which is dated 1998 which is about two years after I first started to learn how to sew:

Lots of cuttings, some textural experimentation, some painting. Exciting to look at, touch, read...
Now they look predominantly like this:

Well, now my sketch books are only full of sketches in the same poses, which is great for getting idea's down on paper fast but uninspiring aside from an idea documentation format. I've been looking at my sketchbooks and thinking how I need to bring the creativity back into my drawing and research process in 2013.

So I started today with getting a new book: Fashion Illustrator by Bethan Morris and some practice with ink on a rough pencil sketch.

Here is the image I'm illustrating from, my layout sketch in my notebook and the pen and ink drawing using a brush, my dip pen and just plain old indian ink. It felt so free and joyous compared to my sketch book flats.

So, my first resolution is to find my drawing style for Curve Couture. And from there start to work on more illustration portfolio works in a variety of media and styles.

I have left this piece as it is for now, but I think it needs some more work once I figure out what that is. Stay with me for more illustration exploration in 2013.