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Hello Pigeons and Peacocks!

How are you today?

I recently rediscovered my old blog after a year or so and gave its styling a snazzy revamp. Hope you love it, I do! Anyway, if you're interested in my writing skills check this out: http://lilysaysno.blogspot.com/2011/01/little-bit-from-before.html

Or you know, you could just scroll down, but I like to make things easy for you. 


Anyway it's been fun,


Lily out x

Spring/Summer here we come!

SS12 that is!


Trends for SS12 in lingerie have already got me excited!!! So here are the best ones!




Garden of Eden
This has to be my favourite trend!! Paradisaical prints and colours brimming over with botanicals, what could be better?! The prints and colour trends for this season are set to be spectacular with intricate and bold florals combining with soft tropical shades to give the perfect English GardenSS.

Wildflower Wonderland!

 

Enter Paradise

Cute as can be!

Lady Astray 
This is a trend to set your heart racing! To the untrained eye it may not sound much at first, but combine it with Garden of Eden and WOW!!! Mismatched prints, vibrant colour contrasts, layering and draping, underwear as outerwear and we have a Lady led astray. Buy anything you like, in any colour you like and wear it with whatever else you like and this season you won't be judged! The madder, the better this spring/summer. 
Of course, if you want to look your best there are still several style mantras you can follow to avoid stepping the line from 'astray' to off the rails.

Ellen von Unwerth shoots Kylie, two Ladies Astray!

Ellen does it again!

Uptown Girl, the perfect Lady Astray; a bedroom cluttered with beautiful things of and a pig!

Controlwear
A division of lingerie once kept hidden away has been growing hugely in popularity over recent years. Drawn from obscurity and shame by Bridget Jones and now an ever present part of almost every woman's wardrobe we just can't get enough of controlwear! And constant new innovations in fabric technology are leading to better and better results as well as more style.

Good old Bridget!

So they CAN be sexy!

Doesn't get better than this!

 So there we have it! Better get ready ladies it's only a year away!!!

Tell me what you want...

What Universities really, really want...


It's quite simple, they want to see passion and dedication.
This means extra work, projects visits and experience that your eduction doesn't just hand to you on a plate. From my interviews I noticed few things that seemed to go down really well and a few more things that they were looking for:

• Fashion Illustration skills 
• CAD and CAM
• Relevant work experience 
• Interest in all areas of the course, not just design (especially business, actually)
• Finished garments that you made yourself
• Finished garments that you pattern cut yourself (NOT from a commercial pattern)
• Good sewing skills
• Samples of ideas with clear thought progression
• Sketchbooks made out of college
• Life drawing experience 
• Knowledge of current news and trends

All of these things they really really love. I think it's because they're skills that many candidates don't have. So yes you may have brilliant designs but that doesn't mean very much of you can't the pattern cut and sew them. They're looking for the full range skills. 
Also, they adore everything done outside of college. So work on that!


While I'm here I can remember some things that they don't like as well...

• Mess! So unorganised portfolios are out.
• Over-decoration. Let your work speak for itself, don't drown it!
• Irrelevant work. So you made a print. Why didn't you print it onto lingerie?

That's about it! Umm, Good Luck!  

Firm Foundations...

So to get into University I'm doing an Art Foundation Heading  


This was probably the last thing I wanted to do, but these day's it's pretty much a must have for your UCAS. I'm halfway through, just about to start my FMP (Final Major Project) and so what have I learnt so far??

• Fine Art Print Making
• Silk Screen Printing
• Graphic Design
• Photography
• Sculpture
• Painting and Drawing
• History of Art

This is all the stuff you learn on the Exploratory Stage and if you want my advice? 
IT IS NOT ENOUGH!!!
This is allll you will have in your portfolio for univeristy at the point you apply and so if you haven't worked outside of college it will sooo not be enough. Oh and forget that project you did at A-Levels that you were so proud of, because quite simply 99 times out of 100 it won't be good enough compared to the standard you're working at now.

Scared? 


You totally should be!


Next time, what universities really want...

Personally? I'd rather not...

So one of my main worries was writing my personal statement...    


In England we have to submit a short piece of text with our university application called a 'Personal Statement' which is basically our only chance to stand out from the other candidates and to let them get to know us. And I didn't have a clue where to start! Should it be ALL like 'me, me, me, me, me, I love me, love me too, me, me, some more me' OR all 'I love you, uni is brill, sucky-sucky up up, your academic rep is like WOW' OR 'I fulfill your requirements... BAM!'


Turns out it should be a cunning mix of the 3 with  little bit of humour and quirkiness thrown in. A good basic layout to work from is:

• Why I like the course (my passion, specific knowledge etc.)
• What evidence do I have for being right for the course (experience, qualifications etc.)
• Possible other stuff about me (I love netball and was a prefect..? LAME!)
• What I aim to do with the course (I want to be a fashion buyer for Selfridges etc.)

And then always remember to back up every statement with some hard evidence and specific details, e.g. 'I love fashion so I am happy to work in Topshop, I particularly enjoy helping customers to dress on trend, especially since velvet came in.'


Sooooo, because I know you're all dying to read it, here's my very own personal statement:


My Personal Statement

Personally I feel most comfortable when I’m naked but I understand that this is not the case for most people. A woman feels naked without her lingerie, it can make her a femme fatale or a Bridget Jones in just two moves and as such I consider it the most self-defining areas of dress. Underwear was my first true lust in life, a complete tomboy, I was transfixed by the textures, the colours, the delicacy and the vibrancy, the thought of ‘sexy’ when I still wasn’t altogether sure what sex was. But most of all it was the secrecy that caught me, under my tree-faded jeans only I knew lay red silk, purple lace, daisies on cotton; it was intoxicating. Later as I became more aware of the ‘facts of life’ my fascination took a change in direction, I became less interested in lingerie as an accessory and more as a part of the body itself. Corsetry, shape-wear, plunge bras and gel pads; we’re all striving for an ideal just beyond our natural reach but with new technology and understanding the gap is fast closing. I’m caught by a consuming fascination for appearances and deception, conspiring to make for a few short hours an ordinary person extraordinary in the eyes of their lover is a thrill I can’t seem to shake.

I have always been academic, taking non-creative A-Levels to study Philosophy at university (which I did for a year at Durham) and a gap year designed to get the creativity out of my system. But I believe that my interest in science and history has aided my creativity as it encouraged my interest in contour fashion. Pattern cutting is the segment of the design process that I find the most interesting and rewarding and so I particularly enjoy pattern cutting for lingerie as this presents the biggest challenge. I find the transition from a 2D drawing and some essentially 2D fabric to a finished 3D garment extraordinary and I feel that my science background has given me the visualisation skills as well as the eye for precision needed that enable me to excel in this area.

During my gap year, I took City and Guilds Level 2 in Lingerie, Corsetry, Fashion and Pattern Cutting as well as Business and a few others. It was from this that I cemented my interest in design and learnt about construction and pattern cutting techniques for contour. Whilst at Durham, my time was not wasted; I designed, cut and made the costumes for four plays including a £20,000 production of West Side Story and discovered the skills of time management and working successfully to a brief. I left in order to complete an Art Foundation and re-apply for Contour Fashion as there is now no doubt in my mind that this is the path for me.

Over the summer I sent out letters requesting work experience and from this chose to take up a 3 month internship in sales with Nichole de Carle. During my time here I was responsible for answering all sales enquiries via e-mail and phone as well as maintaining relationships with current and prospective clients including Selfridges, Net-a-Porter and Coco de Mer. I found the business side fascinating and discovered many of the pitfalls of setting up one’s own brand from scratch.

I was also lucky enough to wrangle tickets to Kriss Soonik’s SS11 lingerie show where I took my own catwalk photos, slipped backstage, found the designer herself and managed to corner her for an interview. From this I wrote my own review of the show which along with the photos I sent off to several style magazines in an attempt to get published. Sadly, they only got as far my blog: lilysaysno.blogspot.com But the experience didn’t deter me; it inspired me to sneak a ticket to the Salon International de la Lingerie de Paris, where I hope to establish connections with many of the brands and suppliers.

With the skills and experience that I will gain from this degree course I intend to bring contour out from the shadows as fashion’s lesser known sister and instead make it the first consideration for every outfit.

Sunk in a little now...

Ok, so now I'm starting to get excited!


And so, secure in my own future am generously deciding to put up some of my experiments and some tutorials to help others that are currently in the awful position of having to make an entire portfolio good enough to impress one of the world's top fashion colleges with absolutely no clue as to where to begin. It might be interesting for other people too, if you want to try your hand at a few lingerie-based craft projects or just have waaay too much free time.


A little taste of what's to come:

• Practical portfolio advice
• Interview hints and tips
• Lingerie experiments
• Best of the literary world
• Lingerie tutorials and know how
• Top lingerie trends
• Some other equally exciting stuff

Can you wait?? I can't!

A little bit from before...

The blog is currently looking a little bare, so please welcome:



KRISS SOONIK'S SS11 SHOW


This is an article on Kriss Soonik's SS11 Show, with some lovely photographs of the night, that I was lucky enough to attend and review a few months ago.


To purchase this marvellous loungerie visit: www.kriss-soonik.com

Usually, I hate typos, I’m one of those sad sticklers for spelling and grammar, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that the most innovative and desirable concept in lingerie at the moment was born from one. If you haven’t guessed already, I’m talking about Kriss Soonik’s ‘Loungerie’ described as a lingerie/loungewear crossover that adds up to outerwear, it is by far the best ‘spelling mistake that stuck’ yet. So when I heard that Kriss was hosting a fashion show for the launch of her new SS11 collection, I simply HAD to get an invite. Luckily enough for me, I did and here’s what happened.

We rolled up to McQueen’s award-wining bar in London’s trendy Old Street (think City Boys living it with their toes dipped just a smidge in grunge) a little too early to be fashionable but anyway, what’s so cool about being late? And just in time to nab a good perch on the back of some over-stuffed leather sofas. At first glance, the bar didn’t impress; exposed brickwork and black crystal chandeliers haven’t been the trademark of chic since the 90s, but there were several interesting features including an orgy of black lacquered mannequins tangling across one wall and a couple of Moulin Rogue stage swings swaying above the runway. Fidgety for the show to begin (reclining across a sofa may seem elegant from the outside, but is in fact far from comfortable) I was glad when a couple of models, one wearing a stag’s head mask, made good use of the swings. Oh, but where was the fashion?

After being thoroughly warmed up by a classically trained ballerina performing feats of flexibility on a dancer’s pole, we were weak with excitement for the runway. This season Kriss has slapped aside the sorbet palette colour trend and boosted the key pinks and oranges right up into neon. This is a welcome relief from the wishy-washy collections we’ve been seeing lately, although, as a large American gentleman behind me remarked ‘who cares what they’re wearing; these girls are HOT!’ but not as hot as that orange! I was pleased to see that Kriss’s style has refined itself over the past two years. Whilst still retaining that bond-girl/manga drama this seasons cuts were much more sophisticated and wearable, featuring asymmetric neck-lines and puffball silhouettes. A classic Soonik feature, the oversized bow, was still very much there, only accented in an alluring gold tone this time. It’s great to see ultra-feminine silks and laces manipulated into modern urban designs, and don’t worry ladies if you love the collection but aren’t quite ready for that powerful colour-way; most items are also available in reserved black or delicate white.

Slipping from the sounds and lights of a show into the eerie quiet of backstage is always disconcerting but was even more so this time as my first sight was the designer herself, sunk deep into the wall and wearing a cloud of shining tears. I was struck by a desperate compulsion to photograph her and capture the moment of ultimate release that comes from months of hard work transforming into success, but managed to restrain myself. I had just decided to crush her into a hug when the crowds swept in and the moment was lost. 

In person, Kriss is effortlessly candid and conversational, from informing us that her heroine is her mother: ‘she still freaks me out with her stuff sometimes!’ to ‘orange is also the colour of my boyfriend’s motorbike, you know’. It’s easy to see how this cheerful and quirky collection is simply a reflection of the designer’s personality. But I’m still keen to learn more about the inspiration behind the fabulous colour-palette. Orange is definitely the word for this collection, as Kriss explains with a wide smile, it is representative of the ‘sophisticated aggression’ hidden within women waiting to be released. It’s interesting to hear these fierce words come from the mouth of a delicate blonde dressed in a modest gold-tone button-down dress and to see the spark in her eyes flare and recede. But to break into the small, almost incestuous lingerie industry in this country you have to be diamond hard. 

I ask her a little bit about her Estonian roots and she tells me all about how small the fashion industry is in Estonia; her reason for moving to London. ‘If I had stayed in Estonia I don’t know what I’d be doing, probably working for a fashion magazine of something.’ Ooooooo I murmur teasingly, glancing around at the other journalists standing beside me, it takes a moment then she’s grabbing my arm and apologizing, a slight blush risen in her cheeks; ‘No, No, I didn’t mean it like that!’ she exclaimed obviously horrified, ‘quick, Kristel, tell them! Oh, now I’ve blown it...’ As I quickly reassured her that I was merely teasing I couldn’t help being won over by her charm. Finally, I ask her to complete the sentence: Fashion is... She laughs, ‘I’m always saying this, but you’ll have to star it out. Fashion is a b****!’ 

Fashion may be a b**** but if there’s one thing I’ve learned tonight then it’s that Kriss Soonik isn’t. And in this industry that’s an attitude that will take her to the top.

The day my future began...

So today I got a conditional offer for Fashion Contour from LCF... Better start a blog about it???


Genuinely had!
Sooo, how am I feeling? Actually just relieved, all I need to do is achieve a humble pass on my Art Foundation and then that's it; hello future! 
So things I am looking forward to about this summer:

• Starting at LCF
• Becoming an official 'London gal' qualified to give directions to foreigners 
• Moving in with the boyf
• Becoming mummy to a couple of lovely puppies
• Shopping at Waitrose for dinner and raiding Rymans for shiny new stationery
• Possibly becoming a 'regular' at a cafe/bar (so sad, so true)
• Umm, taking over the world? Maybe!

I will see you all there! xx