Simply lovely

Very in tone with my children's wear design philosophy

things to learn from Matt Edgar on Vimeo.

The last 4 days at a fantastic placement!

On Tuesday I was set a brief  for the week by the Accessories designer as she was in despair over a fairy and quote her words "I might actually murder this fairy if I have to look at her anymore!!" It was for a new print to go on Spring/Summer 10 little girl's tins. She left the look and design of the fairies in my hands and gave me a file full of all the background prints I could use. I was so excited to get started and really wanted to make a good impression...

This is the original design that she wanted me to develop on...

I started by sketching the characters on paper and then scanned them so that I could work into them on Photoshop

I worked colour into the fairies and butterflies and these are the characters ready to start creating various tin designs...

This is one of my favourite designs from the selection I created. I asked for some feedback and the Accessories designer was really pleased and had spoken with her colleague who makes the final decisions and she loved the butterflies especially. They told me they are going to do some further tweaking but that I should definitely keep an eye out in march 2010 because my work may well be on some of their tins!! It felt brilliant to have actually been apart of the design process and that it may be used in their stores on real products... a bit surreal but I will most certainly be keeping my eyes peeled!

In between this brief Sian also got me doing 

a few spec sheets for her and also asked me to sketch this jacket for the designers reference, including all the detailing.

The last few hours on Friday I was able to look through all Monsoon's Children's wear trend forecasting books such as Peclers and photocopy anything that might help me in my final year. I also photographed some of their boards as inspiration for building a theme and collating my final collection...

Working at Monsoon was a highly valuable experience and has inspired me with ideas for approaching my own work. Whilst sat at my desk I had the perfect spot to be very observant of everything that was going on around me. It's a shame really that I was only able to do a week, but Sian said that they would love to have me back which is great :)

Monsoon Accessorize: Day 1

I had my first day at Monsoon today, it was like a different world after spending three weeks working in a very small basement underneath a shop... in fact I felt quite intimidated as I approached the dominant yellow building that houses the Monsoon Accessorize headquarters...

Waiting in reception I felt like the style of the building inside reminded me of The Devil Wears Prada; sleek, sophisticated and highly contemporary. Not at all what I was expecting for a mainstream high street chain, It was simply incredible I almost wanted to just disappear and discover the entire building!!

 I was collected by Sian who is an Assistant Designer for Children's wear and we went up to the 5th floor which houses both Children's wear and Women's wear. This is where I will be working for the next 5 days.

 I was introduced to the team of designers and then set about my first task which was to sort through all the old samples from the previous season and separate them into fabric for recycling and garments for the sample sale. Once I had finished clearing my way through the mountains of clothes, fabric, shoes and accessories and neatly boxed them up there was only a short time left. So Sian asked me to go through some old magazines and pull out any unusual and interesting images to go into their inspiration folder.

I have a positive vibe about this placement, I think it's going to be an inspiring week...

Week 4: I got ill :( but with all the bad comes BUBBLE!!!

Unfortunately I fell very ill and was unable to complete my final week at Rachel Riley which was really frustrating but I wanted to get better for my next placement. I didn't get to go in and say thank you or goodbye so I sent a card and some chocolates in the post.

In response I got a really lovely email from Jo today thanking me for the card and chocolates and for all my hard work; She said that the website would be up and running on Friday, so I will definitely be checking it out. Jo also kindly offered me the opportunity to come back at any point as they would have liked for me to have been more involved in the design side!!

Something I will certainly be looking to do is help Rachel Riley at Bubble London, which is one of the largest Childrenswear Trade Shows of which has a blog that I use as my key source for inspiration, revealing everything and anything fresh, exciting and taking off in a kids world!! Jo has said that if help them to set up and work on the stand I will have full access to the show which would just be incredible because as an individual I have no way of getting in. The opportunities to network here will be phenomenal and perfect timing for primary inspiration with it happening at the very beginning of January just in time for the beginning of my final major project...

Week 3...

This week I have been predominately working on the website trying to get everything perfect which has involved a lot of tweaking but it is finally really starting to come together. Also Rachel Riley had some new shoe designs come in so I have been working on adding these to the website ready for 'back to school'.

Week 2 comes to an end...

I haven't posted anything since Monday because this week has been relatively similar everyday so I'll summarise now. 

After meeting Rachel, Jo gave me some more photographs that had arrived to upload onto Fashion Master. I then began working on the "May we also recommend" link which comes up next to each garment to encourage shoppers to buy with the intention of building an outfit or if they like that style they may like it in several other prints/colours. 

I had a folder containing all the designs and codes for the entire collection and I had the freedom to link any three items I felt would most likely be purchased with each original item. It was quite enjoyable creating outfit suggestions but some items were more difficult to match up as I had to ensure that certain garments/accessories weren't used too often whilst others not at all. It took a lot of patience and got fairly confusing at times but once I had a system going and was able to view it on the test site it started to come together. 

The other task I was set this week which I found quite inspiring was that each season Rachel Riley split their collection into colour stories and then for the website and catalogue they create names for each one, so Jo asked if I would come up with some ideas. They needed to be enticing and a bit playful but most importantly reflects the season, creating an atmosphere around the colours and the mood of the garments. We decided on:

Green... Autumn Harvest

Blue & Brown... Chocolate Tree

Red & Cream... Enchanted Quest

Navy & Green... Midnight Forest

Pink... Frosted Garden

Monochrome... Tailored Opulence

Purple... Winter Berries

Week 2: Monday...Meeting Rachel!!

Above: Family portrait

Rachel with her children 

Photographed by Husband and Father Daniel Jouanneau

Daniel is a fashion photographer famous for shooting the Chanel perfume bottle and more recently working closely with Issey Miyake. 

Website: 

http://www.danieljouanneau.com/MainMenu.htm

Today I met Rachel!! Well what an incredibly genuine and warm person for such a successful business and family orientated woman. It was lovely to see how much involvement she has with everything and I guess that is because she has managed to keep it very close to home, a small and manageable business sturdy in its core roots despite its enormous success. 

Something which really inspired me was how fluently she spoke french and it really got me thinking about how much I would love to have a language like french or italian behind me because a lot of the high end childrenswear companies are based in france and italy! I just feel that it would open up some doors which at present would not be approachable in my future career. Also if I am seriously going to push for my own business which I am far more enthused about after this summer, this skill would be highly beneficial...

Day 4 & 5: Fashion Master & Pont Street

Thursday I spent the day finishing off the descriptions and starting to add fabric content and washing instructions ready for Jo to check over. In between working on the website I had to pack the 3 rails of clothes that Rachel was taking to New York into the most enormous holdall i think I have ever come across. I had to make sure any clothes tags were cut off before placing them with the hangers left in as neatly and as flat as possible to try and reduce the creasing and therefore reduce the time spent steaming them out once at the show!

On Friday the morning involved finishing the rest of the washing instructions and fabric contents and then some of the photographs had started to arrive from Daniel which meant Jo could now introduce me to the program that I would be working on for the next couple of weeks to get all the data onto the new website. It is called 'Fashion Master' and today I learnt how to enter the garment codes to link the relevant main photograph to each piece in the collection.

After lunch the Pont Street shop required a selection of specific stock and the girls asked if I would make a trip over and exchange some items. Armed with a giant highly fashionable granny bag packed full of garments and shoes I got the bus over to Sloane Street. It was great to see their other shop and it was certainly in a prime location tucked neatly away off the end of Sloane Street a perfect location for the A-listers to slip quietly into! 

Day 3: The London Chamber of Commerce

I arrived in the morning and carried on working my way through the 300 odd descriptions for the entire A/W 09 collection. After lunch I was sent off to pick up the carnet documents that I completed on Monday ready for Rachel to go to New York. I had to go to The London Chamber of Commerce. I got a bit lost but soon got there it was a bit daunting because there were just business people everywhere suited and booted, but it was interesting to visit.

A spot of research

I had a real urge to find out a bit more about Rachel Riley herself because I had an inkling that she may have a rather inspiring tale... I stumbled across the article below on the Daily Mail website revealing Rachel's fantastically glorious story. I am very much looking forward to meeting Rachel... what a beautiful success!

French fancy: Children's clothes designer Rachel Riley shows us around her fabulous fairytale chateau

Last updated at 9:48 AM on 24th November 2008
By TESSA-JO WILLIAMS 

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Children's clothes designer Rachel Riley's life is so like a fairytale that it seems almost inevitable that her home would be a castle. 

The creator of the old-world-style smock dresses that have become de rigueur among Hollywood's A-list children does indeed live in a picturesque 16th-century chateau, nestled deep in the Loire Valley. 

The mother of three is a Cambridge graduate. As soon as she left university, the catwalk beckoned - and she modelled for seven years doing TV commercials and fashion shows and lived a high-octane fashion life between Paris, New York and Tokyo. 

Maximalist's dream: The sitting room in Rachel's chateau with exposed beams and a giant open fire place

Then, as her fashion model career was drawing to a close, she met her future husband Daniel Jouanneau, a fashion photographer, on a photo shoot. After two years living together in Paris, they were desperate to find a country retreat when they came across this chateau set amid 30 acres of land. 

With its orangerie, small chapel, rococo turrets and medieval fireplaces, it was the kind of place you'd find once in a lifetime. They knew it was for them. 

'We'd been looking for 18 months and this was the only place I really fell in love with,' says Rachel. 'We had a few prerequisites: we wanted somewhere with land, and in a wine-growing region; we knew that would be a friendly area in France, as people tend to bond over a glass of wine.' 

The Chateau de La Roche Froissard, their home for more than 16 years, had been owned by an old lady who'd done nothing to it for years.

'We had a lot of things to do, starting with mending a very leaky roof,' says Rachel. 'As finances were tight at first, we had to do everything bit by bit.'

Enlarge 

Fairytale style: The neat hallway, left, and the elegant master bedroom, right 

Rachel's children are all teenagers, but after the birth of her third child, Rose, she found life in the country quiet and decided to make children's clothes. 

'I'd always loved knitting. I used to make dolls' clothes. I started making clothes for my daughter, then friends asked if I could make clothes for their children, too.'

From a fledgling small business in her attic, she now has two stores in London, one in New York and a thriving mail-order business.

Although Rachel lives between France and London, she calls the Loire Valley chateau home, and as soon as the school holidays arrive, the whole family jumps into the car to France or flies to the nearby Tours Airport. 

The chateau remains an important part of her business. On the first floor there are five bedrooms - three with en suite bathrooms. Each child has a bedroom, and there's a spare room with yellow wallpaper and a four-poster bed. 

The second floor plays host to her work room. An ancient weaving loom they bought second hand takes up most of the space. 

Country retreat: Rachel's favourite room, the blue bathroom, left, and the rustic dining room, right

Although today many of her clothes are made in Hong Kong, in the early days everything was produced and hand-sewn in the studio by local seamstresses. 

Rachel had no fashion design training, but she did take a pattern-cutting course in Paris. 

She says: 'My favourite room is the blue bathroom on the first floor - we found this beautiful Wedgwood blue wallpaper from Mauny with white doves on it.

'Also, there is a vintage sink we sourced from a reclamation yard in Paris. Most of the furniture we found at flea markets in Paris and Saumur.'

In the sitting room there's a walnut baby grand piano bought in Clignancourt market in Paris. On top sits an array of photographs and several huge bunches of roses. 

Their home is a maximalist's dream and luxurious in an old-fashioned sense. There is a refreshing lack of mod cons. No plasma screen TVs here, just a tiny portable in the kitchen. 

'We only just had wireless internet installed,' Rachel says. 'But both my husband and I have a magpie's eye for collecting.' One glance proves they're rather good at it.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1088743/French-fancy-Childrens-clothes-designer-Rachel-Riley-shows-fabulous-fairytale-chateau.html#ixzz0T3fupJUt

Day 2: Celebrity customers!!

One of the assistant managers from shop floor came rushing down today because Richard Branson had just paid a visit... I decided this was a good time to find out a bit more about who Rachel Riley's customers are and it turned out to be very exciting!!! Their store in Pont Street situated just off Sloane Street has had the likes of Jude Law, Jamie Oliver, Emma Thompson and David Beckham regularly visiting... but by far the most exciting was Tom Cruise because his daughter Suri is one of 'the' most watched mini fashion icons!!

Celebrity talk over... I spent the majority of the day working my way through the Autumn/Winter 2009 collection creating descriptions for each garment in excel which we will start to put onto the website over the next few weeks. To help me grasp Rachel Riley's style I had a selection of the old catalogues to flick through and take key phrases from.

Rachel Riley Placement: First day...

I started my first day of a 4 week placement at Rachel Riley today; a company who specialise in Infants, Girls and boys wear, but also have a women’s wear range. Rachel Riley’s design philosophy is a traditional vintage inspired style, taken from her country routes with a handcrafted finish.

 ...I arrived at just before 10.30am at 82 Marylebone Highstreet, in which is one of their two stores in London (the other is on Pont Street in fashionable Knightsbridge and they also have a flagship store in New York on Madison Avenue!) The shop is beautifully laid out with the shoe range displayed delicately in central cabinets and wooden hanging areas neatly showing the collection. What I find wonderful about this shop is that a lot of the ‘behind the scenes’ process happens in the basement below, which is where I shall be working for the next month!

I'm working alongside Rachel Riley's Design Assistant Joanne... When I arrived Jo explained the different types of projects we would be working on over the next four weeks and it sounds like I'll get a real insight into the company and have some interesting tasks which I'm very excited about! My first task today was to sort through rails of garments checking them off on a style list sheet, then using this information I input the data into a Carnet form. This is because Rachel is going to New York in 2 weeks for a Trade Show and this is part of the process for flying the range out there. It was really inspirational working my way through the rails, the clothes are so beautiful and have the most incredible detailing!Jo also told me that they have started designing there own fabric prints and she showed me some of the swatches and I saw some of these brought to life on the garments they are so adorable and really unusual!

 After lunch I was sent on a errand to John Lewis with a skirt to match each colour of wool on the embroidery and purchase a sample of each. In the artificial lighting it was quite challenging to be certain the match was close enough but when I returned Joanne seemed pleased and said she would calculate what we needed of each and I could go and bulk buy them tomorrow. So that was relieving as I still hadn't quite got over the first day nerves :)

All in all I think this work placement is going to be extremely insightful and inspirational...

Summer of Work Experience...

Feeling relatively chirpy and optimistic about the next couple of months as I have managed to secure 3 work placements... one of which starts tomorrow! After applying to a number of different opportunities in May and not hearing anything for a significant amount of time I was beginning to get disheartened but I sent a few repeat applications out and finally got some responses. I am so excited to get started and I'm moving to London tonight for 5 weeks!!

Up to date

Ok so I am now up to date with reflecting on various key things from the last year, it's time to start posting what this summer offers me... 

Second Year result...

Ok a moment to reflect... I went on e-vision and overall results for second year were up and I have improved from first year which is a super yay with 76.50 which is a first!!It gave a little boost to my unbelieving mind that I can do it and that I must reassure my commonly dipping confidence with this achievement :) So happy days! 

Enterprise Week!

At my last presentation to Year 5 the teachers invited me to spend the week with the year group helping them carry out a creative Enterprise Week and of course I said yes and was very excited :)

The idea behind the week was that each year group was given a loan of £20 that they could spend on materials and resources, whilst also being allowed to collect donations from the children's family and friends. They were each given a diary to fill in throughout the week starting with some key words that they could relate to and put into practice during the experience. At the end of the week the whole school holds a market where they sell their products to parents, visitors and staff in a competition to gain the most profitable business.

On the first day the children set about learning what they had to achieve and decided on three products that they could hand produce and would be appealing to the people they were going to invite to the market on friday. They decided as a year group on photo frames, wind mobiles and bookmarks and then each child set about designing one of each in their diaries. For homework they were each asked to come up with an idea for a company name and logo.

On Tuesday the children began by putting their homework out on the table and then the teachers ask if I would talk with the class about how I come up with creative ideas and also most importantly how I developed my brand name. The kids then set about walking round the classroom with a a piece of paper and they had to write down their favourite company name and logo... the votes were counted and the company name was decided as 'MONEY FOR ART' with a logo consisting of a pair of scissors with a paint brush either side. 

The winner of the logo was taken to design and make it up on the computer whilst the teachers demonstrated how the children would be creating their products. They then split the class into various groups within the business team such as product designers, accountants and advertisers. I was put with a small selection of children who were going to design the company name that would go with the logo on all the banners, posters and flyers for market day.

The image above and at the top of this post is what we made. The kids collected lots of different crafty things and had great fun putting them together to make letters.

It was quickly Wednesday morning the children had an assembly where each class took it in turns to do a presentation to advertise their company products and to tempt the other children to come to their stall on friday. Once back from assembly we set about splitting the kids into production teams and got cracking making the products. The children decided on the names for each product... Whirly Twirly (wind mobiles), Booktastic (bookmarks) and Snapshots (photo frames).

Thursday was an extremely hectic day, trying to get the kids to settle into working efficiently wasn't easy at all with all their excitement building up for fridays events. It was a challenge getting everything completed in time but we just managed it and it all looked great!

Fridayyyy!The children arrived full of beans and ready for the day and we set straight out onto the playground to set up the stall and before we knew it the visitors were waiting at the gates so we sent a selection of the kids off around the school with arrow signs trying to persuade everyone to come to their stall! The competition had certainly begun but the atmosphere was fantastic...

I took a wander round the market and it was just incredible to view what these children had achieved and learnt in just 5 days... I watched the children take turns to be in charge of our year 5 stall and they did a fantastic job encouraging people to buy their products and handling all the money whilst making sure they wrote receipts to keep track of how much they had made in profit. Within 20 minutes of the visitors arriving year 5 were down to their last few products, it was brilliant for the children to see how popular all their hard work was. They even managed to draw some of the other children in to buying from them!

It was a wonderful morning filled with excitement, enthusiasm and creativity with a touch of friendly competition... so of course year 5 were desperate to find out how much profit they had made and it was a brilliantly deserved £189!! The kids were ecstatic and couldn't wait to start planning what they might put the money towards in terms of new equipment for their class...

It was a a great week and I really enjoyed doing something a bit different... It was lovely to be able to help year 5 when they had done such a lot of work for my projects and to understand how their creative minds work.

Very exciting purchase :D

Ever since making an informed decision to specialise in Children's wear I have found sourcing information extremely difficult, particularly in the form of books I assume because it is still a very new part of the modern fashion world... so when I found out that this little gem of a book had just been published I was incredibly excited and did not waste a minute ordering it! Money very well spent indeed... This will be my bible from now on :D

Yoghurt Pot logo

After purchasing my website domain name I decided it was about time I had a proper logo created for Yoghurt Pot and Sarah Barlow kindly offered to design my logo for me. I gave her my Yoghurt Pot sketchbook where I had created the name with foam letters and Sarah developed my idea into a professional logo. I absolutely love it, Sarah did an incredible and I can't wait to use it on my business cards, garment labels and swing tags in final year and of course on my website :)

I've got WWW.YOGHURTPOT.COM

I have been going on for ages about how I'm desperate to get a website up and running as an online portfolio with a view to eventually developing my own Kid's wear business... Finally I took the first step and bought my domain name Yoghurtpot.com I am incredibly excited to start designing how I want my site to look and I must start planning what I want on there :)

Trying to be productive...

My mind was wandering and with all the photo's from gretel's shoot fresh in my head I felt the need to do something with them... here's my attempt

Favour for a friend :)

Well my very good friend Gretel Peg Mclaughlin got some brilliant news that she had an interview for some work experience in London, but she was worried that she had no images of her garments and didn't fancy carrying them in her portfolio. There was only a few days to prepare so arranging a photographer and securing a place to shoot was near impossible... As I had been given a digital slr camera for my 21st I felt it was about time I used it properly, so I offered to do the photography for Gretel if she didn't mind it being on the amateur side! Then there was the matter of a model which after missing someone really obvious at first... we realised Mary Selvidge (another good friend and fellow peer) was perfect! Finally there was just the issue of finding somewhere simple to do the shoot... and her housemate saved the day!

His mum is a photographer and she had a portable frame and backdrop which we could set up in Gretel's garden... Sorted... or so we thought!

We went to pick the frame and backdrop up and it turned out that the backdrop was double the length of my car... Slight problem there!!! Panic set in a smidgen, but once we were back and had set the frame up it was easily solved with some white curtains. Making do with what we had was definitely key and after a problematic start the shoot was soon under way. It was a gorgeous day so it didn't take long to sort the lighting, and once I had got used to my camera I quite enjoyed playing photographer! We had such a giggle and Mary was an absolute natural. After a quick play on photoshop the pictures were ready to print for Gretel's portfolio and I felt positive that I had been able to help her out, while it also gave me something productive to do.

So here are some of the best images... the first photograph is unedited to show how the raw pictures looked...

Magazine Spreads

After sifting through all the photos from the shoot after the relief of handing in the last project of my second year, I decided it was about time I got productive again. I decided that the pictures would appear far more professional in the style of a magazine spread, that could be put in my portfolio rather than lugging my actual garments to interview which would frankly be silly... unless of course they required sewing skills! So here they are...

Perfect for the Portfolio

Well after that long explanation of the photo shoot happenings here is a sneaky peak at a few of the best shots...

Children's wear photo shoot

During my Negotiated Studies unit I felt the need to challenge myself in the form of something that would benefit my professional portfolio, as this project was key in focusing on preparing us for the process of final year. My fellow peer and good friend Sarah Barlow happened to be focusing on children's wear for this particular unit and so we decided to collaborate with a view to organising and art directing a photo shoot. We set ourselves a pretty tight schedule having really only a week once we had spent plenty of time discussing the matter as usual...

Once we knew what we were after though it all seemed to pull together neatly. We managed to persuade Compton Acres to let us have full access to their gardens for the day as our location, then there was just the problem of a photographer and child models. Sarah knew Bryony Sly who is on one of the photography courses at our university and she was more than happy to work with us as it would also benefit her portfolio from a fresh angle. Finally for my toile critique in this unit I managed to get two child models after thinking my only chance would be through a proper modelling agency with great expenses. So as they say if you don't ask you don't get I approached the parents with the proposition of them modelling for the shoot and they were very welcoming to the idea with the incentive that we would pay for all the entrance costs, provide them with food and drink for the day and give them some professional prints and a selection of photographs on CD.

A significant matter that was a positive in terms of boosting my time management was that I had to try and achieve as much completion as possible on my two outfits for the shoot! This meant putting a lot of extra hours in... however it did make me realise that if i spent less time fussing and more time doing I achieve far more in a day and having mini deadlines is a very good way of turning the pressure on... I only had one garment that wasn't quite ready to go in the shoot, overall a fairly successful outcome. The last thing to do was source a selection of clothes, accessories and shoes from the highstreet which Sarah would style at the photo shoot.

To summarise the shoot went extremely well and the children were a delight to work with, full of beans and different ideas for where they wanted their pictures taking once they had settled into the swing of things. It was certainly a challenge to get to the point where it felt so worth while. It was a positive experience that has given me some key ideas for my final year and it was brilliant to work with new people... I would certainly not have these pictures for my portfolio if it wasn't for the skills of Sarah Barlow and Bryony Sly :)

Presentation for Year 5

After collaborating again with Fleckney Primary School for my 'Yoghurt Pot' project I was invited back into the school again to give a presentation to year 5. This time I was able to show the two classes the garments I had produced and the children were full of fantastic questions about how clothes are made and how I got from the ideas process to the actual designing. The teachers also thought it was a perfect opportunity for me to explain what university is and give the children a chance to see how they will progress through their education to a point where there are so many different options. 

It also gave me a chance to reflect on what I had achieved to this point, because its not often that you describe to a class of fifty 9 and 10 year olds how you got to the place you're in now! One question in particular stuck in my mind and that was "If I want to be a designer when I'm older what can I do now?" It was so lovely that this little girl was so inspired that she was really eager to get creative... So I told her to get a little book and just draw or write whatever she found interesting no matter how silly she might think it was and that could be a book of ideas...

It made me realise that I spend far too much time fretting over the particulars of my work that I don't let my imagination just flow anymore. This is certainly something I need to bare in mind when starting back in my final year, to ensure I don't let my creativity lapse...