The End of The Met

Well, the end of the Met Collaboration anyway.

On Monday we did our final presentations to the Metropolitan Police about our redesigning of their uniform.

In the ’smart, new, fully equipped presentation suite’, (a classroom with a fresh lick of paint, some new furniture and some pretty good IT equipment that no one knows how to use), a room I didn’t know existed until that morning, we were faced with several officers in formal uniform, of varying rank, some people who were just described to us as ‘investors’ (in who I’m not sure), and several people from the Metropolitan Police Uniform Department.   As you can imagine it was pretty daunting.

And as you can probably guess from the lack of enthusiasm I have shown when writing about the project, I wasn’t particularly prepared.

But I had to go first, and had prepared a very basic powerpoint presentation and some notes for each slide, which I totally abandoned and decided to wing it.  I do tend to work better that way.  I know my work, and can talk about it quite easily.  Notes just scare me even more.

After finishing mine I sat through everyone else’s.  There were 5 presenting from my course, all having done the woman’s uniform, and then 2 groups from the Menswear degree.  The Menswear presentations looked a lot more impressive than ours, as there were about 4 in each group they had done the entire uniform, whereas we had only made 1 garment each.  Which was a little unfair.

When all the presentations were over lots of journalists and reporters were there to document the event.  Which was totally bizarre.  Like I said previously, the Met have used this PR very much to their advantage, however this time they got it a little wrong.  After the good couple of hours we spent doing filming and photos and interviews and things, the election for London Mayor won, and there was pretty much no coverage on TV or in the news papers.  Not the best week to have organised it.

But anyhow.  After a stupid amount of waiting, we returned, and stood in a huddle at the back of the room.  The Met decided to give a Womenswear Winner and Runner-Up, and then a Menswear Winner, (no runner-up as there were only 2 groups).  A girl called Jude Cunningham won the womenswear prize, for trousers with an adjustable height waistband and movable pockets.  Much deserved because she really problem solved the issues discussed with the police.  And another girl called Alice Burkitt and her group won the menswear prize for their fluorescent cape.  Which I must admit was very cool, and very amusing.  Though I must admit I can’t see police officers liking it (which is proved here, and if the commentators on that sight think that ‘fashion students’ enjoyed designing their uniform, well they have it rather wrong), it was clever.

So after that they needed a Womenswear Runner-Up, and that was me.  For a stylish jacket and a good presentation.  Which is cool.  They wanted designs that solved problems for the winners, and basically all I did was make a pretty jacket, but they liked the design, so that was nice.

Anyway what all this means is that that project really is over.  Which is a relief.  And I can now focus on my current project, which I am determined to make light of and enjoy.  And am so far succeeding at doing.

But more about that another time.

Discoveries

While flicking through my RSS feeds yesterday I came across an interesting article from The Business of Fashion about the top 10 internet fashion magazines.

Now I must admit I’m a little rubbish at discovering these kind of things, and hadn’t heard of a disgraceful number of them.  I read Fashion156 rather frequently, and a couple of others I have glanced at at some point in the past, but the new one that has caught my eye is Ponystep.

Its East London based, started by Richard Mortimer a mere matter of days ago.  I like its simple layout and aesthetic, and its contributed to by a large number of interesting London folk.  Definately worth a look in my opinion.

The year ahead.

I am at this moment lying on my sofa eating chocolate for breakfast.  Not an entirely healthy start to the day but it is a weekend of celebration.  So I am allowed.

On Friday I had two interviews for 6 month work placements as a pattern cutter.  One was a very positive experience, I discovered that my old pattern cutting teacher works there, which was a very exciting prospect as I know I will learn a lot.  The other was with a brand that I absolutely love.  But the spark just wasn’t there.  If the placement had been shorter or it had been part time, then my decision would have been very different, but I couldn’t face working there for 6 whole months.  I was quite upset about this, as obviously I’d rather got my hopes up about them.  But at the same time it was good.  Because it made my decision for me.

This is why I am eating chocolate for breakfast.  I’ve been celebrating all weekend.  Friday night was the leaving party for the designer I’ve been working for, Julia Clancey, as she’s moving to LA.  We went from there to another bar, and there were a lot of toasts to the fact I have my year sorted.  Yesterday I went to meet my father for a celebratory glass of champagne, but we had both rather over indulged the night before so we had a celebratory salad instead.  And I bought a guitar.  As you do.  Sadly today I need to do lots of work, but I will alternate this with guitar playing, and perhaps treat myself to something good for dinner!

So my entire placement year is planned.  I will be spending 6 months at Betty Jackson working as a pattern cutter, and then 6 months at Mulberry as a technical assistant.  Pretty damn exciting.

 

I am still rubbish.

The lack of writing is appalling on this blog.

The Easter break is now over and I return to uni tomorrow for my last term of the second year.  Our new project is with a brand called MCM, and I haven’t even started it yet.  I was a little annoyed at the end of the last term when we were given it as they are an accessories brand.  So it seems that college managed to get a company to set a brief for the accessories pathway of my course, but not the clothing or footwear, so we’ve just been tagged on to the same project, just working with our own specialism.

This means that the brief we were given for this project is about 1 sentance long, ‘Design a clothing range for MCM’.  A non-existant brief is just as irritating as a ludicrously strict one. 

I have been making progress on finding a work placement for 6 months in July, and have two interviews next week.  One isn’t even really an interview, I’ve been offered the placement, I’m just supposed to meet them to sort out the details.  But I haven’t agreed to anything yet.  So we will see what happens next week.

I had planned to start my new project today.  But I’ve been working on my portfolio instead.  Much more important.

As depressed as I sound there is one thing I am very much looking forward to this term and that is starting my elective on Tuesday.  This term I am doing my elective on Corsetry.  Which I am very excited about, and will probably spend most of my time working on.

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