Joshua Petker

JOSHUA PETKER

Last week when I had lunch and a catch up with one of my friends she introduced me to the works of illustrator Joshua Petker. What really drew me to his work was the use of colour and the way that it looked realistic yet surreal at the same time.

Doing fashion I always like to look at new ways of expressing what I am thinking and I like the way that completely irrelevant colours are used to give it a little extra. I like how many different hues and blends of colour are used as well as the variety of brush strokes and texture. 

With this image I really like the usage and build-up of the background colour as well as the strokes and glasses of blues and yellows. I really like the realistic look of the girl in this image and the way that it gives a young playful yet curious feel. 

With this image I really like the watery effect that it has, it looks as if your looking though a waterfall and seeing a person behind it distorted by the way the water falls and ripples. What I love about this image is that you can clearly see the face and the mood is quite soft and gental around her and then darker around the edges where the bird/butterfly (unsure what it is) are.

When I look at this image I wonder what she's looking at and why is she behind or peering though water? 

And finally there is this more fashion illustration by Petker. I really like the way that the girls facial features are the strongest point in this image and how her hair and jacket are water coloured and almost look passive instead of in the forefront as I feel it draws curiosity into the over all look.

MelanieKatelin

XO

Simona Semen

Simona Semen SS14

I just love this look! I love the mix between lace and brocade, and the look of having lace 3/4 trousers to go with the top and skirt combo, not a typical look that is seen, but it is very stylish and really works in this image.

xo

Pink and Coats and Winter..

How cute is this?! Love love love it!

Alexis Mabille SS13

This year I have really been into pink, nevermind the fact that its my favourite colour, I just feel like fresh hues are needed in winter. Why do we feel compelled to wear dark dull colours in winter? Is it because thats what our mood feels like? Is it because the weather makes us feel this way? I'm not sure but this winter I want to be a little more colourful! 

I was in town shopping for christmas presents when I came across some beautiful pink coats and I thought why not do a blog on the coats that are out on the high street right now. So here are some of my favourite pink coats and jackets.

River Island £45.

Oasis £98.

Warehouse £95

Hugo Boss £270

Urban Outfitters £165

A Little Bit Of Masculinity

Lately I have really into the masculine look as I've been doing a shirt project and the way tailoring is making the female body both either more feminine or slightly masculine looking. Fashion is whatever you want it to be. What look do you want? Who do you want to be today? Do you want to be a girlie girl? Do you want to be strong and empowering? Sharp angles or curves? Wearing the right clothes makes all the difference to your look.

The masculine look can still be feminine, all you need is a nice pair of heels, added with a sharp blazer and some black trousers and that's the look sorted. 

One of my favourite looks is from Dior AW12/13. This is a perfect example of making the masculine look work for you. 

What I love about this look and style is the clean cut and empowering look it has. I think a look like this for work will really make you stand out and make you feel like more confident. If its one thing that I believe in its that if you dress the why you want to feel or you will behave that way. 

Whenever I have had any exams I have gone into my exam with a blazer, heels and just looked really pretty and smart and something about that feeling mentally helped me. I would come out feeling like I had done my best and I didn't come out thinking that I could have done better during that exam.

Ruffian AW11/12

This look is a casual masculine style; slightly buttoned down silk blouse, slouchy trousers yet elegant looking with heels. It has that strong masculine feel but it looks classy, edgy and modern.

I think if you have the confidence to wear this style then you should wear it with pride. 

CQ pop-up shop

So I've been back home in Nottingham for about 3 weeks now and yesterday I went to the CQ pop up shop in the lace market to go and see my old boss' with there sneinton collectives spot and its brilliant!

The pop up shop has a bit of everything in there, it is really a great place to go to find some quirky items for yourself or as Christmas presents! 

This is the layout of the sneinton collective pop-up space. As you can see its not just clothing, there is iron work, wood work, jewellery designing and concrete work if i remember correctly. I was lucky to do work experience with One BC last year and now I'm home I will be going in to help with the pop up shop hopefully.

As you can see the space is quite large and there are a lot of other areas like this all around the shop with fun and exciting pieces. 

Below is one of my Instagram picture, (I'm instamad!) of my lovely day looking around the CQ and having a huge catch up with Reeta (OneBC owner).

As you can see there are ties, card wallets, purses, fur scarves, jackets, dresses, shirts, suits, everything. All of the stock is high quality material and it is all hand made one-off garments.

My favourite was the sheepskin scarf! It was so so fluffy and it was so snug, perfect for a winters night. But in saying that I also love love love all the different jackets and dresses that One BC make. Below you can see the back of a jacket which is made out of sari's. It is a really modern take on wearing a sari and I think that its stylish and anyone can wear it. Plus pink is my favourite colour so that me sold sold sold!

So this is the front and back of the sari jacket which is stylishly being worn over a metallic dress which I think really brings out the gold of the sari jacket. What I like about this is that it has so much colour and style to it. It feels lovely and on the inside the lining is beautiful and soft and I just wanted to take it off the mannequin, actually i wanted to take everything new that I hadn't seen and tried on before of the mannequin's!! I actually did take the scarf of the mannequin, I'm terrible I know!

To carry on with the Sari garments I thought that i would show you the males sari shirt. Yes that shirt is made out of a sari. Crazy I know, doesn't look like one at all! 

In the cabinet you can see there are more styles of men's shirts and zip/lace trousers... They are TOTES AWESOME!

OK OK OK while I'm talking about AMAZ things, can you see that red jacket? Yeah... well this isn't a plain and boring jacket nope not at all, this jacket is mad out of red pony hair an leather. It looks and feels AMAZING! I tend to just stand and stroke it. I try and get customers over just so I can stroke it and have an excuse. Seriously it is amazing!

Oh and have you seen that dress? lace, hood, black, little, dress.... what more do you want?
Oh yeah, there is also one that has a cow neck. Oh and if that's not good enough or not quite how you like it, you can place an order to be fitted for a dress in any colour and style you want.

Don't let me forget about the men though because there is plenty for them! Loads of different styles of shirts. - Zip collar? Lace? or just plain there will be a style for you. Plus there are seriously cool pin-up ties as you can glimpse in the far left shirt. Or there is the lace and silk tie on the far right with the tailored suit jacket which has metallic petrol blue leather on the pockets.  

There really is something for everyone here no matter your style.

So if your around in Nottingham this December and fancy popping in and looking around get to Fletcher Gate and visit the CQ pop up shop.

Melanie Katelin 

xo

48 Hours of Fashion Show!

Wow Wow Wow!! I have had the most AMAZING day today!! It has been planned for about a month now that my course would be taking part in the 48 hours of fashion.

Me being me had decided to create my white out project to only fit me so I had to model for myself (not that I mind! I LOVE that sort of thing!) and I loved it so much!!

We had everything white. White Eyes, White Nails, White Trainers, White Bottoms and of course out White Re-vamped Shirt. I will have to admit that when I first saw myself with out the rest of my outfit on I wanted to laugh my head off, I looked so so so funny but then so did everyone else, but when we were all in out outfits and all standing together, all that I can say is WOW!!

So here are some pictures of me and I'm hoping I will get the video for it very very soon!!!

so this is what my make up looked like, slightly scary right?! But it did look really good!

And this is me walking in the show!

I had so much fun and it was such a great experience! I loved every minuet and I can not believe that was my first catwalk where 1. I walked and 2. My own garment was shown on it!! Ekkkkk!.

EASTER!!

Woooo its finally Easter!! I'm so excited even though I do only get one week off!! Today I was woken up at 7.15 by my mum because she wanted me and my brother to come and watch the Iron Giant hehe. So now we have a day of chilling out and TV planned! We are currently watching The Polar Bear 2 purely because I am COOOL! hehe Later were watching Bugsy Malone and we might go for a nice walk around the lake which is a nice idea or go to the gym! :)

I am currently STUFFING my face with the summer fruits crumble that I baked yesterday which is so so so yummy! I'm also writing on my blog obviously!!!

I have just had a sneaky little peak at the River Island and I have brought a nice holdall for Uni which is rather practical and I have brought a lovely pair or pink boots.

Images courtesy of River Island

Both in the sale and both really beautiful! I am really into boots, I tend to have at least one pair a year and I currently have a pair of Carvela wedge lace up boots in brown leather which are pretty ruined :( But I love them and they are my most treasured shoes and I have worn them literally every day throughout winter! And to add to this they were only £19!! SALES BABY! they were supposed to be £160 and they were two seasons out dated but beautiful and NECESSARY and I LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM!! Before you ask why I got such a good bargain I need to point out that my feet are a size 3 so I'm pretty lucky in the shoe department especially in the SALES which is literally the only time I buy shoes. Last month I brought 4 pairs of sandals for £40, around £10 each, BARGAIN! 

However the boots above are in ALL sizes and only £17! 

OH, OH and not to forget, I have started reading Beautiful Darkness, therefore expect a book review SOON!!

OH I DO LOVE THE HOLIDAYS!!

CAD - Last Day - Outcomes

I have really enjoyed doing this course! If your at all interested in fashion, graphics or just like computers then it is something to look into. I have decided to do this course purely for the fashion side of things and to improve my portfolio, however, it just so happened to land perfectly with my FMP and now I have some professional looking designs to take back to college with me and I have the knowledge and skills to get by if I want to create any more styles or colour schemes. Actually pretty much anything!

My tutor for this course was Erica Godfrey and she has been such a wonderful tutor. She really knew what she was talking about and she made it so easy to understand what it was that you were about to go and do or what you should have done. Erica really showed me some cool tricks to do on Illustrator and Photoshop and I have had such a great time and she is so talented int what she does it's crazy! And if you click HERE you can go to her website!! OMG, OMG, OMG its so EXCITING!

This was created by Melanie Katelin, Please do not take credit for my work. Thank you

This is the first mood board that I created was for my colour scheme 'Revenge' which is Gold, Black and Red. I have scanned images in from my sketchbook and used them as you can see with the yellow illustrations that are slightly dimmed. These images do have effects on them which were created on Adobe Illustrator with Live Trace on CS6 and I used the 6 colour effect.

On this board I also have all my illustrations which clearly show the front and the back as well as the stitches and seam lines. I have put a brief description and I have created colour blocks which are shown along the bottom of the page.

I also did a Blue, Sliver and White board that goes with my colour scheme which is called 'Ice Royal'. I have tried to use a different lay out for this board to make it more interesting and to make it seem as though it is of a different design.

This was created by Melanie Katelin, Please do not take credit for my work. Thank you.

All that I have done with this board is change the layout completely. I have made half of the page an image and on the other half shown my ideas with a small description. Again with this mood board I have used my own illustration from my sketchbook which was simply scanned in and then I have edited my image on Adobe Illustrator and put my colour scheme circles along the edge of the page.

I think that both boards are slightly different in layout and style and I have worked with all my components that I had to work with. Please feel free to use my examples as inspiration or as a guide but do not claim this as your own as I have dedicated a lot of time to this project and to my CAD course. Also if you want more inspiration visit http://www.coroflot.com/people#keyword=fashion I found so may inspiring boards that have helped me create the two above which I am so proud of!

Let me know what you think and if you have made any boards please leave a link so I can see your amazing work :)

Melanie Katelin

xo

Mary Queen of Scots inspo... Hells yeahhh!

Chanel Pre-Fall 2013

So the other day at college, one of my friends found an article in i-D magazine and she said it reminded her of my project, so she printed it and she could not have been more right!!

Karl Karl Karl, why are you just so magnificent?

So in typical Lagerfeld style and of course Chanel style, the house seriously went hard on this collection and location and boy did they not fail to impress! 

So the show was just casually held at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland which was the birthplace and home to Mary Queen of Scots until her cousin once removed or something along those lines Queen Elizabeth I executed her due to treason and plotting against the Queen. So this Castle has so much history behind it, it has a story of sorrow and cruelty. It is also the place in which Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel spent precious moments with her lover the Duke of Westminster, so this Palace holds so much rich history for the Chanel brand. Oh and not to mention Lagerfeld also had the weather listening to him as to make this night even more magical and sorrowful with remembrance as well as joy for a beautiful collection the sky almost cried away beautiful delicate snowflakes that kissed it's guests as they arrived for the show.

Now the collection, what can I say just like Chanel herself it showed elegance but yet a slightly boyish spin on every item in the collection which showed rich, soft and beautiful Scottish Cashmere from The Barrie Knitwear Company, and let’s not forget that their of course was the most amazing and exquisite embellishment on most of the garments.

Here are some of my favourite pieces from the collection:

Some of the key elements that I find so inspiring about this collection are for example the 'Bows', how much detailing do they have alone?! I mean you may think bows are simple but realistically and to get them to hold like that, it is not so easy and it reminds me so much of the Fashion bow from the V&A which I wrote about on a previous post. I also love how they all have a jewel inside, it is beautiful.

Also have you noticed how all the models are in flats? I read somewhere that apparently, Lagerfeld did not feel as though it was right for the models to be strutting around in stilettos in such a historical place like Linlithgow Palace and decided to make his collection all in flats... That shows so much respect for the historical building and the history. 

I also love all the ruffs and gathers and puffiness that is in all of the garments, they look so historical yet modern and contemporary which is something that I am aiming to achieve with my FMP collection so thank you so much for this inspiration Mr Lagerfeld!  

 

 

 

CAD - day 1 outcome

So these are the shorts that I made yesterday that I was telling you about.

I'm so pleased with the outcome and today I will be starting on my FMP and making my designs into CAD format which I will write all about later.

Melanie Katelin

xo

CAD - Day 1

Today has been my first day learning how to use CAD for fashion. I am doing a short course at Nottingham Trent University as I feel that this is a skill that is worth knowing and I know that it will help me when I am at University. (CAN NOT WAIT NOW!!)

So today we were working on Adobe Illustrator which I have managed to get along with and I have had so much fun! I really really love doing this and tomorrow I am going to be creating designs for my FMP so wooooo! This is so relevant and hopefully it will also help with my grade.

Today we were just getting used to the basics so - Pen Tool  (TOTES my new bf! it just gets me ;) hehe )
We also changed the lines to show Top Stitch, Twin Needle Stitching and Seam joints, I also added in fabric creasing to make it seem more realistic. Unfortunatly I do not have my copy of what I have done today on me so when I get into the Uni tomorrow I shall try to upload what it is that I am currently doing. BTW I CADed (made up word) some High Waisted Shorts which I am rather proud of!!!

Have you done/do CAD? Tell me of your expreience!!

Melanie Katelin
xo

This Week: FMP

Wednesday 6th March ( I know its not this week!)

I went into college today to decide what I will do as my Final Major Project Topic. I sat with my tutor and unfortunately it was not easy to decide which was best suited for me, therefore I did more research and decided that I would be able to find more resources and information about the Tudors and that I would more than likely prefer this topic idea. When I was younger I loved loved loved Queen Elizabeth 1 and the stories of Henry VIII and his six wives, so in a way it is really fun and exciting to bring my childhood memories into this project.

Monday 11th March

So so so ill! I spent today just sleeping and got nothing done at all! Such a shame.

Tuesday 12th March

I went into college for 1 hour to speak to my tutor and then came home and drew from Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I managed to get a lot of information from this film and some really nice sketchbook pages that I have taken a lot of time over (I was told to slow down and take more care!) and I believe that it has really paid off.

Wednesday 13th March

I went to London today with my friend Megan, it was really fun and we found a lot of primary research with is AMAZING!!

We went to the Victoria and Albert Museum where we went to see the Treasures of the Royal Courts exhibition which I found rather disappointing and although this is mainly due to the fact that I was not allowed to spend time in the room and draw from the exhibition and also because I had personally thought that there were going to be crowns and jewels, however I did see Henry VIII's Armour which was pretty cool! (boy was he fat by the way! and short, haha).

After the exhibition we went to the Fashion area of the museum which was so much fun we spent 2 hours in about a quarter of the room! hahaha so bad but the garments were beautiful! There was one which I loved from 1755-60 which was the Court Mantua (imaged below) which was so beautiful and detailed and I think I spent a whole hour just studying this garment!

I also really liked the menswear from around about 1790 and their bows! LOVED THE BOWS!  (pictured below)

Afterwards we went to the Natural History Museum across the road and saw the dinosaurs purely for fun and went to see all the stuffed animals which was research before heading over to Somerset House.

Now I was really disappointed by Somerset House when I read the website it has a whole section called 'The Tudor Palace' which I read and found out that Princess Elizabeth 1 lived there when she was younger and I assumed that the would be rooms set up in that sort of style. I got told that there were two but you had to book to see them! :( But on the plus side there was a Wool House Exhibition which was fantastic and really interesting! Loved all the rooms and the colab with Alexander McQueen for a beautiful wall hanging!

18th Century Fashion V&A

18th Century Fashion V&A

Thursday 14th March

I drew from Elizabeth: The Golden Age (finished the film off) and The Other Boleyn Girl.

Friday 15th March

I was going to go to Wollaton Hall, however my tutor said it would be nice if I did some secondary research. So I went to the library got loads of magazines and Tudor fashion and history books which are at home right now!! I also did a few sketchbook pages and came up with the title for my FMP (what do you think)

Divorced Beheaded Died Divorced Beheaded Survived

Simple and rather long but it rhymes and I think is quite catchy and it just fits in with the whole era.

UNLUCKY DIP!!

So I have started my final mini project for college before it gets serious!! Final Major Project starts next month, eeeeeeeeek!!!! 

Last week we started an illustration project named Unlucky Dip, it says it all doesn't it? There were 3 boxes and you had to collect an envelope from each box which contained your word, style and designer. I got Book, Futuristic and Markus Lupfer. So currently I am researching all of my words and its quite fun although I was to start off with slightly disappointed with my designer as i had no idea who he was and i couldn't find him on my phone all i could see were jumpers and i was like GREAT!!! but I've surprised myself, I've changed my attitude and realised he fits into my project perfectly especially with his metallic range and I actually like him... WOOOOOP.

And here are my favourite of his designs. Hope you like them as much as I do now, and i have totally learned to be a bit more open minded!! Now I had better go and do my sketchbook

White Out

For college my fashion brief for the Christmas holidays was 'White Out', I had to re-create a males shirt using 3 key words. Mine were Death, Decadence and Serene.

Here are a few pictures from my photo shoot, feel free to let me know what you think! :)