Ginza Fashion

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Tokyo, I started surfing the net to see what clothes I need to bring. I can't use Melbourne weather as basis since we're in the middle of summer and currently in the middle of a heat wave with the temperatures in the 40s. Today, the temperature is expected to reach 44 degrees. Poor tennis player. Nadal was dripping in sweat while he was playing in court last night.

Based from little research I've made, we'd be arriving at the tail end of winter although I've read posts where it states that February was the coldest month. So, I went online and found these photos of pretty girls whose photos were taken in Ginza.

I don't think I'd ever be as fashionable as these pretty girls are but there's no harm in dreaming, eh? Photos from this site, Style Arena.

Is this layer-on-layer? I'm a fan of it. I also like the ear muffs.

I like the collar of this one, not to mention the length.

Love the dress, not the leggings.

Colour of the leggings contrasts too much withe the light colours. Not fond of bunching up leggings as well.

Don't like the boots, but I like the style of the jeans. I don't wear tight jeans but on some people, they really look good.

Jill Biden's Inaugural Attire

While most eyes were on the First Lady (of the US) that day, mine was immediately captivated by the lady in the red coat. I immediately thought, "Who is that stylish lady in red?" Later, I found out that she was Jill Biden, the Vice-President's wife.

I like red. When I see a piece of clothing in red, my eyes follow it.

There were those who didn't share my admiration for her outfit though. Some slammed her "Fleurette coat, plaid Milly dress and tall black boots" as inappropriate for her age and for the event. Some even said, she was trying to outshine Michelle Obama. I wouldn't know about the last one. Based on photos I've seen online prior to the inauguration, Jill Biden had her own sense of style.

Anyway, this was the photo that had some people applauding Jill Biden and others shaking their head and slamming her.


Photo from E Online


If I were to describe Jill Biden's style, it would be classic with a bit of youthfulness in it. Just because she's old does it mean she has to dress dowdily.

Here's another photo I got courtesy of Associated Press.

Mood Board, Fabric Board

In fashion design class, we're always required to do 3 sometimes 4 boards. Collectively, they are referred to as Story Boards. Individually, there is the Mood Board, the Fabric and Colour Board (sometimes they could be on 2 different boards), and the Style Board. This is not always the case in industry as we were told and as I've personally seen on a field visit. Sometimes a Story Board encompasses everything that are on these different boards. In a company we visited, their board consisted of a massive white board where they tacked on photos of the styles they wanted to sell and the fabrics they wanted to use.


The size of the boards gets smaller as you progress to Year 2 and 3 but in the industry (as per my observation), the bigger the boards and the images, the better.

Anyway, this is all about what we do in school in Year 1.


The Mood Board is all about what inspires you and how the images convey the feeling or the mood. Example, the mood I wanted to convey for this childrenswear range is a fantasy-based wonderland so I used a photo of a castle, fantasy photo of a sky, and lots of glitter.



Here are other mood boards, two boards depicting one theme. The theme is all about Old-Fashioned romance so I downloaded images from various sites. I do not own the images.





The Fabric and Colour Board contains the fabrics that would be used in the range. Depending on the teacher, the names of the fabrics are included as well as the code (i.e Fabric #3033 Silk). For the colours, the paint shop is a favourite destination. The colour cards section is great since the various shades could be found. On top of that, they're free. The colours are renamed to best represent the range, example, instead of just writing Red, it could be Warm Blood, or Pink could be Blush. It's all about marketing.



The Style Board contains images of the style, silhouette, etc that the range is inspired by. So, if the range is all about ruffles and puffed sleeves, the board would contain those images. Often the style is based on a trend declared by Fashion Forecasters. Fashion magazines and online sites like style.com also have these trend shots or trend explanations.

(Will look for a sample of this one in my pile of thingymajigs. Found one)



EDIT: Another board is the Hair, Make-up and Accessories Board. Depending on the teacher, you either have this on an A3 sized board like the others or the contents of the board could be placed in the Research Book. The Research book, sometimes referred to as the Journal, will be on another post.

Again, if the contents fit in one board, one will do but if two boards are needed, then two is also fine.






The purpose of these boards is to focus the attention on what the range would be. As I have personally experienced, once I start designing, I tend to go different ways. So, it's always good to have these boards propped up to remind myself that I'm just doing ruffles or I'm just doing a geometric silhouette.

Testing Part 2

The first one got deleted accidentally as I was trying to navigate.
My second attempt to blog using my mobile. Yep, am a late bloomer to mobile blogging. The small keys are a bit of a hindrance even with my average-sized fingers.
Okay. Let me see if I can upload photos.
The photos are from my mobile and taken during the December graduation.

Well, isn't that nice?

Not really. (I should've blogged about this earlier but I didn't have the time.)

I started flicking through the pages of this book I bought sometime this January, or was it last December? It's called Vogue Fashion: Over 100 years of Style by decade and designer in association with Vogue by Linda Watson. It wasn't an impulse buy. I really went into the bookstore looking for a book that would help me understand fashion more. If that were at all possible. They didn't have a lot of choices and I was a bit lazy crossing the street to Borders where I knew (at the back of my head) they had more choices. But I was in a hurry so I chose the only book on fashion I could find. Oh! And I also searched for the book Fashion Babylon (the one mentioned by Sarah) since it piqued my curiosity. They didn't have it. So, I just bought one book.

Back home, I didn't have time to read it since there was that looming 2nd deadline I had to beat. And other things that cropped up like reading manga online and comparing prices of hotels and flights for our upcoming travel. Was there any point in linking those two? But, of course! They're both done while sitting infront of my trusty little laptop.

Fortunately, I did manage to do a bit of reading mostly done in the bathroom. Pffft! I kid you not. I have a huge stack of magazines and other reading paraphernalia in the bathroom for those times when I would just be sitting and doing my business. Eeew! Ahahahahahaha. Sorry bout that. ^_^

And what have I learned so far from reading the book? That I should've bought it last year when I had that assignment in Fashion History. This book contained everything I was required to write about in that class. And where was this book when I needed it? Hiding from me. And when I no longer needed it but just wanted it? It showed itself to me. Lovely, isn't it?

A bit of a Murphy's Law happening?

Anyway, good as this book looks, I don't think it compares to Taschen's A History from the 18th to the 20th Century. B, our Fashion History teacher last year, showed the two hardbound books and the photos of those clothes were just amazing!

Here are sample pages taken from Taschen's website (http://www.taschen.com/)

These were the only available photo pages but the photos of the fabulous clothes since the 18th century were just to die for. The intricate details were just mind boggling considering that the clothes were even done by hand.

Therefore, I told myself that someday (preferably before school starts) I'd buy myself copies of these books. The paperback editions are cheaper. ^_^

Met my Deadline (Barely)!

Happy. So happy. My head aches but I don't care. I'm still happy.

I finally finished and emailed my childrenswear designs as of 4.32 PM Australian time today. I'm not sure if M received it though. I intentionally copy pasted all the designs to MS Word since Adobe Photoshop was frustrating me and Paint Shop Pro was no better. In the end, I converted all the JPEG files to GIF and used PAINT (to use the bucket fill tool). After checking that everything was okay, descriptions of the clothes, colour way, prints, etc., I sent off the email only to find to my horror (dramatic effect) that the size of the email was 5MB!

I sent a text message to M's phone but I didn't receive any reply. If she sends me a message later that she didn't get my email, I'll send the designs separately.

Sarah: Hullo, glad to know you enjoyed your Korean vacation. I'll have to seriously think about posting my designs since they're really not that good, according to my teachers no less bohoohooohooo. Pfft! Yeah, yeah. Self-pity doesn't befit me. I'll look through the piles of drawings I've made and will post some of them later. =)