Today was extremely windy, which was fitting for a Friday the 13th. Someone mentioned that it was like Final Destination outside today, and the wind warning was for winds up to 50 mph. I use metric, so I don’t truly appreciate what that means, but I imagine it to be something like 100 km/h. Which is really fast. My hair was quite wild because of the wind, and I think it probably resembled a nest for awhile. It also kept getting into my eyes as I was trying to cross the street, so it really could have been a Final Destination day for me if I wasn’t paying attention.
I haven’t posted anything since my semester post-mortem, so I thought I’d start up my What I Wore Today posts again. Lately I’ve been interning at Honor, an NYC label that is pretty new. So far I am enjoying it! Everybody is friendly and I’ve been doing some fun stuff. Things are pretty busy, since they are getting ready for Fashion Week in February, and it seems like they might be cutting things really close. I wonder if that is an industry standard…
Anyhow, I wore my new Uniqlo J+ down jacket. I got it for less than half price, I believe. It has 3/4 wide sleeves and interesting construction. For example, it does not have an armhole seam and instead has a single dart on top of the shoulder and a panel on the underside of the arm! The hood looks like a fun collar when down, and the fact that it is down makes it super warm. AND although it is down and puffy, the outside is a wool blend twill, so it isn’t shiny and static-y on the outside. Genius! It’s too bad that this is Jill Sander’s last J+ collection with Uniqlo.
I was also wearing this jacket last night when I went to meet Noam for dinner. I stopped for a moment to look into a little restaurant on 30th, and a man came up and asked me if I liked vegetarian food. I said I did, and he suggested we go into the restaurant and eat together. I told him I was unfortunately meeting a friend for dinner already, and he launched into a diatribe about how “my people” are prejudiced. Somewhere in there he complimented me on being “tall for an Asian” and having long hair, the appreciation of which he punctuated by reaching out and pushing some of it off my face. “Don’t touch me, dude,” I replied. He started to say something like “See? You people are prejudiced,” and I decided the best course of action was to roll my eyes before walking away.
The sad part of this story is that I know for a fact that this would never have happened if I were walking with a man. The reason is that if a man were with me, there would be a high chance in this person’s mind that I “belonged” to the man. Since I was unaccompanied, it meant I was free for the taking (and apparently, the touching). And when I declined his advances and enforced my personal boundaries, I was “being prejudiced” against him. And that, ladies and gents, is why I am a Feminist. Because I want to be able to walk in the fucking street at night, and stop in front of a restaurant or shop without having someone try to lay claim to me. AND accuse me of being prejudiced just because I don’t want to have dinner with a stranger, when I already have plans with a friend! UGH
Parsons’ Fashion AAS is fairly challenging, even for someone who comes from a studio environment. In my undergrad I would regularly pull all-nighters between one and three times per week. I was also working on the weekends. My current school experience has been much better even though I have more classes, either because I am more organized, or simply because I have two extra days to do homework (perhaps a mix of the two). In any case, I didn’t have to pull any all-nighters until the last week. If you count an hour and a half as real sleep, then I only did 1 all-nighter. Woo!
I have some fun things to show for it though. I didn’t have to do much in the way of drawings, but I had to compile a portfolio of the work I’d done throughout the semester for my Drawing 2 class. The first parts are development, starting with marker gestures and moving towards line and then colour. The designed garments are 6 pc mini collections arranged by type, with the aim being to accurately represent fabric weight, colour, texture, pattern, and drape. The first group is summer casual, the second is fall/winter, the third is eveningwear, and the last was the “final exam” collection, which was a workwear collection for a woman who works at an art gallery or museum of my choice, for the season of my choice. I decided on a slightly older woman (30+) who works in a Klimt museum, who makes $70,000/year and spends most of it on clothes. The collection is for fall, and is a luxurious reinterpretation of the traditional clothing of the Sami people, known for reindeer farming in the Laplands regions of Sweden and Finland. For serious.
I also sewed three garments of my own design. For my draping class, I decided I wanted to do a cape even though we had never learned this. We had done a bodice and a circle skirt however, and I figured it was somewhere in the intersection of these two. The part that gave me the most trouble was the hood, which I wanted to be really full. I also decided I wanted it to fall back over the shoulders like a capelet, which meant that I had to continually check the shape while it was up and down. I also had to make a head for my dress form. In the end I had to look at the hood on someone’s coat and try to emulate it, because it was just too difficult for me to figure out the shaping. I wasted two days trying to make my original capelet design work into a hood, before scrapping it entirely because I was running out of time. I scrapped a few design and finishing details simply because it took me SO LONG to sew the thing. One might feel that a cape, having only 9 pattern pieces, would take but a few hours to complete. Believe me, I felt the same way. Until I realized that the bulkiness of the fabric meant I could not plain seam much of anything at all.
I used a wool/cashmere blend double-cloth, which means it is two fabrics that are woven together with a third weft. So every seam had to be lapped; the pieces were sewn correct side to wrong side, then I had to pull apart the two layers of the double cloth, trim the underside layer, then fold and press the top layer over to a 1/4 inch and edgestitch the fold down. Each seam took me HOURS as a result, and also the thickness of the fabric meant I could not use pins to hold down the fold. I had to rip out several stitches and redo them because I didn’t catch the fold underneath, or the fold didn’t lay right and resulted in ugly bumps in the seam, or the stitching just plain looked horrible. Someone had suggested to me that I hand-baste it down before sewing, which probably would have saved me time in the long run, but I was tired and just wanted it to be finished. Some of the seaming doesn’t look so great as a result… But overall, I think I did a fairly good job. I also had to do this for my sewing class, which meant I had to have certain finishes applied. It had to have a facing and a closure of some kind, so I faced the neckline and front extension, and I have a button (no buttonhole though, sadly). The hood/capelet is also zip-off, with a very nice gold-tone zipper.
For patternmaking, I made a pencil skirt with a high slit and giant side pocket, and a cutout top. Sadly, my patternmaking teacher collected the patterns for grading, and I won’t get them back until after the winter break. This is regrettable, because I’d like to make a lining for my skirt and I don’t feel like drafting it all over again (though I could trace off my muslin). Here’s a preliminary pic for now, but I can take some more with different views when I have more time. We all had to design, pattern, and sew a skirt or full look to our own measurements. Here I am with my lovely classmates Minh-Cheun and Ruthie, decked out for our final project fashion show:
Despite the stress, I had a really good time learning all this stuff But I’m definitely ready for a break.
You would think that at a fashion school, Halloween would be a bigger deal. I mean, it’s all about costumes! I wish they would work costumes into the curriculum, and have everyone wear them.
I don’t have time to make this, but I really wish I did. Maybe I will do this as part of a capsule collection. I want to do a mini collection based on my Shadow Empress story, and have all the outfits based on characters you might find in the Shadow Empress’ court as she marches across the shadow lands to collect the rainbow crystal.
Previously I did a Scout and the Empress, but now I have added a Shaman/Necromancer. Maybe a Wizard or something. Why you’d have a court necromancer, I do not know. But I’ve never been a Shadow Empress so there is likely a lot of stuff I don’t know about who would be in the court of one.
I am thinking of making the mask a paper-craft thing, and am trying to enlist the help of someone who is much better at visualizing things in 3d (Alex). He said “That sounds easy,” so I guess it means he is willing to help I tried to think of how to make the skull of an ibex into a planar thing, sort of like the paper animal project we had to do in my undergrad. But I don’t think what I’ve drawn is descriptive enough. I will have to play with paper to find out the possibilities, most likely.
My shaman drawing has a distinct character design slant rather than the fashion illustration thing I’ve been trying to develop. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. My whole angle regarding why I am valuable to the fashion industry is my video game background, and interest in concept art. Nobody else in my program is bringing that to the table, as far as I know; the only other person with a solid art background is an animator, and her style is much more loose. If I were to describe our styles, I would say she is Virtuoso (everything looks totally effortless and pretty) and I am more technical. My style is less pretty and floaty and more solid; I tend to like my figures to have weight and strength, like they’re using their muscles. But I really admire Fay’s work and I want to work on bringing that Virtuoso quality of hers into my own illustrations. I think the difference between us is that I’ve done 10,000 drawings in my lifetime, and she’s done 1,000,000.
In my opinion, Parsons’ Fashion program would benefit from a bit more technical drawing instruction. I appreciate their whole Ultimate Freedom drawing style that they push, which means I never spend more than 20 minutes on a drawing from gesture to rendered finish, but that is because I already have a good idea of exactly where to put all my marks. Instructions like “there are no rules for it, you just have to get a feel” are not useful for someone who doesn’t already have an significant figure drawing background. For people whose past degrees are in Finance or Poli Sci, you just need to know that the knee is roughly 3 heads from the hip. You need to have a box to play in before you can think outside it. I can stylize my drawings and “have a feel” for where knees go and how long legs should be in proportion to a body because I know how to draw a body with purposeful proportions. If you never give someone proportions to aim at and let them achieve it, they never learn to control where anything goes! Maybe if being in the industry doesn’t work out for me, I will be a fashion illustration teacher and make my students learn anatomy.
My life is pretty much comprised of homework, walking up and down stairs in subway stations, and occasionally sleeping. There is sometimes eating, grocery shopping, laundry, and showering mixed in there, along with the requisite wall-staring, digital-procrastinating, and personal art-making. Most of my homework is pretty boring to look at; I have a thick stack of fashion drawings that are 1-4 minutes each, “mood boards”, which are really just glorified fashion collages, 20 or so stitch technique samples, a bunch of generic skirt patterns, a draped muslin bodice that fits my dress form at school (Constantine), and some colour theory stuff. However, I just finished my first actual garment, a skirt! It is a simple straight skirt that starts at the natural waistline and features some pretty nice finishing techniques. And just so you know, I did that blind hem by hand. There is a blind hemmer at school, but unfortunately it is not very modern and the hem isn’t particularly blind. Maybe next time I will use it.
check out those finishing techniques!
It has a Hong Kong edge finish on the waistband, and is fully lined. It even has a sexy back vent:
This pattern is a little bit bigger than I am, but once I am done my personal sloper I will be able to make patterns for myself!
I made this last night at 3 in the morning, and then in my sleep-deprived haste, somehow did not save the PSD and only made a web JPG. I guess this is never getting reworked, even though I dislike the positioning of the head and arms…
This is based on the Lotus War series by James Jean. I was talking with Alex about chest pieces, and my fondness for tattoos but inability to think of something that would go with every outfit for the rest of my life. But if I could commit to something, it’d probably be something like this.
There is a long story about how and why I made this, so I will start from the very beginning.
My skull feels like it is too small for my brain. I wore something or other, and my favourite boots. I was thinking of taking a nap and waking up to do homework, but it is now 9pm. I will just have to shift it over, but I have so much to do. I scheduled sewing and pattern drafting for tomorrow, but I was supposed to do 15 figure drawings this evening. Ugh. Maybe I should just outsource it all, haha. I wish.
Here is a sketch of Martin, whom I met at the International Student Orientation waaaay back in the beginning of August. I think I spent too much time on his face and not enough on the rest of him. But I really wanted to capture his expression, which I feel is what defines him. That shy smile with the dimples is his trademark. I tried to recreate the outfit that I think he wore when we went to the Brooklyn Flea Market with Carmen. It was a really fun day! We wandered through the market, and then sat in the grass and ate the messiest, most delicious Mexican food.
I’m sad that I haven’t seen him in a long time, since we are both so busy with school. I miss his emphatic nature. The day that I had to wade through the storm water ocean, Martin, Carmen, and I had been hanging out. Carmen offered to lend Martin her umbrella because he had a really long walk from the subway station. His response was to blurt out “NO!” in a horrified voice, as if it would be inconceivable to borrow her umbrella at her expense. I couldn’t help laughing because it was so unexpectedly sweet, but that is also characteristic of Martin
Someone said that to me today as I was walking past. I started to smile at him, but then he appended “…sexy” at the end of it. Gross.
I thought about when I was in London, and how I sometimes didn’t wear certain things because I was afraid I’d get sexually harassed. I wanted to participate in Slutwalk Calgary, because I don’t believe in victim-blaming. If I want to wear shorts with boots, or a miniskirt, or whatever, I should be able to without being afraid of what other people will say or do to me.
The ladies at my mom’s office would often talk about wearing appropriate clothes for their body types lest they cause “eye pollution”. I am going into the fashion industry, so I guess I should be invested in this sort of mentality. But I’m really not. People should wear what makes them happy; if they don’t look like a supermodel in it, whatever. At least they are happy and have their own style. Of course I would prefer if everyone could look fantastic in their clothes, but I don’t think I am entitled to apply my narrow view of beauty to other peoples’ lives. Though, this only applies to people who think about what they wear. People who just throw on clothes for the sake of not being naked and end up looking really bad, need some help.
Anyhow, this is the outfit that inspired that unnecessary comment. I guess it is equal parts collegiate beach girl and Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman. But I prefer to call it “Japanese Anime Inspired”:
I feel like my hair is taking on a life of its own as it grows longer. It also seems to be growing much faster than before. I am usually quite laissez-faire about my hair (i.e. lazy) and let it do whatever it wants. Apparently what it wants to do is be wavy at the ends and somewhat frizzy. I don’t really know what to do about that. My hair has always been very sleek, since I lived in a low-humidity place. I guess I would have to get some product, and do things like blow dry my hair with a round brush. Grown up stuff. Bleah.
These are sailor pants that I bought from a store in Calgary as it was having a close-out sale. They had a little rip in them, right by the top button. It was a tear in the seam, and the fabric was frayed. So after I sewed it up, I put a little heart shaped patch on top to strengthen the fabric. I think it looks pretty cute. The only problem with these pants is that in real life, the buttons make the light linen fabric pull into creases. It gives an impression that the pants are stretched too tight, which I am not fond of. But I still like the pants, so I wear them anyway…
I actually quite enjoy thinking of fun things to wear to school! It’s really funny how different my neighbourhood is from the Garment District in Manhattan. I live in Sunnyside, which is very residential and full of families with young children; as a result it’s not exactly the fashion centre of Queens, and I often get some funny looks from people on my way to school. Although one day as I was running to school, this little old lady yelled out “Nice socks! Where’d you get them?” As I went past. I was wearing my colour blocked japanese thigh high socks I was booking it for the train though, so I didn’t answer her. But I wish I could have chatted with her, because it’s not every day that an 80 year old lady with a shaky voice compliments your thigh high socks.
I haven’t been updating at all, which I apologize for. In the time that I’ve been gone, a lot has happened! First I was back home for my friend Joy’s beautiful wedding in Banff. Then I was trapped in Calgary for a few extra days because of Hurricane Irene, during which time I missed 4 classes. One might think missing the first class of the year is no big deal, but when you have 9 classes and 7 of them are studios (meaning, project-based work classes that have something due every single week), missing 4 classes is indeed a really big deal. As the past 3 weeks have proven, just catching up can be quite difficult. Especially when you lose one of your assignments and have to redo it. I ended up dropping the class in which I finally caught up after that debacle, which is awfully silly. I should have just dropped it when I lost my assignment, but I wasn’t thinking at the time. I was much too busy scrambling to project manage my homework schedule so it could fit into the number of hours I actually have available.
I wonder how the other ladies even do it. Several of them are Fast-tracking like me, so they are in the same boat. But very few have an illustration background, so they can’t bang out 15 drawings in an hour. Some of them, in addition to not knowing how to draw, do not even have basic sewing knowledge… On top of this, I came from a studio-based program so I am used to managing several wildly varying projects. At ACAD, most of our projects were longer term, which actually meant more managing since you had to break down some of the process yourself and milestone it so you didn’t do an entire 4 week project the week it was due. Working in video games was the same thing, only with a team, and tighter deadlines. Since I come from a production environment, I know about pipelines and how to organize tasks chronologically so that I can finish them in an efficient manner. I also know how to really make things; some of these ladies came from Finance or Political Sciences. They are still exploring the concept of creating something with their hands while on a strict timeline, totally different from their previous academic experiences of reading and researching, or even working on projects on their own.
Still, even I have my limits. With 9 classes, I managed to catch up with the missed assignments, keep up with the homework, and cook and clean for myself. I’ve been making my lunches and bringing them to school to save on eating out in Times Square. I’m on an unglamorous student budget. But “keeping up” is not really the point of going to school in New York City. I didn’t really come here to do homework all day and not talk to people or make connections, or learn anything about the actual industry. I literally had no time for anything, anything at all, except for homework and basics like doing laundry and grocery shopping/cooking/eating. Sometimes sleeping. So I dropped one class, bringing the count down to a mere 8. Surprisingly, this makes a lot of difference in terms of workload. This weekend I am going to have brunch with a friend, and if I don’t slack off, I can finish off the rest of next week’s homework. This means I’ll be able to do my homework the day it is assigned, whereas before I was constantly playing catch-up. And that means weekends will be free!
Of course, I am also hatching a scheme to take over the fashion world. It is likely to take up a big chunk of my newfound free time. But my project, even if it’s not successful, will give me a lot of exposure and real world experience. It is totally worth it. It’s a pretty good idea so I am keeping it on the DL for now, but stay tuned in the future… In a year and a half, you might be owning some Andrea Lam collection items
No new drawings to show you, although I’ve been doing a lot of drawing… But here is a video I took of my infamous assignment that I had to remake. Enjoy!
What I wore to my friend’s wedding! It was a beautiful ceremony and reception in the Banff Springs Hotel, which is like a fairytale castle in the mountains. It was so nice to see her again, and also see some of my friends from ACAD.
The wedding itself was very “Joy”. Everything was perfect, down to the little tea box with a bird shaped clasp. I can’t believe how gorgeous everything was. I had so much fun just looking at all the decor, the candy buffet table, the little details… Not to mention the photo booth!
I am so happy for her that she found the man of her dreams. I don’t know Josh very well, but I can tell that he really loves her, and I wish them all the best
About the dress, I ordered it online from All Saints. It was massively on sale. While I was in Europe I would look through All Saints longingly, wishing I could afford something to take home. I also couldn’t fit any more into my already strained luggage. I ordered the smallest size, 6, thinking that it’d be like North American sizing where I am usually slightly smaller than the smallest women’s size. It is most definitely NOT. I should have ordered a size up. I am able to wear the dress, but there is an inner corset that I don’t do up, mostly because I like breathing and eating too much. I think the inner corset probably squishes my waist into 23 inches. I did it up one day just to see what it was like. It looked fantastic, but I would probably faint if I wore it for longer than an hour. I used my James Jean illustrated Prada clutch, which hasn’t gotten to come out and play for a long time, and super tall Nine West shoes. They gave me a massive blister, which I covered with a bandaid, only for the shoes to rub a hole in the bandaid! The things we do for fashion… I also used my Alexander McQueen scarf as a shoulder coverup during the ceremony (not pictured). It might be a faux-pas to use a skull motif scarf for a religious wedding ceremony though :S
Some of you may remember the movie Lady in the Water; I never saw it, and this post is largely unrelated except for the fact that I was also a lady in the water. Only 99% less romantic and ethereal, with no other characters involved, and the water was brown and dirty with soil and plant debris.
I had been at MoMA with Carmen and Martin for the free Friday night admission. We were going to go out for food, but then it started raining. It was light rain at first, so I thought it’d be fine; not so. Soon it was torrential, and we were all deciding to go home instead of try to find a place to eat in this weather.
We parted ways at around 8ish, and I didn’t get home until 9:30. It normally takes me about 30 minutes to get home from midtown, including walking time. But when I got on the 7 train, it sat at the station for about 30 minutes before I finally could hear what the announcer was saying over the intercom; that there was a power outage on the 7 line, and no trains were running in either direction. So I switched to a different line instead, one that stopped a bit farther away from my house. It wasn’t a big deal, since I’d taken it before and found my way home. The walk was maybe 15-20 minutes? Nothing I couldn’t handle, although it was raining. What I did not know was that a small ocean had appeared between the M train and my house, swallowing up 3 cars and requiring the police to block off the only walkway that I knew of. People were apparently free to walk through it, so I went for it. It was either find a new, longer route, or wade through some storm water; I was wearing shorts and flip flops, and was going to need a shower when I got home anyway. So in I went! It was pretty nasty; pokey tree bits were in that water, among other things.
I took a couple of pics with my phone, but I was terrified of dropping it in the water, so I only got a few. I don’t know that they properly illustrate how deep it was, but it certainly makes it look vast…
Ever since Noam took me to Fat Cat, I’ve been dying to go back. So I met up with Alex at school, where I had free wine and food. There was some kind of parents night or something, and everyone had name tags. The wine was pretty bad, but I was so thirsty that I had 2 glasses anyway. We walked over to Fat Cat, and Alex explained to me that he was definitely going to beat me at every game. I am pretty competitive, so of course those were fightin’ words. Unfortunately he was right; I put up a good fight but lost to him terribly in Scrabble, 181 to 292. Though I think I did pretty well considering I haven’t played Scrabble in probably 10 years. Then, it was Ping Pong… Oh man. Alex plays tennis usually, but lately I guess he’s been into Ping Pong because it’s cheaper and easier to find. Well, that just gives you a bit of an edge on other people doesn’t it? We only rallied because any attempt at playing a game would have resulted in my immediate failure; I had enough trouble keeping the ball in bounds. Next time we should play foosball, so I can have some kind of chance at winning :\
This drawing makes me look much better at Ping Pong than I actually am. Maybe after enough rallies with Alex I will look this hard core in real life…
Noam asked me the other day about my outfit posts; “What happens when you wear a plain t-shirt or something?” to which I replied, “I just make the illustration more interesting.” This post is no exception.
Because I’ve run out of stylish things to wear, I have started dipping into the wardrobe staples. This is my $8 tunic tank from Joe Fresh, and the short shorts from Aeropostale that I wore to the Burner party. I’m not really brand oriented; there are some brands that I associate with a certain level of quality, of course, but I look more for fabrics, silhouette, fit, mixing potential, and uniqueness/character. If the clothing doesn’t give me a certain sense of what kind of character would wear it, I don’t normally buy it. Sometimes this is detrimental, as it leaves me with very few basics. Although I have this same tank in 5 colours…
I feel that my style is somewhat limited by the fact that it is too hot for me to wear more than 3 pieces of clothing at any given time. Also, the only footwear that is appropriate in this heat/rain is flip flops. My usual style is to layer, and this is entirely quashed by my need for practicality (ie, to not sweat myself to death in the subway).
I quite like this drawing, actually. It is much more like the way I draw with a pen in real life. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my scanner with me, but I could get it when I return to Calgary in a few days. OR I could buy a fancy new one, since mine is from Junior High/High School.
Alex and I went to Union Square to hang out awhile before he had to go to an Orientation Meeting. I had a $10 “Stiff Shake” at some random place full of college students. I have to say that a chocolate shake is greatly improved by the presence of Frangelico. I might have to get a bottle and go to Carmen’s place to have a shake party.
But I’m definitely ready for a break.
I tried to think of how to make the skull of an ibex into a planar thing, sort of like the paper animal project we had to do in my undergrad. But I don’t think what I’ve drawn is descriptive enough. I will have to play with paper to find out the possibilities, most likely.
