Speaking of Shopping

I've been shopping a lot lately, must be all of the end of summer sales. But one sale I am really looking forward to is the Prada Sample Sale.

I've been once before and I found a really cute pair of shoes, a belt, and a skirt or two. That was a while back, now they have this whole system of reserving a spot, etc. Which is way better than waiting in line for an hour.

My appointment is for next Wed. at 3pm. My partner in crime, Aphrodite, is going to go with me. Luckily she was able to squeeze this shopping trip in right before she flies off to France for 3 weeks.

Shop 'Til I Dropped

Every once in a while, the stars align and a couple of my good friends don't need to go in to work in the middle of the week. So of course we get together for a day of lunch and shopping.

We had lunch at Alice's Tea Cup. You can't get any girlier than that. It is such a great place to go with your girlfriends. After a long lunch where we ate small bits of tea sandwiches (okay, I had big bites of steak salad) and sipping cups of rose tea, we were ready to go shopping.

Time flew by so fast. We were only able to visit a couple of shops within the 2-3 block radius.

Believe it or not, I went to all new stores. I bought some great finds from Searle, pookie & sebastian, and Lingerie on Lexington. I am not sure why I've never been to these stores, maybe they are more popular with the upper eastsiders.

At Searle, they were having a trunk show, so we helped ourselves to complimentary glasses of wine. After a glass, I had to get out of store, before I moved from the sales rack to their new fall merchandise.

Another Colorboard

Yes, I have another colorboard. This one is based off the most recent mood board.

According to my schedule, I should be designing right now. I looked over the sketches I have for S/S '08 and I didn't like any of it. At least not enough to bring over to A/W '08-'09. Is it totally normal to just not like your designs after a while?

I thought I can at least bring forward a couple of designs so I wouldn't have to drape everything over, but I really want to produce a design I truly love.

So I am going to start another intense session of sketching and designing. And maybe this time I won't drape everything, just the ones that are hard to describe on paper. We'll see ....

Mood Board A/W 08-09

When I was working on S/S 08, I didn't have a mood board, 'cause I was just rushing through the process. Now that I have given myself more time, this is my mood board for A/W 08-09.

I can see how a mood board can be beneficial in the design process. It is an inspiration and an anchor.

Lost Roman Holiday

I was just catching up on all my WWD reading and ran into an article about an Pompeii Exhibit showing in Dallas.

This reminded me of the time when I went to Pompeii with my DH. We had such a great time. Walking through the ashes of old Pompeii was surreal.

I would like to explore this inspiration at another date, not for the season I am working on now, but I guess I'll just file it away and maybe it'll work for another season.

Radom Find on Google Images

So in my search for inspirational images, I found these series of hand-painted photographs by fine arts photographer, Wendi Schneider.

This was the first image that caught my attention. I found it because in the description it says the model is laying on vintage 1940's textile.

Since I like the photo so much, I started looking through the rest of the series and I found that a lot of images where exactly what I was seeing in my head. The poses, the colors, etc.

It's 1947

My first deadline has come and gone. I didn't get a chance to do ANY work this weekend. I am still working on my story/mood board. Now I am exploring the whole 40's feel.

The vintage Vogue covers I found before were all too 1920's, too flapper. I am leaning towards a slimmer silhouette with a tiny, tiny waist. I guess it's a back lash against all the "pregnancy" dresses.

Here are some more images for my mood board.

This is my favorite image. The whole mood is very mysterious, dark, and sexy. The only thing I don't like is the yellow plaid. Is it just me or is she wearing black ankle socks? I think I am going to have crop this picture 'cause I can't stop staring at her socks!

Vintage Vogue Covers

Another inspiration I want to explore is vintage Vogue covers, especially during the 1920's. I wanted to go to the FIT library where they have all the vogue magazines, but was sad to find out that the library will be closed until the end of this month.

Luckily for google, I found a whole bunch of sites that had pics of vintage Vogue covers. Here are some that I like.



This last one is very spring so if I don't use this inspiration, I can save it for next season.

The Black Dahila

So according to my schedule I have to be finished with my storyboard and color board by next Monday. That give me 3 "business" days and 2 weekend days to do this. I actually already tried to talk myself into giving myself a couple more days and "rework" the schedule. That conversation only lasted 30 seconds before I reminded myself that was how I got into trouble before.

To start with I want to explore a story that I was exploring before ... the story and the movie "The Black Dahlia". To me the movie told a story of sadness, murder, mystery with a undertone of twisted sexual desires. Sounds like a good collection? :) I would love to hear any thoughts you may have on this story and/or other stories.

Here are some arresting imageries from the movie .....

Moving on to the next season ....

So as I mentioned yesterday, due to sever procrastination I am blaming on the beautiful summer days, I am pushing back my debut collection to Fall/Winter '08. To make myself feel better, I referred back to Kathleen Fasanella's book The Entrepreneur's Guide to Sewn Product Manufacturing, where I remember her saying that Fall season is the best launch time.

This is on page 43 under "Determine Market Entry" ....
"Fall is the easy favorite ....", "It is the number one selling season by a wide margin." "... Fall Market is the best choice of a start-up."

The only reason I didn't adhere to her advice before was because I was too impatient to launch my collection.

So now I have a definitive launch date .... January 1, 2008. And a definitive development schedule with hard deadlines.

Below is the schedule I adopted from Fasanella's book. I've broken up the steps a lot more and of course instead of 16 weeks, I've given myself 23 weeks.