Going Away Present

Front Cover.

My grandma surprised me this morning with a "little" gift for starting my senior year of college. It's a wonderful (and rather thick, like 1.5 inches) fashion book titled "Fashion: the Definitive of Costume and Style." It's by the Smithsonian and it's pretty awesome. The book has a lot of beautiful pictures and loads of information on history, fashion styles, designers and more. I'm loving it so far and I'm looking forward to using it as a helpful resource when constructing my senior collection as well as my work in the costume shop if I get to help on the research end of things this semester. We shall see what happens. Can't wait to have even more to post about! Moving to school tomorrow so stay tuned for more! 

Packing & Moving

A snip-it of my wardrobe.

As of now I have a majority of everything I need to move packed, however, I haven't packed any of my clothes. I'm trying to decide what I need and what I won't wear so I shouldn't waste space, but it's really hard because I have a lot of options and the weather changes so often I need a variety of seasonal choices. Part of me is saying if I didn't take it to London in my 1 suitcase, and if I didn't take it to Illinois for my costume internship, well then I shouldn't take it school. But the summer is all hot weather so of course I'll need to take stuff I didn't pack for Illinois like all my sweaters. Also I didn't take a lot of stuff I loved to London in case something were to happen, that's one reason I managed to take only 1 suitcase, I took stuff that could get ruined or whatnot and it wouldn't be the end of the world. So I wasn't the typical fashion person at the London College of Fashion, but it wasn't a big deal to me. Everyone's style is different, so what if I rocked some old school batman tees while everyone else was dressed head to toe in black, the clothes part didn't matter because I was there for school. Now going back to Purdue (IN) is completely different. Whatever I don't pack for the year I'm going to need to rethink about keeping it in my closet here in Ohio. Some stuff is meaningful and I'll keep it, but if my white jeans don't make it to school I'll probably donate them in the spring. I need to declutter my closet and thus declutter my life. I do think that I might hold on to some unique pieces however, that way if I do go into costuming and I freelance for community theaters, I'll have a good size stock to pull from for certain shows. We'll see what happens. It's going to be hard to write for the next few days so this might be it for a bit. Stay tuned for what makes the cut and what gets cut from my wardrobe.

Ready For the Semester

Jessica (L) and Me (R).

The school year is almost here! My classes start August 24th and I'm really excited to get back to a schedule and get down to business for my collection. I have some pretty great ideas and just want to be all moved in and set up my sewing room. I'll post about my new place when I'm all settled in and ready for the semester to start!
The picture to the left is of my friend Jessica modeling my red dress for the fall Red Dress Event at Purdue (2013). It wasn't made for her but my model was out of town for the weekend of the Red Dress Event's fashion show so my friend Jessica let me style her and she walked in the show for me. I styled her differently than how my model Gabby was for the actual fashion show in the spring. I'm hoping that I can make another lovely dress for the event but go with a bright red dress instead. We'll see what happens! Stay tuned for more throughout the semester, there will definitely be a lot of progress related posts.

Final Day

For my final day in the costume shop for my internship my boss and I managed to tidy up the front area of it and make it look like a fully functioning shop. We cleared off the table, put away everything in the front area, set up the sewing area and mannequin, and I finished putting away jewelry and other misc trim items.
The picture on the left is me at the sewing machine with one of the dresses I made on the mannequin (back view). It's not an action shot, it's staged, but I really like it and I like the overall look of the costume shop as well.

The two pictures above show other areas in the shop. On the left is the corner (left of the sewing station) and has a lot of boxes full of miscellaneous costume supplies. For example there's a box for ribbons, bow ties, cummerbunds, feathers, feather boas, antique lace, jabots and cravats, and more! The picture on the right is the new suit measuring system in place that I helped create and implement. I had measured a lot of our suit jackets and sports coats and then proceeded to organize them by size. Once all of the jackets are sized they will then by organized within their sizes by color. Lightest at the beginning and darkest at the end, that way without the sizing tags you know when you're changing sizes just by looking at the colors. Before we had toured and saw that Krannert's costume shop does their men's sizing like this we had known we wanted to at least organize them so that you knew how to distinguish the sizes. All in all I'm pretty happy to see all the progress we made. I wish I could have more time with the internship to make even more progress, but when I come back to visit it'll be nice to see what's been done.

Summer Internship Recap

With my costume design internship coming to an end tomorrow I've decided to do a little recap on what exactly I've been doing with my last "free" summer.

At the beginning of the summer. 
CUTC Costume Shop.

Costume Design Internship:

I've been working for the Champaign Urbana Theater Company in their costume section. I've been working with my boss on going through the entire costume shop and setting up an organization method so that CUTC can start and maintain a costume rental to others (schools, theater companies, costume designers, etc) in the community. So far we've gone through a solid half of the costumes, well at least all of the hanging goods as well as a few groups of donations. After that we tackled the boxed items and implemented an organization method that required us moving all the boxes for a couple of weeks until everything was in its right place. We haven't gone through the hats or all of the boxes, so my boss may be taking on another intern after I leave to finish going through the boxes. Besides creating and implementing the organization methods for the costume shop, i have aided my manager with two plays she was the costume designer for this summer. I made a ruff for "The Fantasticks" as well as helped pick pieces from the costume shop that she ended up using in the show. I helped pull pieces from our stock as well as from Parkland College's costume shop for "Hay Fever" and I helped sew pieces like a collar for the maid's apron and fixing the hem on the smoking jacket as well as tacking down the sleeves. Overall, I have had an amazing internship and not a single day did I complain. I came home to my boyfriend and told him everything about my day even if he wasn't interested. I'm really glad I landed this internship (I'm their first intern so it was kind of a big deal). I'm hoping that if I decide to do grad school and pick to go here in Champagne, IL that I'll be able to volunteer or intern with CUTC.

Fashion A Magazine, Fashion Writer Internship:

What started out as a feature of me in their June issue as an apparel designer ended up with an awesome internship that is still going on right now. Then I go tot work with their social media and posted relevant articles and more for the magazine. My internship includes me writing fashion pieces for the magazine's website as well as posting updates, articles, etc for their social media platforms. As of now the end of my internship is uncertain, it's never been mentioned so I'm just rolling with it. I write as many pieces as I can with my time outside of my costume internship. I love writing for the magazine's website because I genuinely enjoy the topics and what the magazine is all about. It's definitely worth checking out if you haven't: fashionamag.com

Saw "Hay Fever" in their 
dress rehearsal.

Other:

Well in my free time, which I feel like I haven't managed to the best I could have, I have been reading like crazy and taking notes. It's mainly been over costume design related topics for future use if I need a really good reference. Besides taking full advantage of the library here, I've been attempting to work on my senior collection (way too many ideas and not enough narrowing them down) and to work on sewing projects (no luck). All in all I've had a great summer and I did spend some lovely sunny days by the pool but in the next couple weeks it's going to get really hectic. So stay tuned for news!

Costume Shop Find: Fur Coat

While going through the last box of donations from yesterday I came upon a lovely fur coat from Marshall Field & Company. It's pretty great! It's a dark brown with a different collar and hem with an orange lining. I labeled it as a CUTC piece, sprayed it so the musty smell fades, and hung it up to air out before I find it a home on the coat rack. This is a pretty great find for the costume shop! I'm unsure of what type of fur, however, I do think the shell is real fur but not the collar and hem. I'm going to ask my manager tomorrow, I was working alone in the shop today because she had prior engagements she couldn't get out of for her other work.