This summer my auntie got me a half price place at one of the Central Saint Martins short courses, I chose to do Fashion Styling as that is something I'm interested in but also have zero experience. Obviously my first thoughts were all about how am I going to make friends? What if everyone has more experience than me? What if I'm the worst at it all? But going walking in with the group of girls, (and one boy) sitting down in the room and having to do small exercises introducing ourselves to each other I quickly forgot about all my worries. Everyone is in the same position as me; no friends, no idea how to do anything and just wanting to gain as much experience as we can.
In these situations you have to make sure you are pushing yourself as much as possible. Walking out on my own for coffee break I made sure I asked two girls if I could go with them- of course they said yes because that's what the first day was all about... Making friends and learning all about them. The more you learn, the more you actually realise how similar we all are. I've never been in a situation with so many people that are interested in roughly exactly the same thing as you. The questions aren't "What do you want to do when you're older?" It's more like "What fashion do you want to go into?" This is all extremely reassuring and actually makes you more determined to get the most out of the short few days we were all going to spend together. (However that could've been my last day if I'm not better)
The task of the day took up a good few hours of intense and exhausting team work. We were put in to groups of six and were told to make four different outfits with set themes from the clothes that our tutors laid out for us. The amount of amazing clothes we found was crazy, they were all so bright and different making the task a lot more entertaining. We used a mannequin which was a lot easier because we could really get into it and not have to worry about a person. One of the things the tutors told us which is so important in fashion styling was to be experimental and creative. We weren't allowed to just pick up a skirt and a top and put it on the mannequin. We had to use a dress, turn it inside out, upside, pin it to one shoulder, use it as a hat. I loved the idea that we could literally find any piece of clothing and interpret it any sort of way we wanted to. After we'd finished one outfit, we had to photograph it and then draw it out in our sketch books. This was challenging for me because even though I did Art GCSE and passed with an A, I am absolutely terrible at drawing however no one was really that confident with what they were doing so it didn't exactly matter how bad your drawings were it was just the idea that counted. After the outfits were done, photographed and sketched it took us to 5pm where the day was over.
This theme was called Confusion and Explosive. We found two massive tutus, one orange which we used as a top/poncho and the black tutu at the bottom of the mannequin. This created a sort of exploding dress (the orange tutu looking much like a volcano) We finished the look off with a long piece of blue material draped down on one shoulder. The whole look mimicked the title with a lot of confusion and big bright explosive colours.
This theme was called Restricting. It had words to describe it as bounding, tight and so on. The black chain really represented what the aim of the look was. We used the black and pink long leather skirt as a dress which made it a lot tighter and more 'restricting'. To match the black chain we tightly wrapped a black cloth in the opposite direction giving an X shape. To finish it off we added a leather waist coast pinned back to look cropped. We then found a random sleeve ripped off from anther leather jacket and as fashion styling is about being creative, it was decided we'd pin it on to one side of her which completed the look.
This look was themed Diva and Ball gown. Now this wasn't the finishing outfit because I didn't get a picture of it but hopefully I'll be able to get it from others who had cameras too. The sparkly scarf was taken off, along with the silver sparkly top. We were left with a very diva'ish and ball gown sort of outfit with a massive black and purple dress pinned up on one side creating that diva look. The big puffy sleeves were pinned in front of the mannequin around the boob area which made her look less like a weird tranny.
The last look was themed Flowy and Toga. We pinned the white dress/robe to only one side of the body and along the front of the chest area. It was very long and draped all the way down her body which defined the flow and toga look. We dressed her in a leopard print cloth interpreting it as a dress with a chanel belt to finish it off giving the dress more shape.
Going back home on the tube, I reflected on the busy day I had and was able to quickly note some of the highlights down in my moleskin. Not only did I learn a lot about styling, I also pushed myself to speak to new people, to ask questions and learn about them. That was an important thing for me to be able to do as on the 6th of September I start my new sixth form where I will be alone again not knowing anybody.
So in just 7 hours I have learnt so much already and if that were to be my only day at CSM, I would be disappointed however still have gained some experience which is just what I wanted to do.
M x
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