Interning at London Fashion Week Daily Diary

London Fashion Week, the notoriously busy time on every fashion elite and design enthusiast’s calendar. You can walk just about anywhere around Covent Garden and be bombarded with promo guys and girls ushering bottles of water, leaflets and goody bags into your hands, hoping to attract buyers and press to the shows that await.

Caught up in the spirit of Fashion Week, I decided to bulk up my C.V a bit by interning for Vauxhall Fashion Scout whilst getting an insiders view of the preparation involved in producing a show.

Arriving into London on the Thursday morning, everything seemed surprisingly calm… perhaps this is due to not having my caffeine fix for the day yet, it was only 8.30am! I promptly made my way to my hotel, leaving my suitcase before running back to the tube to head to Freemasons Hall in Covent Garden to start my first day of the internship.

Little did I know, the first problem was just around the corner, how to actually get into the building? I saw a small collective of people who appeared to be waiting just around the corner of the building, so headed over in the hope they would be interning as well and were just as lost as I was.
Luckily, my judgement was right and we were swiftly met by a representative from Fashion Scout who led us inside the grand building.

The floors were tiled in a mosaic fashion, with marble staircases sloping in all directions. It truly looked like a scene from a movie, so luxurious and an utterly gorgeous venue to hold a fashion show. Making my way down the corridor, I spotted a huge line of other interns waiting outside a grand hall with massive wooden doors – this is where we were to receive our briefing for the week, and were split into teams of Front of House and Backstage interns.

I was extremely relieved to be allocated to the Front of House, as many horror stories of rude stylists and designers has tainted my view of becoming a dresser for the models. As the week progressed though, I learnt that this was not the case for every show… I guess there are just a few bad apples?

The first day was basically a short tour of the building, followed by moving stacks of boxes to different locations around the building and preparing the catwalk and goody bags for the busy Friday ahead.

Friday 19th February 2010

Got to Fashion scout at 12.00, late for fashion week I thought, but I’m not complaining! Was then assigned to direct visitors around the maze of a building, before organising the foyer and catwalk area for the approaching David Koma show. Rumours were that Hilary Alexander was to be in attendance, so when I saw her take her place on the front row in her blood red kimono tunic I was elated. Susie Lau from Style Bubble was also present.

The show was incredible! We only just packed everyone into the hall, and with everyone scrambling to get a peek at the high profile collection I was quite glad I could just stand back and watch from the sidelines. Zigzag designs were prominent features of the collection, which fused rather well with quite neutral tones of fawns and blacks. Also Koma’s use of what appeared to be zip teeth as detailing on cocktail dresses was pure genius. If I could afford, I would be snapping up one of these dresses within minutes, but sadly a student loan doesn’t tend to stretch that far.


Image courtesy of Asos.

The final highlight for the day has to be the Ones to Watch show, featuring 4 up-and-coming designers: Eudon Choi, David Longshawe, ASKH, and Florencia Kozuch. The majority of the buzz centered around Kozuch’s collection of loop knit sweaters teamed with wide brimmed parson’s hats, with people raving about the collection for much of the week!


Image courtesy of Vauxhall Fashion Scout.

Daily Rumours:

Nicola Roberts and Rachel Stevens at Body AMR.
Katy Perry rumoured to show…didn’t attend so designer took her seat and said ‘Oh well, her loss!’

LFW Vids... check them out.

Celeb spotting at LFW....

Who was spotted at Vauxhall Fashion Scout at LFW this feb?

Lets have a sneaky peek...

London Fashion Week, it's all happening at Vauxhall Fashion Scout!

Well, for the past week I have been somewhat absent from the blog as i've been interning with Vauxhall Fashion Scout for LFW, and my what a week it has been! Here are a few snaps of us interns hard at work preparing for shows, and be sure to keep an eye out for footage, photographs and diary entries from the week in the next few days!

Enjoy!

God bless Sophie Callé...

My goodness what a long week it has been, I have missed my social life so much, not to mention my Mac...am extremely thrilled to be back in contact with the world again, I swear by this time next fashion week Vodafone WILL give me a blackberry.

I forgot to mention this last week before I shot off for London Fashion Week, but I discovered the most amazing little (well, its actually not so little) book by Sophie Callé entitled 'Take care of yourself'. A rather interesting title would you not say?

Well, whilst flipping through the crisp yet almost transluscent pages of this book, I discovered that it was all centered around one significant moment in Ms. Callé's life - a letter she had received from a man, breaking up with her.

Now... this was no ordinary letter... no no no... it was kind of encrypted, so much so that if many people were to read it they would all have a different opinion and viewpoint of what the situation was. So, the author did just that and asked a selection of around 107 different women, from different professions and backgrounds to interpret this letter in their own style.

It was interesting to note that not everyone analysed this text in the same way. Some preferred to annotate and draw meaning from that, whereas some used the letter as inspiration for a piece of art. One person even used the letter to play a game of chess.

I have to say, I love this original method of creating a large piece of writing and it will certainly be something I am keen to take forward for use on '3rd Floor'.

Some images of the book:

Hangover day!

Well.... following a night out... i decided to have a bum day and drink tea, eat cake and make funny little photoshop montages of myself wearing obscure items like umbrellas as fashion....ENJOY! Kind of feel guilty for not doing any work though.... hmmm....




Clothing images from Topshop, Miss Selfrige, Google etc etc cheers! :-)

A fresh start...

Me again...


..and can I say how relieved I am to have now handed in my final year dissertation.... YES! HANDED IN.. ON TIME... major kudos has been earned I think.

So.. now that leaves my final major project - the publication.

So far, I've been doing a little research into the market... how the publication is performing atm and all that, just casual stuff really. But one thing I really want to get focuses on is devising a theme for the next issue to be based around.

Ideas so far:

- Kaleidoscope: Metamorphisis, Transitions and Evolution... Change basically!
- Taboos & Fears: Playing on my old idea for a theme.. but developed further so that it includes challenging the boundaries, not sure if that quite makes sense... so i'm gonna go with 'pushing stereotypes'. Lol.

Need to get a few more down on paper today, and start 'reflecting' my progress in this journal we're supposed to keep for the duration of this.

Also, have to present all these ideas on Tues 26th (which actually counts towards the final grade), so am a bit nervous so just hope it all goes well and to plan!

I'm kind of in a strange place at the moment... lack of motivation.. so I guess i'll just have to push through it to get things done... I think when I finish my market research it will fizzle out a bit, as I find that part quite tiresome.

So, wish me luck...and with the new season of ANTM due to start and offer major distractions, I am praying I stay on track!!

As for work experience goes.. i've applied to all the publishers that I can physically find after weeks of scouring the internet, hopefully some will get back to me. If not, then hmmm I may be doomed. Bloody hope not though, so if there's anyone out there who can help, give me a buzz :-)

Thanking you!

Jo Clair
xoxo.

3RD FLOOR PUBLICATION!

Hi all,

Well i've just had great news! I've been selected to be the journalist and writer for the next issue of 3RD FLOOR, published by Southampton Solent University yearly!

I will be working on the 2010 Issue.. which is the 3rd publication to ever be published...you know what they say...3 is a magic number!




So keep an eye out in May, when the publication will be available to buy from RD Franks in London.

For any more info on the publication, just send me a message and I can pass on relevant info.

Woop! Phsyched!!

Jojo xxx

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!

Wishing you all a very merry christmas & a happy new year!

Hope you all get everything you've ever wished for & all ur dreams come true

xxxxxx

Cute edits

Did some edits on a previous photoshoot the other day... what dya think?

xoxo.

If you want me, you can catch me on your videophone... ;-)

Well! Isn't Beyonce's new single 'Videophone' the shizz!?

Her collaberation with Lady Gaga resulted in a once again, catchy song... with an even more captivating video. Some might say it's a bit too tacky that it looks cheap...but personally... I think a bit of tack never hurt anyone, after all it gives us all something to talk about & revives Ms. Knowles' career once again... take a peek at some pics from the video:















Enjoy!

Jo Clair

xoxo.

Chanel's shanghai romance

Now... here's the video that I mentioned earlier about Coco Chanel's inspiration for her previous Shaghai inspired collections, revived by the epic Karl Lagerfeld.









Enjoy!

Chanel No.5 Advert

Oh boy... I hope i'm not the only one loving the new Chanel No.5 advert.

It is enthralling, captivating and enchanting and leads perfectly into Chanel's forthcoming collection inspired by the romanticism of Shanghai in the 60s... take a peek...

Loving it...photomontage!

Well, It's a friday, time for the weekend...so what better to procrastinate with than photoshop creating wierd attempts at photomontages!

Enjoy the randomness... (excuse the "talent"... I'm still learning! Any tips for photoshop montages would be greatly appreciated!)

Kaos!!

So last night was the Kaos Xmas Party... and as you can imagine, things got a bit messy! Started off by drinking a vast amount of the alcohol our landlord gave us for our xmas present (we <3 him for this!), i know, what a great landlord right!?

And mished to kaos to catch the free entry and drink Cryptonites....bad idea...i can't remember much of the night from that point! Oh well...i have a little bit of photographic proof that i was dancing like a drunken idiot.. post will follow sooon....

xoxo.

Fabulous Fashionising Bits

So... I was just thinking... if anyone wants to invite me to any fashion events.....ya no... feel free :-)

I'll write ya a fabulous story in return and promote the hell outta ur company!

xxxxx

extras...

here's the other photoshoot piccies! enjoy!

Photoshoot pictures

Well... I did a few photoshoots recently and one really stood out for me as being v. professional and well conducted....i wanna thank Lucy very much for modelling for me for the day! I had a blast and hope you did too. :-)

Here's the pics...











2 more to come...

....here they are!

So..yeah basically tell me what you think...any tips? Any job offers...oh yes :-)

xxxx

Most recent project.... UNI! Argh!

more to come....

So...

I've been kind of neglecting this a little recently...oh dear! I've had loads on...a massive hand in with uni for one, and then other day to day stresses such as the library banning me for keeping hold of too many books for too long...grr...do they not realise they are severely lacking books and people need them for dissertations!??

Anyway i'll post a few images of my finals.... hope u like.... it was a proposal of features etc for a magazine - 3rd floor publication...which may soon change its name...so watch out!

Jo Clair

xoxo.