This piece of furniture is known as the most famous piece of furniture in France...said the tour guide.

Versailles Photos

These pictures do not even do the palace justice. Loved the sunflowers but most of the this gold carving is a bit much for me all there are aspects that I can appreciate.

I love baked eggplant, with a little olive or canola oil on a pan and sliced medium thickness. Then the other day I added onions to this combination and baked them with the eggplant and topped them with a little hummus and avocado and voila a wonderful dinner or hor d'oeuvre. Maybe serve on toasted slices of a baguette if using as hors d'oeuvres.

Monday, Monday

Monday Outfit. Purple Jumpsuit, bright red belt and a cheetah print sweater...sounds odd but looked right this morning. Spur of the moment decisions sometimes work the best, a braid and minimal jewelry keep it low-key.

Great Finds

Walking home from the first flea market, which was far on the metro, I found a flea market in my own neighborhood with some great stuff as well. Loved this knitted sweater, had a very unique knit design that I wanted to photograph for creative machine knitting. Also these mini singer machines were great. This flea market had a plethora of books and old news papers as well as lace, furniture and other antiques.

Flea Market Sunday

So I went to an incredible flea market today at Clignacourt, last stop on the 4 metro. Found some amazing antiques and vintage clothing vendors. Just browsed today but will have to go back. I really want to buy a leather briefcase/shoulder bag and a fur coat, which are being worn everywhere here. I don't know if I would go with the purple photographed here but it is pretty amazing.

This lady gave me directions on the subway and I really liked her look particularly her coat with an awesome fur collar and her lace tied shoes and neutral quilted bag. Her lipstick was also a cool shade, not quite red.

Versailles

Today I went to the palace of versailles and forgot the SD card to my camera but there will be pictures stolen from friends to come. It was AMAZING, the level of intricacy and how ornate every single room was baffled me that it was built so long ago.

Dinner

Dinner tonight was at a lovely creperie. This crepe was mushrooms, mozzarella, tomatoes, and a little bit of pesto. The picture does not do it justice. The cups for the water were also a very interesting shape, like little bowls.

School Work

Today I learned how to pearl. I knew how to knit already but if you knit and pearl this creates a jersey stitch. We are learning about jacquard in creative machine knitting and this sample (out of colors that are a bit suspect) is a checkered jacquard made using the pull stitch. The sample has been place with my favorite moleskin sketchbooks. I will be doing a lot of sketchbook work this semester and these are the kind that I will want to keep as the moleskins, as they say, are legendary notebooks. Hopefully I will produce legendary work with in them!!

Les meilleurs chose de la paquet

I received a most wonderful package from my family with lots of useful and much appreciated things but I picked a select few that I decided are my favorites of the package such as red lipstick, lace, and a deep red leather notebook that says Carpe Diem. My two favorite perfumes of the moment are also in the background. Miss Dior Cherie is my favorite for night and for the day I like Yves Saint Laurent Paris. Ironically it was Yves who first took over Dior Haute Couture when Monsieur Dior passed away. Also Yves helped to start the idea of licensing couture and designer names to projects such as perfume and make-up.

Gallery Work

In Parsons Paris at one of the campuses there is art when you walk in and these two sculptures are just quirky, fun and so Paris. The second is Karl Lagerfeld, who I am reading about and learning some Parisian history as well as the history of two famous designers.

Le Bon Marche

Le Bon Marche is a very large and quite amazing department store. On an assignment for a class a friend and I went there today to draw some sketches of knits, for the creative knitting class I am taking. It is an amazing shopping experience with an incredible selection of the most high end designers...many of which I saw in the museum exhibition just the day before. I couldn't take any pictures but this is what the store looks like. It is kind of like Saks in the Short Hills Mall but on steroids.

This drape was not as successful as the first two in my eyes but it is all about experimenting and I still like it. I wish the fabric and dress form were not so close in color though!

Spiraling

I also visited other parts of the museum, not just the fashion portion but I also had class and did a bit of work after class on the fun homework of draping the spiral fabric. I really love the side view of this particular drape.

Musee des Arts Decoratifs

So on a class assignment I spent a lovely afternoon in Musee des Arts Decoratifs which is connected to the Louvre and was my first trip to a Museum here in Paris. There is an AMAZING fashion exhibit going on right now with a plethora of designers. Seeing the clothes in pictures on the runway is nothing in comparison to seeing what true pieces of art they are up close especially as a student who can imagine the hours and hard work put into each garment. I snuck some pictures even though I wasn't supposed to. They are by a variety of designers. They are mostly from my phone so excuse the picture quality.

Came across these hilarious comparisons by graphic designer Vahram Muratyan.

In the midst of researching for homework I cam across this awesome necklace in the Bauhaus Font Style. Thought it was really cool...and not just cause it says Paris.

Tuesday Classes

Style Bureau Workshop: Will introduce the methodologies of a design process for collection work. Through experimentation and projects students will increase core knowledge about the elements and principles of design and research methods. Through creative response to design briefs students achieve a basic understanding of the fashion design process and explore their skills of visual expression and communication of fashion.
Basically this is a class on inspiration and researching and designing and going through an entire process of designing. Going to be very interesting and I am excited to keep a working sketchbook going for this class and lots of collaging is a possibility, which I love to do.

Fashion Drawing II: Builds on the skills of each student to further develop their ability to represent clothes on the human body. This semester will have a focus on applying the new learnt technical skills in conjunction with the students creativity.
I have taken Fashion Illustration before but this class seems like it will be more creative and more drawing from life. I am excited because drawing is not my strong point and between these to classes I will be doing a lot of practice!

And now I have been through all of the classes I will be taking and am I am super excited!

Some doodling led to the little sketch with my initials that is now the background of the blog. Did it quick on photoshop...a little childish looking but fun for now!

Studio Decorations

There are great quotes and images all around the studio and I found these to be the most compelling to me today.
"Perfection is never achieved so you need to go on working." Azzedine Alaia

This evening I also had advanced sewing techniques. Our first (and very long) project will be making a tailored jacket. To get ideas flowing we draped in paper patterns (not quite as exciting looking as the spirals). I used pleats and darts in the paper to fit it to the form with some major difficulty as I found myself without any paper scissors, only had fabric ones.