Next!

Well, my life is all different now! Finished school, hung around New York for about three weeks just having fun and decompressing from what was the most challenging semester EVER, totally crazy. Now I'm back in Michigan, living in Ypsilanti for now. It's so good to be back. I will always have a piece of my heart left in New York forever and ever, but Michigan is my home. I need trees and air and space to be inspired. I realize this every time I come back here and ideas just flow out of me like crazy. The less is more factor I guess, just too much everything in New York. Two years was perfect for me. I'm going to keep applying for jobs everywhere all over the world and who knows, maybe New York WILL end out being where I'm supposed to be, but I'm going to wait and see and in the meantime I'm really excited for what's next.

TWO huge things. The first one, not the most important of the two but the most time sensitive, is my fashion show this Sept. I'm starting to sketch now and have to crank out minimum 15 looks for my Fall show. I'm really excited about it, but not as excited as I am about the fact that the day before I left New York.... I got... ENGAGED! :)

My long time boyfriend who is the love of my life and I must add, EXTREMELY supportive of my design dreams, asked me on one knee in Central Park. :) He presented me with a gorgeous ring that's been in his family since the 1940's, we walked around all dreamily, and THEN? what did we do? Go on a horse driven buggy around the park? Celebration lunch? Champagne? NOPE! He took me on a fabric shopping spree! Yes, the man I'm going to marry is definitely someone who would say, hey, Kelly, this is your last day in New York, let's LOAD YOU UP.

So yes, I'm excited about this because I'm making my wedding dress, and, if it seems possible, maybe all my bridesmaids gowns as well. Even though I've only been engaged for 4 days now, I'm realizing how big of a task the dress thing is going to be - not even so much the designing and sewing part, but just narrowing it down to ONE idea, one dress! I always found it so hard during school when we had one dress or one garment due at the end of the semester. I always wished we could do at least three pieces, because it feels like compressing all my ideas down to one is always so hard. And now, here I am, trying to make the most important garment of my entire life... the one I want to be the most beautiful, the most flattering, the dress that will make me feel the best I've ever felt in my entire life... well... it's TOUGH. I don't want anything basic that's for sure. I have a few things that I know I want for sure...

Like the neckline, is going to be similiar to Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress, with these cap sleeves, I just think it's so classic and elegant. I'm def not a strapless kind of girl. (and luckily my fiance' loves this look too!)



I also know I want the bodice strait to the waist, and a full skirt. probably either a bell skirt or a ballerina or a ballgown. No train, I think it would drive me crazy and I'd feel like I was 10 again walking around my house with a blanket draped over my shoulders and the blanket dragging behind me. But either the bodice or the skirt will have to have some crazy design element to it. Not sure yet, if I do a crazy skirt, the top will be more simple and if I do something crazy with the bodice, then the skirt will be a little more toned down. Either way it has to be interesting and beautiful and "me".

the HARD part, is setting all these thoughts aside and focusing on my fashion show. It's funny now that I'm engaged i'm all like fashion show smashin show! I want to talk WEDDING! :) But we are planning on Fall 2010, so it's more than enough time to focus on the show now, then in the Fall start the wedding planning. I'll have about one year to figure it all out, which is perfect.

THE FUTURE IS SO EXCITING! It's fun, SO FUN, to be designing again and not have to worry about other projects and school stuff, even though I do already miss FIT dearly. Next to my new fiance, that school was the love of my life. :)

I'm going to have fun posting updates throughout both of these huge projects.

Graduation, 5/20/2009 @ Radio City Music Hall

I am officially, a degree'd fashion designer! :)

This morning I FINISHED my last project ever at FIT, the fluted bodice dress with french lining. Then my wonderful boyfriend Martin went with me to FIT and I cleaned out my locker. (had to choke back tears). My parents are going to be here in less than an hour, they made the 12 hour drive from Michigan just to see me graduate. They are the BEST. I feel such a crazy mix of emotions right now. Most of which comes from 2 weeks of not sleeping and suddenly being finished with all projects and feeling like I lost a leg somewhere or something. Tomorrow is my last class. Tuesday is my graduation. THEN 2 awesome weeks of doing nothing but hanging out in new york, then it's back to michigan, to start the process of figuring out how to make money. I intend on focusing my resume action heavily on California and New York. No, I am def not giving up on finding a job here. The recession will continue on, and fizz out, but my passion will not. :)

Here is the dress... weighs about 5lbs, heh. the construction on this thing is insane...the inside has french lining, which is boned, and kind of like a really tough corset bra, like they used to wear in the 1950s.





Doing this, all of this, has really changed me. Today, I am grateful for my bravery. Because I did this. In two days, I will be a degree'd fashion designer. Who am I kidding though. I didn't need the degree to know the first time I sewed together a basic skirt and felt the magic of someone who just absolutely loves to make clothes.

:)

Here is the invitation to last night's event and the flyer. I dunno why, but I thought I would scan them.





We only have two weeks left of this semester. And for me, that's two weeks left total of school. Even though 2 weeks seems like an incomprehensible amount of time to finish all the projects I still have left, (because one of the qualifications to get into the show seems to be a commitment to blowing off your 7 other classes for 2 months, only to be hit with a storm of work in the last two weeks of school), still, I'm really starting to get sad. Really sad.

I'm not one of those people who can't wait for school to end. I never have been. I have always loved school, my entire life. Something about going somewhere every day, to just ...learn. There is something so remarkable about that being the main task in your daily life. To be a student, to be studying, to be working your brain. I took enough time off from being a student (6 years!) to know that when you're out in the working world, all you want to do is go back to being a student. Well, at least for me. Doing the same thing every day for 10 hours a day, it's for the birds. A friend told me once the thing he liked most about working was that after the day was over, you could go on with the rest of your life, and leave work for the morning. And when you're a student, your entire life is consumed by school. I think that's really true, and I have to say, I like that. I like to have a passion and a commitment to something so great, that it becomes a part of who I am. It's the same reason why I have a few professors who still tease me about how much I used to cry in first semester. Most people reading this are probably like, what? Who cries at school? haha. but this is different. When a professor criticises you at fashion or art school, it's not like they are telling you, hey your spelling sucks. It's like, this skirt looks like it's made for your 80 year old aunt maude, or ..have you drawn anything since kindergarden? They are making comments about something that is so personal to you, so important to you. In the beginning it was hard. But 2 years later, I don't get criticism in that way anymore. Why? Because somehow, along the way I became a designer.

Going to school here was nothing like any other school I have ever attended. I don't know if it's because this is my 2nd time around getting a college degree, or if it was because I'm paying for it myself, or if it was because I was studying something I'm honestly truely passionate about, or if maybe it was moving to New York was all new to me too, but the fact remains that I am leaving this school a huge chunk of my heart. The experiences I have had here will never be forgotten. I've had so many ups and downs, so many battles, and oceans of tears over various circumstances. So many happy days as well. So many moments when I got goosebumps over something I did that I never thought was possible. It hasn't been easy. In fact, the past two years have been mostly really hard. But the fact remains, going to school at FIT was one of the best decisions I ever made. I worked with some of the most fascinating students, and some of the most excellent professors, with a backdrop of the the most amazing and inspirational city in the world. While it is going to be so desperately hard to say goodbye, I feel so fortunate that I was given this opportunity. Being part of the Versace exhibit was like a valentine to the entire experience. If I could do it all over again 8 million times, I wouldn't skip a beat.

Last night was the exhibit opening, here are the photos from the event! It was amazing to see everything, there is a lot of beautiful work in that room, and I feel truly truly lucky to be a part of it. ;)

I got in!!

If you live in New York, or will be visiting New York next weekend, come see the exhibit!

It's at FIT in the John Reeves Great Hall, Seventh Ave at 28th St. April 30 - May 3rd. 9 a.m. - 9 p.m.

:)

Exhibition Garment Photos

Here are some photos of the finished dress for the Gianni Versace Senior Exhibition. We were required to create a garment inspired by Versace. I based mine on his bondage collection from the 90's. They haven't been judged or commented on, as it's Sunday and I just finished it today. So I'm not feeling any relief yet, only nerves! Let me know what you think. The bodice is constructed from 1'' leather strips - metallic gold, metallic bronze and black. The inside of it is made like a corset with a boned siri lining, and the entire dress is fully lined. The shoulder straps are made from the same 1'' strips and have 2 working metal clasps which I painted gold myself. You can change them around and attach them in different ways. This only took me about 900 million hours. ;)







here is a piece from the collection that inspired my garment...so you can get an idea of what kind of aesthetic I was aiming for.

Markus Kelleman, a darling style icon I work with at Anthropologie, asked me last summer to design a top for him to wear to the Richie Rich show at Bryant Park. Here are some photos of it featured in a shoot he did recently. They look FAB.








And here is Markus wearing it at the show!

This has nothing to do with fashion, but it was so great I have to share. My boyfriend and I went to 55 Bar last night which is on Christopher in Greenwich Village... this guy was so good I had to record one of this songs. It was an amazingly fun night......we actually got there about an hour early so we were able to get a table, which was so excellent. By the time Bill went on, the place was jam packed. I got goosebumps during their first song....I will def be returning to hear some other bands, as they rotate musicians, generally always either blues or jazz.

Exhibition garment progress....

2 posts in one weekend! I'm trying to get better at this. I'm officially on SPRING BREAK right now, even though I'm working at my other job, at the Anthropolgie store in Soho for most of my break, all my other waking hours are devoted to this garment. I posted the sketch a few entries ago HERE. and then the muslan drape HERE.

So I thought I'd show a few more progress pics... although I have to say the lighting does no justice for the colors of those leathers. They are gorgeous in person and the camera makes them look more yellow-y or something.
Even though I personally didnt think this was necessary (and was later proven by the fact that I didn't even USE this, my professor wanted me to make a muslan prototype of how I was going to lay out the straps. So here it is, I think it looks like something a sexy mummy might wear.




Next I created the boned lining. This is siri with boning sewn in (took forever). This lining gets "sandwiched" between the outside leather piece and another piece of silk lining that goes against the body.



And here are a few pictures of me trying to figure out where I want to sew on the straps. It's going to take me FOREVER to do this part, so don't expect to see much until I get it figured out. Ugh, this dress is going to be a killer, but SO worth it if I can execute it nicely.