Birthday Weekend!...

So it was my Birthday weekend just gone and where better to be than the big smoke. Even if I did have my first shift at Harvey Niks. Its been such a beautiful, beautiful weekend!
I had my big birthday night out on Thursday so I could get utter blotto with all my London fans. We went to Punk in Soho to the night "Fucked at your mums house"! Was major even if it was full of mummy and daddy rich kids!
On my actual Birthday I had to work, but after it was drinkies in the park then to Horse Meat disco, which wasn't what I expected, a lot of gay bears dancing around like fairies! (You gotta Love it!) Followed by a day off from the studio (Thanks Alex!) and a day of retail therapy with my Racheal! Followed by wine in Soho park!
I would like to Thank everyone for the birthday wishes on Facebook and txt, and my presents from my wonderful family. Its you guys who have made me the person I am today.
A huge thank you to my beautiful mum, for pushing me out in a pool of glitter! For that I'm eternally grateful!
My Favourite card came from Alex, saskia and Joe. It sums me up to a tee!!! HAHA.....

The Outfit to be seen in this year!...

So this week we began making Jonny Woos outfit. Last Friday he was in the studio getting measured up and going through designs with Alex. I expected a larger than life tranny in six inch stilettos and a feather boa, and I got a normal down to each guy with a gorgeous face!
Once the design had been finalised, (were talking meters and meters of hot pink chiffon, and yellow and black PVC hot pants with a huge headdress made of pink flowers) I went out to Shepard's Bush to get the fabrics.
When I was back Alex got to work on the patterns for the shorts and got them cut out of the fabric. The shorts reminded me of the of the caution tape which police use to put around crime scenes! They actually looked amazing because they were skin tight, high waisted and extremely short!
It was my job to start putting the hat together. To begin with me and Saskia painstakingly wrapped strips of PVC around the sprigs of pink flowers we would be using for the head piece. (It took two days! and they were the spins of flowers which we used in the previous Teppenyaki shoot which Alex wanted to get rid of).
Once they was done I bound 5 sprigs together into gaffer tape and hand sewed them onto the buckram hat Alex had previous made wrapped in the same leather that had been used to make GAGAS JACKET IN THE JUDAS VIDEO!!!!
The end result defined the word Trannylishious!
While I was making the headpiece Alex was creating the chiffon cloak which was made up of ten shoulder pads to create drama and 15 metres of gathered chiffon! More ruffles were added to the shoulders along with some electric blue feathers.
Ive gotta say the outfit will cause quite a stir at LoveBox. Here it is in its stages of being made.....

The Final Look will come very soon!!.....

Next to the stage.....Jonny Woo

So with Lovebox comes the outfit for the ever so fabulous Jonny Woo!
Jonny Woo is a unique performance artist who is a large driving force in bringing alternative drag and cabaret to a mainstream audience. He is highly inspired by performers of New York, his work is arresting, provocative, unpredictable and highly entertaining. Critically acclaimed and much in demand by club culture and corporations alike, Jonny Woos work if not his presence at events alone, transcends definitions of high and low art.
Just to visually look at him is inspiring, he's one HOT tranny mess with lashings of glitter!
Bloggers I give you Jonny Woo!!.....

Jonny Woo at Last Years LOVEBOX wearing Mr Noble...FABULOUS!

Mannequin Blog!

So Alex has come up with a fabulous new idea. As he uses mannequins a lot in his work he wanted to create a blog for artists who use mannequins in their work and to feature his own work on it also.

I was giving the task of researching designers who use mannequins as a dominant feature in their work. I looked into the work of Hans Bellmer, Alan jones and Jake and Dino Chapman. I find all of the work to do with mannequins quite disturbing, yet fascinating as I find it so interesting to know that these peoples minds actually work in the way which they do!
Here is a selection of work by Hans Bellmer.....

                       

As you can see his work is pretty distressing. It shows women mannequins in some extremely disturbing states, yet they do create some interesting shapes, which you can take into fashion.

Here is some work by Alan Jones. His work is a lot more happy shall we say.....

Out of all his work I really like the mannigin inspired body which he created for the fashion shoot. I also find the Hindu inspired mannequin.

Here is some work by Jake and Dino Chapman. Now I find their work the most disturbing, ill let you judge yourself.....

LOVEBOX!

So Ive finally got up to date with my blog, after being nearly 4 weeks behind due to being so so busy at the studio Monday to Friday and working both Saturday and Sunday in Harvey Niks Knightsbridge! As well as making a few pieces for myself to strut around London Town it. Im such a busy busy bee. But I love it!
Anyway, this last week has been all about LoveBox festival! (OMG Im so excited about it all. The line up is pretty major, as Grace Jones is headlining!!) Alex's installation for the Superstore tent is going to be something else. Ill post pictures as soon as it goes live. But expect drama!!
The mannequins arrived which Saskia ordered last week, so it was my mission to go and get the spray paint which we will be spraying the mannequins with. This colour would be the base coat so Alex can draw his designs onto the mannequins which me and Saskia would then paint up.
To begin with we created an area we could spray in and not get paint everywhere, then we began spraying. When we was spraying the mannequins Saskia taught me a good technique to apply an even colour all round, by spraying in flicks as apposed to one long spray, as this can make the paint run.
Here are the sexy men in Alex's life before and after the make over.....

   






















Ontop of everything going on for Lovebox festival this week, Alex was asked by the stylist Katie Grand to make a head piece for I.D magazine, which he was reluctant to do because the studio is so so busy at the minute, but he did, as he couldn't turn her or I.D magazine down, besides which the image the shoot was going to be based around was beyond amazing!
This request came through on Wednesday and needed to be done by Friday, so Thursday morning I was on a mad mission to get everything which was going to be needed for the piece he was creating, such as Mod-Rock, which are like plaster bandages, a whole load of safety pins, flannel and PVC materials. I can't talk about it anymore as it hasn't been published, or I don't have images of it being made in stages as Alex started it when i was out on my mission, however Ill post the final images once I have seen them, but as you can guess its going to be slightly interesting!
Once I got back from the mission I assisted Alex on the making of it. He also taught me how to use the rivet tool. Big mistake as I want to rivet everything in sight now!!

H.R. Giger

So during a coffee and a fag break with Alex and Saskia we got talking about the Alien films, and Alex said I should check out the work of the costume designer and artist H. R. Giger as it would be right up my street...and it totally was. OMG Im in Love with everything. For my final collection Ive decided my woman is a Schiebe woman, a predator, she's fearless, extremely creative and whatever shit life throws at her this bitch will bite back with vengeance! So what better way to get inspiration for her, than checking out the work of H. R Giger. Here is a selection of his pieces that I simply feel in love with. Its futuristic with a dark gothic twist. His work is really perverted but simply beautiful.

I.D magazine

The start of the week brings new adventures and more fashion work. This time was Patti Wilson for I.D. magazine. She needed a corset making for a shoot she was doing with a surgical theme. So she asked Alex to make a corset with this concept...
For the beginning of this I had to research surgical appliances, for interesting shapes we could involve within the corset. So I ordered some syringes and this amazing vaginal claps!

Once Alex had designed the piece he wanted to create, and created the pattern for it, I cut out all the paper patterns, and the material patterns out of white leather. He showed me a really good technique by sticking the patterns to the skin with masking tape so you don't put marks into the skin with the needles. Once they were all cut out I headed off to Dalston Mill (Amazing place. cheap but deffo cheerful!) to get some nude coloured lining. I settled with a dusty pink as I thought it would look great against the white backdrop. I cut out the lining also and Alex sewed it all together before I stuck the leather seams down with PVA glue to keep them in place. Alex then taught me through how to make a corset which has helped so so much. I now want to design corsets!

More Inspiration...

Around all of the work with the shoulder piece, we also had to do more research for the prints for the up and coming new collection. Here are some of the images which I too find extremely inspirational, as there is so much you can take from each of the images and incorporate into your own work.....

Anna Trevelyan

Anna Trevelyan...Wow just Wow... What a fucking woman, this girl is going to run the world! I thought Id dedicate a blog post to her, as Alex often does work for her and I simply LOVE the creative work which she produces...
Anna Trevelyan is a fashion stylist based in London. As well as being a fashion director of "Untitled" Magazine, contributing stylist to several well known publications, and consultant for many exciting brands, boutiques and designers. Anna also designs a range of clothing for Tokyo. For the past 2 - 3 years she has been assisting Nicola Formichetti and still works with him on various projects, mainly being involved with his work with Lady Gaga.
What I love most about Anna is she loves to work with young, exciting talent and creatives, and being involved in the work of emerging designers and artists. Here is a selection of some of her work...

Here is the work she consulted for "Void of Course" Autumn/ Winter 2011...

Here is the work she consulted for "Sorcha O'Raghallaigh" Autumn/ Winter 2011...

Here is the work she worked on with the amazingly talented "Charlie Le Mindu"...

Here is some more of her work. I could post everything she has ever done as all of her work is totally inspirational!...