New Job

Its been a while since I posted and in that time I went on holiday to Greece and then got a new internship at William Chambers. So fairly busy. Making hats again is amazing, and I'm really getting to focus on making rather than promotion and the businessy side of things which is a really positive change for me.

So over the weekend I have been making shoes, watching ugly betty and making shoes!!

Girls wearing pearls

These are some images from the 2005 movie of "the producers", The costumes are by William Ivey Long, whom I adore. The inspiration was from the line beautiful girls wearing nothing but pearls and now I kind of want to do this for Halloween.

Yvette at Jaeger

Yesterday was a bit of a high for me and the Yvette Jelfs team- after almost a year of planning and designing and meeting with buyers our hats were released in the Edinburgh stores for the first time yesterday. There was a lovely champagne and cake reception and lots of lovely ladies trying on and buying hats and matching outfits.

I got to borrow the most beautiful dress for the occasion, and if it were not for my refusal to buy this month I would have been sorely tempted by it.

Anyway the hats looked fantastic and it was all terribly good fun and I'm on a bit of a high with it all!

3 months, starting now.

So, I own a lot of clothes. I am obsessed with buying stuff and it has to stop. I, Ailsa Victoria, need to pipe down and stop buying so many clothes and the only way I'm likely to do that is to have a complete freeze on it for the next 3 months. I am probably going to get about 3 minutes in and see a cute top in the window of somewhere or online somewhere but I have to learn to SAY NO. Here's why;

So that's my quit fast fashion manifesto!

I was eating cake before it was cool to.

I was thinking about Marie Antoinette and how if she had been around now she would be such a hipster. It was court etiquette that she was only allowed to wear a pair of shoes once (that may or may not be true, I read it on the internet). Versailles was really the beginning of fashion as we know it, with short seasons and deliberately impractical clothing.

So this morning I did my hair way over the top.

Officially Awesome Skulls

So, yesterday I got some skulls, and I posted about it on facebook but apparently "yay, my skulls arrived" is not enough information for some people. I've been wanting skulls to play with for about 4 years, they are amazing to draw and to inspire art and to include in still life photos and stuff. So my friend who lives on a farm thought that it was really strange of me and was super reluctant but then I tactically did her a favor (that's not true I am capable of genuine human friendship) so she got me some muntjac skulls as payment.

And if thats not the most awesome thing you've heard today, I want your life.

Until today I didn't know what a muntjac was.  They're super cute, and now I have two of their skulls!! Yay for my life right now!

If you own skulls, a small piece of advice I would offer is to not leave them staring at you on your bedside table. Just a thought.

xx

I've had enough, this is my prayer, that I'll die living just as free as my hair

I got a new haircut recently, I returned to my fringed ways for the first time since I got to university and it’s brought up some interesting thoughts about my hair sparked from people’s comments.

For a start, people don’t seem to understand how I can possibly have natural blonde hair. Honestly, since I grew my first hairs at the age of 3, they have been shiny platinum blonde. This summer, sure, I dyed it pink. But it was wash out dye, and it’s all gone now and I’m back to blonde- I didn't dye it blonde, I just washed out the other crap. Ok? Crikey. Almost everything else about my hair takes a whole load of effort. Several people have commented that it looks really effortless and natural ("stunningly effortlessly glamorous hair of the kings" is a legitimate quote)- these people are deluded. It consumes my life. Moral of the story- anyone can have great hair, so long as they are willing to sit in front of a mirror for 20 mins every day (and that’s a good day) playing with it. Secondary moral- I will always appreciate compliments on it. Always.

And I’m calm again.

Here's an amusing video about hair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3X3nrVF6n4

some cute animals

Hey kiddies, it's that special time of the month where I get really sad and eat a lot.

Over on my tumblr there are some cute animals. If you are also experiencing this, watch ALL the jenna marbles videos.

Another fantastic hat

Knitting (but not how you are probably imagining it)

When I tell people we have a class about knitting they immediately imagine our teacher Flora as some grey haired old biddy, with all of us sitting around in a circle with our knitting needles and our tea having a nice natter while the click clack of needles softly sends us into a meditative stupor. Sadly, Thomas procrastinating near my knit machine is about as close as it gets to this. Its actually a really fun class, we have big knitting machines which manipulate the needles- setting up takes time but once that's done you can knit fairly quickly and easily. Its a fantastic room to work in because its dominated by textile rather than fashion students so it's much calmer and more artistic- we always play radio 2 in the background.

This is what the carriage on the knit machine looks like. Its set up to knit a continuous welt, which is essentially a circle with the V shapes on the outside and the waves on the inside. If you kept knitting for a long time you could make a tube and then climb inside it and live in it like a caterpillar.

This is my favorite knit as it comes out of the machine. Its held under tension by big ass weights in a comb. This is called a selective ripple stitch on alternate needles - basically I've missed out every other needle when setting up, then knitted some stitches more often than others to get the shell look.

Matching hair

Spot the difference!

Final Illustration Collection

This is the completed set of illustrations! I know you've seen most of them, but the point is how well they work together!!

I want one of these

These are a few quick screen shots of Joan Bergin's amazing costume design in the Tudors TV drama. I really really want to make one.

Ariel

Not another illustration post...

yes. another illustration post.

Illustrating to win

 

These are Illustrations for Ashley Lloyd's amazing millinery.

What'dya think?

xx

Boring Fridays

So...not been working terribly hard recently (shock horror) but have been plugging away at illustration which is fun, but I'm not massively good at it and that annoys the crap out of me. Particularly since my friend Thomas is so frikken good. Not fair.

Ho hum. Will come back if I have anything nice to say.

Blue hat pink hair

Found this old photo on my laptop from when I went to see Picasso exhibition in Edinburgh....I love how bright the colours are!! This was September last year when I went through a bit of an overly-student-y phase. Very...90s? Not even sure.

So tomorrow I am off to le Theatre to see my old friend Giles Watling in Priscilla. It's a very exciting evening, since I plan to dress for the occasion! Pictures to follow. Hopefully not in 3-4 months!

Warhol, Ink and Book

This time I thought I would include the photograph I was working from. You can see that Photoshop makes all illustrations better.

Sheepskin, ink and book

Ink, old book, sheepskin, wallpaper and photoshop

American indian

This is entirely for my own benefit, using my blog as an online archive of my thoughts, please feel free not to read it.

A few years ago I went to an amazing painting exhibition in the Smithsonian's museum of American Indians and today when I wanted to look for it to put in my sketchbook, I could NOT think of his name! An hour of google-  AN HOUR-  and I found him!!

Fritz Scholder- you cant hide from me forever.

 





LAAAVE IT

also Future-me, the other one you like is John Nieto.

Ink, Paper, Camera, Cow, Wood and Photoshop

Did anyone notice she winks?

MY outfits at LFW

Thomas and I didn't actually take any photos on our cameras, So we've had to wait for bloggers to put them up!!

A few LFW highlights

Sorry about fashion week, here's a drawing.

Laziest blogger of the year award goes to......ME.

Sorry I went to fashion week and didn't even mention it. My bad. This post isn't even about fashion week. Promise I will put up some of the street style photos soon! This is from my illustration class, I made it out of ink, an old book, and lots of photoshop. Need to turn away from it for a while so that when I come back I can tell if I actually like it.