Just thought I’d update on stuff going on over here since I haven’t updated for a while. I know, I am rubbish ^ ^

So I have all my designs planned, but then let’s just say there have been some financial difficulties and so am now not going to have anything up online until later in the year, but hopefully in time for Christmas. I’ve reworked some things to fit more with an A/W theme than the S/S theme I had originally planned. Not gonna fret too much though, when it is meant to be it will all happen and fall into place.

In other news, I am now a level 1 Reiki practitioner which is quite exciting for me. It’s opened my mind a little bit to some new ideas and concepts, plus given me a fresh outlook on life. I’m trying to learn to live more in the ‘now’ and not worry about anything too much (and I worry A LOT) as I know in general it doesn’t make things better and only messes up my thoughts, which certainly isn’t very good for design work.

Anyway, I hope to be back on soon, at least with some new samples to show you. I will try to update this blog more often, maybe post images and links to sites/blogs that have inspired me while I work.

I’d just like to say thank you to all the support I have been given so far in setting this all up and for the patience in supporting me while I faff around getting things off the ground. It will all totally be worth it, I promise ^ ^

Man this gig was good ^ ^

So X Japan have been around since the year I was born (Google it, I’m not telling you my age!) and it’s taken all these years for them to finally do a gig in the UK, but it was worth the wait.

I’m a pretty new fan, but you could tell there were some proper old school fans there getting very emotional about finally getting to see them live and it was beautiful.

I can honestly say I haven’t been at a gig so crazy in years. We moved to the back as you could just not stand up straight as the crowd were all over the place. Maybe I’m just getting old? ^ ^

Anyway I won’t do a review as there are already a bajillion of those all over the internet, so on with the photos. As usual with this being a fashion website heavily inspired by J-fashion, I scouted around the queue for people dressed awesomely. Not as many as there were for Miyavi surprisingly, although maybe it was just a slightly older audience? Who knows, but I still found a few beautiful peeps. Clicky on the pic to see the rest…

X Japan

I decided I needed something cute to wear for the We Love Japan event I posted last month and so I made a little yukata.

I’d been messing around learning how to make a full length yukata, but decided it was far too traditional for me. So for those who are interested, here is a step-by-step photo guide to the creation of my dress. Apologies for bad photo quality, but they were taken on my BlackBerry which is amazingly terrible at taking photos.

Clicky the image below to see more pics…

yukata

Growing up in London I’ve always been fascinated with things like graffiti; whether it be paint, drawings, stencils, stickers, posters, whatever and general ‘urban decay’. I’d take photos of ripped billboards – when you can see about 6 different images all torn into each other (not so easy to find now everything is canvas these days), peeling paint, half missing signs and I’d get a lot of very strange looks from passers by.

So I’m currently planning this new collection and trying not to totally waste all that time I spent pottering about in the textiles department. I refuse to use pre-printed fabrics, unless maybe they are recycled, but even then I’d prefer to print my own designs over it anyway. I want to use quite simple silhouettes, but with mental, contrasting all over and placement prints. This got me thinking about using my love of messiness and mixing it with Japanese culture – my other total passion. I really am kicking myself that I didn’t take more pics of Tokyo urban decay while I was over there. I certainly will do next time (still hoping and praying for another November trip).

So I’ve been playing about in Photoshop with just some stuff I found on Google Images. Obviously when I do this properly I will not so obviously just rip off One Piece manga. I’m currently sourcing some old Japanese newspapers and old manga to properly do this, but I thought I’d show you roughly the sort of thing I’m going for. I layered different images all together using different contrasting colours. I will probably hand draw my own doodles and messy graffiti over the top too, but it doesn’t look so good when I don’t have a tablet so I will do that for my silk screen. Once I get my hands on some proper papers I will probably try to achieve the billboard effect I was talking about which could look quite interesting. Clicky for slightly bigger piccies…

So I hope that gave you a little taster of what I’m trying to do and I hope that you like it. I also started to do some inspiration research to find other designers doing similarly cool things and have fallen head-over-heels in love with this guy – Junya Suzuki. But I won’t bother posting much about him as these guys over at Tokyo Telephone have already done an impressive job on that so I will simply link you over to their blog post…

The Two Dimensions of Junya Suzuki

Japan Underground presents 'We Love Japan '

The devastation in Japan caused by the earthquake and tsunami is immense and they need as much help as possible to help rebuild their lives. Japan Underground, a live music/club event that happens throughout the year, stepped up very quickly indeed and managed to pull this event together. It was sponsored by HMV, MOMA, Manga Entertainment LTD, The Relentless Garage, We Love Anime, Uniqlo, NME, Onboard Karaoke, Cosplay Portrait, Namco Bandai and Play for Japan.

Tickets were a teeny £10 and so D and I went along , dragging my little sister and her boyfriend with us too. Bands to perform included No Cars, IMMa, Akira the Don and a few others. A late addition was Adam Ant who was announced as headlining the event which was a huge shock for me as he is one of my favourite musicians of all time (I even have a tattoo he drew for me at a book signing) and so I tried to get my Ant friends to come along too.

Aaaanyway, the evening was great. We arrived an hour late and missed a few acts (stupid traffic), but we still had an excellent evening. There was karaoke in one room, the main room had the live acts and J Pop/Rock music playing between. The stand sold loads of stuff raising money for the evening including DVD’s, CD’s, wristbands, toys, posters and a raffle to win one of three huge goody bags worth around £300. Lucky me as I won the first bag and the stuff in it was insane – DVD box sets of anime, t-shirts and a £100 gift voucher for Uniqlo (I LOVE that shop). So D and I were psyched AND had helped raise money for a good cause at the same time. Really a huge thanks needs to go out to all those sponsors for donating so much nice stuff.

So a brief review of the acts. IMMa were amazing. I’m a huge No Doubt fan and they totally reminded me of them and we bought their album. No Cars were fun, cute and funny. Saara Takase was beautiful, although maybe placed in the line up wrong as her songs made me a bit sleepy. I spoke to her for a bit afterwards and she was lovely. Akira the Don wasn’t quite so up my street and I especially hated all the rapper friends he brought on stage too, but I’m sure others enjoyed him. Adam Ant was also good. My main criticisms would be that he would have been better with a band as he’s not great at the guitar by himself, plus a few less cover songs from the 70′s would have been better. Also maybe a few more of his big hits and less of his older punky stuff. I don’t think anybody told him that most people there were under 21 and had no clue what those songs were. At least they might know his 80′s songs from their parents or something. As a huge fan who knows all of his songs though, I was happy enough ^ ^

On with the pics…

WeLoveJapan

What's his name? It's Miyavi, silly!

So he played a gig at HMV Forum in Kentish Town on 19th March and it was A M A Z I N G. His set was great and he played all the songs I love from his latest album ‘What’s My Name?’

He looked pretty tired or something, but still pulled out enough energy to rock the place and everyone was jumping around like mentals. Seriously insanely good and I also loved his new totally stripped down image – no extensions, hats or make up. He looked beautiful.

Anyway. I will stop chatting and show you some pics. The first few are of D and I mucking about in Camden. As usual click the piccy below and descriptions are on the pics ^ ^ Enjoy….

Miyavi @ HMV Forum 19/03/11

I am utterly devastated at the news of John Galliano being fired from Dior. I totally agree with it of course, but wow what an idiot! I will still always admire his work, artistic vision and beautiful craftmanship regardless of what stupid things he said. I am sure he didn’t mean them as I’m sure he knew Hitler would never have been a fan of an outrageously camp and openly gay male fashion designer, but I am still disgusted that these things were said at all – but then he probably is too

I hope he can sort himself out and still continue doing good work in his life. Maybe one day he will be forgiven his stupidity, but for now he will just have to move on. It is such a pity that his huge career has come crashing down over being a drunken idiot. Lots of people have done much worse and carried on with their careers so I will watch and see what happens.

There is a good article by Hilary Alexander on The Daily Telegraph website. Funnily enough has the same title as my post, but then he is an idol for many.

One thing we have to question is why did the girls who filmed him making this rant not say anything when it was filmed months ago. And why were they filming it in the first place? I am not denying what he said was totally out of order, but one has to be a bit suspcious. I’m sure the truth will all come out eventually given time.

Found a familiar looking face in a copy of Tokyo Graffiti magazine…

Yes that’s right, it’s MEEEE. Helloooooo ^^

Got street snapped in Akihabara when I was there in November and FINALLY managed to get hold of a copy that came out in December. I am most pleased. Here is a close up of the blurb…

Can’t read it properly, but I remember they asked for my name, age, where I was from, what I did for a living, where my skirt was from and the price (Bodyline Y780) and what my dream was. My dream was of course to own a cute shop in Harajuku selling my own designs.

Next I need to get myself or my clothes into KERA magazine. THAT will be another dream for me ^ – ^