dead romantics

long time, no write eh? my life is a mess, and unfortunately i couldn't save my blog form it, my deepest apologies. but! i hopefully will have a more routine lifestyle now that i'm in my second year of college. i'll probably have more things to show you too, my curriculum for costume design looks bomb. a bigger update is on it's way, this is not the topic for this post though.
this is about a dress. yes. another dress. why do i do this to myself. i suspect the ultimately feminine line of one just inherently reminds me of romanticism which was the topic for this task... but lets start at the beginning.

last year i had fashion design classes with a lady who challenged our input sources and the way we process our inspirations. theres more to say about those classes for sure but this is a whole post on one of our final projects. the general topic was deconstruction of a shirt, based on one of the "genres" given, rock, architecture, something else i think, and romanticism. with a mood board we were to create an outfit from deconstructed shirts and organise a photoshoot for said look. tough stuff tbh, especially if you don't really get the teacher... anywaaaay, i chose romanticism cause i'm a sucker for blue, great reason i know. i really don't want to get into all the problems i had in the beginning cause it was a freaking nightmare but i settled on these inspirations:

i know it's not a lot, in fact i'm a bit mad at myself for this being it, but the road was very hard okay.

i focused on the fabric manipulations for the flowers, each hand made with a probably unhealthy dose of frustration by yours truly. first sketch called for two of them, in the end i made eleven. i'm quite proud of them if i'm being honest, bit of my signature 3am; why am i doing to myself; again haute couture. the dress was finished, the worst was yet to come. how do you freaking organise a photoshoot with no friends?... and last minute but that's besides the point...

cue my high school friend justyna. she has been my makeup model a couple of times already and answered my desperate call on facebook. i must thank her here again, not only was she a very pretty and wonderful model but she also figured out a location. last minute wroclaw natural history museum photoshoot.

here is another thanks, to the employees of the museum. they were so helpful, so kind to let us shoot and so lovely and curious about the project. here is why this post is in polish too, for them to enjoy!

there we are, please don't judge me too hard on my photography skills or the photoshops cause i'm nowhere near a pro but i am quite happy with those, all feedback would be greatly appreciated.
i tried my best!

see you soon and remind me to never do that again (again)

love,

qofr

~

tłumaczenie:

ten post jest podsumowaniem jednego z moich końcoworocznych projektów w mskpu. zadanie obejmowało pracę z dekonstrukcją koszuli w wybranym temacie, ja zdecydowałam się na romantyzm. cała kreacja została uszyta przeze mnie, w większości ręcznie. szczególnie zadowolona jestem z kwiatów w dolnej części pleców. było to nie lada wyzwanie,  na szczęście przy produkcji sesji zdjęciowej miałam wspaniałą pomoc w osobie modelki, justyny. bardzo ci dziękuję, zarówno za zdjęcia jak i pomoc w organizacji miejsca na sesję. 

dodatkowo chciałabym bardzo podziękować wszystkim pracownikom muzeum przyrodniczego we wrocławiu za przychylne nastawienie i szczerą ciekawość. mam nadzieję, że zdjęcia wszystkim się podobają!

salę w której robiłyśmy zdjęcia można zobaczyć tutaj: układ kostny kręgowców

gw

into the woods

at first i didn't intend to make scenography and set design for this project. i'm not really into that domain of theatre so i just wanted to go with raw industrial. un/fortunately, my tutor thought of a whole stage set when she heard about the costumes, told me about it, so, since i'm the type that if something is stuck in my head it's for good (gonna stay there till i realise it), i got to work.

since the most important things on stage were the lit costumes, i focused on the lighting.

this is the finished product. to be fair it actually came out almost just like i imagined (the temperature of lights could be more alike but you can't have it all)

the whole set is basically just 3 paper screens and lights, but what an effect!

this is the raw set, no light. looks bare and not really interesting but the scale is quite big. each screen is about 3 meters in hight and 2.5 in width. it was an exhausting task, thank you jagoda for helping me, i still have a bit of scarring on my hands (i had to lift like a 60kg roll of paper). each piece is hung from the celling in two places, held together with a wooden bar. the one thing i need to remember in the future is to make them a bit longer, so they don't slide that much.

behind the screens there was a spot light and on the sides two slide projectors. and i mean those old ones, with single frames and film.

the shapes are inspired by the same things as the costumes, i just simplified them a bit, to make things more clear.

you would think i'll use digital projectors with scans of my inspirations, right? well, first thing, there weren't that many just available since ''light day'' is a school thing and there were many other performances. second thing that it actually didn't work that well in practice. i did a lot of monotype designs with different motifs but the scan wasn't good enough and i would have to clean all of them by hand, no way...

luckily, my teacher suggested just drawing the needed shapes on see-through foil and putting it in film frames, worked great and it was easy to copy for two screens. an even better thing was that since the actual image wasn't visible, the audience couldn't see the imperfections.

~~~

ok, that's it. listen to this and enjoy the photos (taken by jagoda as well):

this has been your monday dose of pure coolness

love,

qofr

in times of need, acrylic is here

i started by making the templates, wanted to make them with paper, turned out that they slide all over the place so i, the genius that i am, thought of adhesive foil so this was a big connivence.

the biggest thing was to figure out how to get the pattern onto the fabric. i did some tests, hoped that print paint would work but that was too see-through, there was no contrast to see the outline. then i tried with spray paint but that was even worse.

if you don't know what to do, do it in acrylic. simple and the effect was perfect.

here are some photos from the making:

let's just strop here. at this point i was so proud of myself, right? like wow, this looks nice, really suits the theme, seems well designed as a pattern. then i realised.

the suckers.

how the flipping fuck am i going to do that. it was just a pain it the but really, cause i had to cut it all individually. i had to number all of them, different colours for each tentacle to not mix things up. of course i had to save those little circles because it wasn't unified in any way (why should i do that? to make my work easier? that's for chumps). after gluing down the rest of the foil i had to go over each spot, make it smaller and glue down. i'm sure there is an easier way but i'm not going to think about it now.

#deadhand

i don't really have any more photos from the making of the actual costumes.

i don't really have that much more to say about the costumes. next up the stage design and summary.

this has been your monday dose of mind-boggling work.

love,

qofr

p.s. this is draining my energy. i'll finish those posts this week and quit talking about this project for now. from february sockabrate is coming back.

so, śródświetlne

the name means, in loose translation, amongst light. the whole thing was prepared for my schools 'day of light', but not for them, for myself. the event is centered around light related projects made by students at my school.

i had this idea for a while, the play of light and shadow is fascinating when observed in movement, and i love the idea of semi-transparency and all that.

the whole concept is based on cloth with printed, contrasting template. i got really interested in artistic graphics last year, i'm a craftsman so doing stuff by hand is definitely my thing, and making molds was really cool. since this year i don't have that subject anymore i wanted to do something my myself, for myself this once. plus i really wanted to have something big, new for my portfolio.

i like doing stuff on my own so this was a real pleasure even though it was so time and work consuming.

i started of with some loose sketches of the cloths and the patterns i wanted. i love the idea of octopus tentacles in graphics (i have no idea why, it has been a running theme in my art) so i started with that (curse this, the suction things were a bitch to make). i was struggling to think of other nature inspired patterns but it worked out.

i have an octopus, trees, coral and fern. each made twice, mirrored for both sides of the model.

and for good measure i did some model sketches

i wasn't sure about the last one 

and i want to use my pad more so:

this is the beginning, my inspirations. the making is coming.

this has been your monday dose of artistic motivation, you can do it!

love,

qofr

happy new year!

śródświetlne

i am excited to invite you to a magnificent showing. tomorrow i will hold a costume display with models and hand-made set design.

i'm very proud of this project, it's my biggest to date and it was a massive process for me. never have i ever imagined how much work would it require but i'm very glad that it worked out like so.

there will be much more information about this, i want to show you the cool behind the scenes. 

~~~

the event will be held at:

autorskie licea artystyczne ALA

ul. robotnicza 36

wroclaw

ckp

~

22:15

~~~

hope to see you there!

love,

qofr

hmxbalmain

today, i'm going to be a real fashion blogger and, for a change, gonna write something current.

the new hm x balmain collection

out 5th november, all the rage for a while. personally, i'm not a big fan of balmain, i stopped being interested in these collaborations when marni went on sale and i snatched a pencil skirt, silk scarf and two pairs of earring which would knock you of your feet. but i'll save that for another time.

back to balmain. some facts for you;

the balmain house was founded by pierre balmain in 1946.
the house suffered rationed fabric during the II world war period but after that balmain followed in the steps of dior and took on ''the new look''. the house was and still is famous for extravagant haute couture looks with some retro vibes. just this year hm announced that the brand, currently under the head designer olivier rousteing, will be their 11th collaboration.

personally, i'm not a big fan of balmain, just as i wasn't a versace fan. the fashion is a bit too much for me, the chains, dark colours. i don't really dress that way and prefer that kind of style only on stage. being the professional that i am, i haven't really noticed any signs of the next collection (the hm near me doesn't carry it) so i didn't really care, only czuch told me.

the collection is a huge success, for hm especially. the clothes are really popular, kylie jenner on the ads probably also helped, every self-respecting fashionista wanted her dress.

the clothes are definitely not reasonably priced, c'mon it's hm. the promo shots are so cliche, they my photographer friend told me they are not even properly framed. but the light is good. 

it's all important, of course, but the real thing i wanted to write about is the ridiculous ''crowd'' reaction! all i can say is to do with poland and i sincerely hope it wasn't like that elsewhere. 

and it was madness. the vip event in the capital was just bizarre and laughable. you would think that if you're a fashion blogger or a writer for a well known magazine, you are used to such events, and know how to behave properly, right? wrong. here is a great article, if you can read it (it's in polish) but the photos speak for themselves. everybody wanted a piece and people even took wrong sizes and tried to steal from others. the exchanges and not really legal trade was just unbelievable. 

the clothes weren't supposed to come out for everybody for a couple of days after that night. imagine that you could buy those on ebay for double the price just a couple of hours after closing. that's just pure nasty. 

the premiere was just as crazy if not more. even people who didn't know who balmain is were waiting pressed to the glass in the morning. the website was down, for a couple of hours at least. i would hate to be the sales assistants then. i cant's even contain the disgust for this event, i'm genuinely mad at those people! you're just plain embarrassing...

why?? why?? i get that you want to feel the luxury of a faux fur with an itchy label or the heavy sequins on a dress that wasn't even touched by the head designer but behave your self!

the crowd is mindless, horrid and grotesque. the collection is not worth any broken ribs or purses, in my opinion.

it's not the fashion week sales, it's not primark on oxford street, it's not boxing day in selfridges. calm down. even if it's all out of stock.

this has been your monday dose of common sense.

love,

qofr

week 21

hi

another tbt of sockabrate.

imagine socks, or anything really,

made of self-healing

bubble wrap.

appreciate the bubble wrap.

 baking themes continue.

chocolate cake with chocolate

frosting

=

deliciousness

 i love those, as in socks.

pancakes are way to much effort for breakfast

for me, i''m super lazy.

 based on rubik's cube colours.

because... you get it?

it's a puzzle...?

i'll show myself out.

breakfast week apparently here.

croissants are great, buttery pastries that are made

of wonders. basic french thing,

coffee and a croissant.

noms.

 i was going for a backward sock,

as in you put it on backwards.

i feel like it looks really original,

just the making part would be probably

quite difficult.

when i did my paradise dress

i researched quite a lot

into scales so i thought

it was only acceptable i did a sock

like that too.

imagine it being slightly iridescent.

hope you liked this post,

i'm feeling so good with all those new ones i've made,

i'm really glad you are all here

love,

qofr