Inspired by... Lavinia

Lavinia has the most beautiful voice in the world (ok, almost :)) and she is the kind of friend who doesn't know to say "NO". She has brains (too much I think sometimes), and she sings like an angel. But most of all, she has the biggest heart. I have never seen her wearing orange, or grey, but for some reason this is what the muse inspired me to use. I guess the the grey reminds me of her soft, sometimes indecisive nature, the green reminds me of her fresh, powerful, rebellious thinking, and the bright orange is all the passion and warmness she emanates through her singing, writing, or just being. She is incredibly strong, but she is also fragile... it seems like a lot of contradictions, but I think she "wears" all these attributes. 

I am curious if she thinks my description is accurate and if she will like the dress. 

So, Lavina?

Inspired by... my sister

Today I will start a feature "Inspired by..." and the first post is dedicated to my beautiful sister, who inspired me to design this dress. We will also try to make the real thing, with the help of a tailor, so hopefully soon I will post a picture with the real model wearing the real dress. Wish us good luck :)

Never stop dreaming

When we get to a certain age, we tend to feel shy about our deepest dreams... It would sound ridiculous for me to say now (at 33) that I want to be a ballerina. But that is what I used to say as a child, as many other girls I guess. I think the desire of being a ballerina is rather symbolic. Our intuition as little girls relate us to the values attached to it: grace, balance, harmony, beauty...

The decision of taking a fashion design course was not about me wanting to make clothes, sell them and make money. It was about dreaming and searching for my true self.

Never stop dreaming, and if you feel like there is something about you that you need to explore, do it. You never know where this will take you, but it will certainly be a better place.

My last piece of drawing (the pose was inspired by a painting). 

Learning to draw human bodies is not only useful for fashion design.

I have't said too much about the place where my introduction to design / drawing happened. 

It is the Dubai International Art Centre. 

Check their website, they have lots of new courses coming.

Our dear teacher Dyali, she is great and I can only hope that all the teachers are as good as her.

PS I didn't mention something so far: there were ten of us starting the course, only four actually finished. I was the only one who attended all the classes, and I am probably the only one who started to blog about it :)

Fashion design - inspiration sources

Even if my fashion design course is over, I still have some material from the course that I've been delaying posting it. Some of it is below and the theme would be "inspiration sources".

 This design is inspired from a fabric, a pink cotton silk with a beautiful pattern.

These are inspired from a fashion era, the 20s. There is a wrong idea that there were short dresses in the 20s. There weren't. The day dresses were knee length, the evening or tea dresses were longer.

The design from the right is inspired from a picture in a magazine (left). The idea was to be avant-garde.

The design below is inspired by the Vera Wang ad on the left.