Hot girls, gay disco cowboy acrobatic stripping, nipple tassels, drag queens, human-ish mask worn over latex catsuits, and stripping midgets- all to the tune of champagne. Not a bad way to spend a Wednesday evening.
Post-brunch with a fellow faux redhead, we wandered into a few shops and found some amazing shoes. I was only able to capture one or two, but I thought I'd share some brilliant heel shapes I came across today:
I am at a stage in my design where I need to start making prototypes. I have sketchbooks full of ideas and all I need now is practice and some specialized help in the mould-making area. My first step is to get an internship with a shoe designer. I thought I had one, but I just got word that it fell through for reasons that had nothing to do with me. So now I am seeking both a shoe design internship with an independent designer, and someone interested in helping me prototype unusual heel shapes.
So why should anyone want to have me as an intern?
I'm a good designer. I push boundaries. But I can also reel myself back in and design very wearable things as well.
I am pretty damn good at pattern cutting and thinking in terms of functionality. When I was at Saint Martins the pattern cutting teacher was overwhelmed by the number of students in the class, so I was given half the class to teach. Turns out I was a better teacher than the teacher, and so a lot of students came to me for help on future projects. I'm not into the 1mm details (I'm not a tailor), but I do what I call "brute force pattern cutting"- I can make things do what I want, I just might not go about doing it the proper way.
I am very interested in using new or unusual materials. Things that "shouldn't" be used are most appealing. I'd love to team up with someone interested in playing with materiality and conceptual designs. My time at saint martins gave me a real appreciation for experimentation, even if I don't know a lot about it yet.
I have skills! I've worked in a lot of different mediums. I'm not specialized in anything yet, but that will come with time. I have worked with leather, fabrics, and latex quite a bit, but I'm interested in almost any other medium as well.
I am easy to work with, and I like working with others and collaborating. I am eager to learn all about shoe design and the business of being an independent designer in the field.
Some stuff I've made:
Well. That was quite possibly the worst of all my flights from the US to the UK.
On a nearly empty plane, I was not the only person with a whole row of seats to myself... just the only person in a row of seats with armrests that didn't move. Twice, just as I was just beginning to doze off, the plane ran into some long-lasting hard turbulence. Children began screaming, couples grabbed each other's hands, and I thought, "damn it, I am not going to sleep at all if this keeps happening!"
I would not have made it through the day if my friend Kitty hadn't met me at the airport. I was so tired I was ill. Movement near me made me nausiated and I was starved and yet completely unable to eat. The exertion of pulling my suitcase around caused the world to spin. I was cold and then hot and then cold again.
When we finally made it back to my flat, I kept falling asleep and waking myself up saying, "I'm awake! I'm awake!" I couldn't eat a thing, not even toast.
Today I've spent most of the day in bed but I'm aiming to go see some friends tonight if I can handle standing long enough to walk to the tube.
Damn, I'd forgotten how much I hate traveling in this direction...
It's Friday afternoon and the realization that I leave in three days has suddenly hit me. I am starting to feel the stress that was so familiar to me this past year as I begin planning to leave The Boy and go back to London.
But this time is different from all the others. I am trying to balance out the familiar dread by reminding myself of all the good things about my life in London since I left CSM. This will be the first time I'll be returning to my flat and NOT the horrible student halls. It will be the first time I return without having to go back to another term at the dreaded CSM. In fact I am already looking forward to taking more classes in shoes, and seeking out an internship. I also have a job to return to. It is also the first time I'm returning with friends, events, and familiar habits waiting for me on the other side. So I need to keep reminding myself of this any time I start to dread my return to England.
My last year in England will be good. Remind me of this when I start to complain.
A few months ago I went on an expedition with two classmates and one of my shoe design teachers to Northampton. It's one of the last places in England with a working shoe factory that we could see in action. Of course I didn't take any photos within the actual factory, but I did manage to get a few snapshots at the shoe museum...
A few vintage foot binding shoes. Look how ornately embroidered these things are. I guess when you can afford to be ornate when you're dealing with such tiny things.
Gotta love the crazy cantilever heel on this shoe. I am counting on someone to help me balance a one of my shoe designs in a very similar way. So sexy and weird.
If Dorothy wanted to be a little more practical about walking all the way to the emerald city, she might have considered these. But the clear Docs with the baby picture? I have no idea...
Vivienne Westwood's famous platforms. Not the blue ones, but the exact same model. What I love about this shoe is the delicate shape of the toe, the curve of the platform and the unobtrusive colour.
Sorry for the blurry photo. This one was particularly dark. But it was too awesome not to share. Wish her ass was a little more shapely though, don't you think? I found this section of the museum the most interesting because it had a few examples of the evolution of fetish shoes. How mundane this heels looks to us, and yet at the time, it was an incredibly high heel in SHINY black leather. How provocative!
And if you thought I was tall before... The extreme high heel is taken to a new level (see what I did there?) with this pair. The logical part of me keeps thinking "you might want a closed toe with a back if you want to balance in those." Of course, I imagine they would never be worn by anyone standing. 
Try walking in them. I dare you! I love the choice of colours in this one. Bright 70s yellow and ruddy orange. Nothing says sex and fetish like mustard yellow, you know? 
The other day I read over the blog entries I wrote during my year at CSM and I have come to a very solid conclusion: the best decision I've ever made was to leave that awful place.
It's evident from my entries that I repeatedly tried to rise to the challenges set by Evil Tutor, and was constantly knocked down without any explanation as to why. I can see how bravely I tried to take each failure as a reason to try even harder. And I can see how fucking miserable I was. It sorta killed me; it sorta made me stronger. I am still trying to sort my head out after a year of constant mindfucks.
But every time someone complements my shoe designs, or asks me to consult with them on a costume or project I feel a little bit better. It's good to know that although I've lost all confidence in my abilities, others have not. A little external reassurance is exactly what I need right now.
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