(no subject)
Last night
dansette and I hit the V&A late-- it was some kind of couture evening, so they had movies, wine, DJ's and workshops. We went to a pattern cutting workshop taught by knitwear designer Juliana Sissons. She was a pattern cutter for Alexander McQueen. We learned how to make a pattern block and got started on making a corset pattern. She gave us hand outs for making a 19th century corset and I hope to attempt making one.
She was a great teacher, but beyond that her knitwear designs are spectacular. This is one of her designs to the left. Here are her designs from London Fashion Week, 2006. Totally inspiring. It made me want to break out of the chunky knitting i've been doing and really dive into some lingerie inspired matrix-y sweaters.
We watched most of The Secret World of Haute Couture. The director's persistence in gaining access to the highly guarded world of designers and their obscenely rich clients was admirable, and the film argued convincingly that this was a dying art, as even rich people are wearing pret-a-porter now. But the hideous women clients and the designers themselves seem to belong to such a rarefied and sychophantic world where starving was openly mentioned numerous times-- it was hard to feel convinced by any of it. We found ourselves laughing openly at much of it. After watching countless rich ugly women in ugly clothes, we decided to go get some wine, listen to the DJs playing remixes of 80's stuff like Bronski Beat and people watch. Maybe it's time for couture to die, I thought while looking around at the street-wise fashion in the main hall. I love people watching at the V&A-- it's the one place in London where you can count on seeing people dressed in high spirits.
I find myself with a spider bite on my leg. Again. 6 inches from the scar that I got in Vienna 8 years ago. This one isn't nearly as bad, but WTF? It's this huge red lump on my leg with an inflamed center. I don't even remember being bitten.
On the tube a drunken, wounded man wedged himself next to me on the carriage. He smelled like sweater-out beer and something else. Sometimes I curse my super-sensitive nose, especially on public transport. He had a festering bandage on his hand, and as he struggled to open a package of tissues he began to pant and sweat. He then sopped up his bald head with the tissue, and all I could think of is that he was now breaking his fever, brought on by this infected wound. Bloody hell. The NHS is free, man. Use it. But that's when I felt something on my leg, while I was sitting next to him, something that pricked me, and then I had that creepy sensation all over my body. It's too unpleasant to link the two things, so I'm not going to.