Royal Wedding Sick Bags

oooooohhh wish I had come up with this idea first, would have made a killing. 

Lydia Leith has designed a sick bag to coincide with the occasion – and has already sold out of her first batch, available for £3 each.

Lydia, who now lives in Edinburgh and is a graduate from the city’s College of Art, admits she does not think it will be used as a sick bag.

She originally made 260 limited edition bags, which have sold out, but is now busy making more.

 They are available from her website, www.lydialeith.com.

Dior Illustrated: Rene Gruau and the Line of Beauty

The Somerset House in London staged an exciting exhibition to honour one of the world’s most celebrated creative talents in fashion design. Hosted in conjunction with the French fashion house Dior, the exhibition, entitled “Dior Illustrated: Rene Gruau and the Line of Beauty”, was held to honour renowned illustrator Rene Gruau (1909-2004), who created some of the most iconic fashion and beauty images of the 20th century.

With over 40 original illustrations for Christian Dior Parfums, exquisite vintage perfume bottles, sketches, magazines and poster adverts. The show also features a selection of Dior Haute Couture dresses personally selected by John Galliano, including a dress designed by Galliano himself in homage to Gruau.

What I loved the most was Rene Gruau’s bold lines and fluid style, that captured the energy and elegance of the brand. His illustrations also tell of a special understanding Gruau had of Christian Dior himself, borne of a close friendship between the two men.

Gruau influenced the graphic style of a whole generation of fashion illustrators and this exhibition features specially commissioned pieces from five of the UK’s most cutting-edge illustrators _ Jasper Goodall, Daisy Fletcher, Erin Petson, Richard Kilroy and Sarah Arnett.

Responding to the themes in the exhibition and reinterpreting them within a modern day context, each illustrator created works and limited edition prints for sale inspired by Gruau’s work for Dior.

BUSINESS PLAN

The next progressive leap into grown up business stuff at Sam Irving is the BUSINESS PLAN.  Since May I have been toying around with a plan and as I am off to see the Portobello Business Centre on Wednesday picked this back up tonight….so far I have filled in the front page and doodled on the other 8 – Not good!  I have no shame in admitting that I am not very academic but with my sensible face on, I do realise the significant importance of having a business plan.  Along with having an abundance of creativity it’s as equally important, greatly reducing the risks of things going horribly wrong.

As well as meeting with PBC I am also looking forward to having a business plan, that I can update regularly, measure my progress and identify potential problems.

They also say “…. like so many things in life, you tend to get out of a business plan what you’re prepared to put in.” Deep, but inspiring, therefore the success of Sam Irving depends a lot on me spending tonight completing it.

Nite

SAM IRVING WEDDING STATIONERY

Was asked if I could do some wedding invites with one of my illustrations.  Was very honoured and got up this morning and drew these wedding bands.

Am doing these as a gift but came up with another business idea to branch out into, YES! Wedding Stationary.  It’s always important to realise the potential out there and if there is demand and I can supply then why the hell not.

My friends (not really called Mary & Joseph) have already sent save the dates and such and only wanted simple invites so this is what they have gone for, choosing the fonts, colour and text themselves.

The invites are ready to be printed I feel that I have just branched out and offered my first ever Bespoke Wedding Stationery Service hahah life throws some funny things at times.  This is a new arena to me and I will need to do some research but if you or someone you know is getting hitched and want some affordable bespoke invites, save the dates, evening invites or thank you cards let me know.

I would be happy to do these exclusively for your special day. Just send me some inspiration or the theme for your wedding, and I will provide you with a design that works perfectly for you.

Prices on request

PLAN B – UPDATE

Just an update on what’s what…. been a slow month, not due to laziness or nothing.  Only that a lot of money got spent on sourcing samples and printing this month.  I’m excitedly awaiting my Assyrian scarves, which I’m told are just waiting to be hemmed.  My print screens, paper and inks are all delivered; I just need to book time in the Club to get the Keys screen printed.

I’ve also been hit by illness which has slowed me down.

From my sick bed, drugged up and desperately avoiding day time TV, I have been reading up on new things that inspire me.  With back ground Northern Soul playing I developed a new fondness for swans, pineapples, Celia Birtwell, Ossie Clark, Paul Smith, The Supremes and a dash of paisley.

It is frustrating not having the physical energy to actually action anything, but I do have to remember that there already is a lot going on for now…. So as soon as the scarves are here, I’ll pick the supplier to go with and get a small order confirmed, print my Keys and then finish off the illustrations that are half finished like this from The Band…

With regards to the exhibition,,,, I got so excited about this and drew up lots of plans, sadly the cost is an issue I have to discuss when I go to the Portobello Business Centre and look at my finance & business plan.  If the bank says no, I’m tempted to go to Iceland for canapés, drinks from the Lidl, hold it in my living room and play some Northern Soul on repeat if I have to.  I’ll update on that at the end of the month

Until then, it is all about…

Getting well soon

Sam

x

MY MIA JAFARI ENTRY

Here is my entry for the Sketchbook Mia Jafari Scarf Comp,,,,, think it should have had more colour,,, what do you think?

ASOS MARKET PLACE

I don’t know if I mentioned it,,,,,,,

but ASOS Market Place turned me down, yep, said that I didn’t fit into the ‘current range.’

Apparently….

“ASOS Marketplace is your fashion democracy. Your designs, your discoveries. Start a movement. Inspire and be inspired. Tap a new style source.”

Now to be honest, after reading the 2 line email, I was upset!  I didn’t cry or nothing, I just spent a bit of my morning feeling very bitter with ASOS and with the brief email from this so called “Fashion Scout.”  My energy was low and I thought that it was possible my feelings had stemmed from being a disgruntled ex employee and that ASOS just had it in for me and didn’t want to give me a chance with them what so ever or worse that my work was total crap.

This is where it can become dangerous ground for a creative, whereby you fall into a mental state of thinking you’re not good enough.  This mental state kept me ill for a long time and it was only by showing my work to a few people that I recovered and vowed never to get that way again.

I shook the negative thoughts away and surmised that this “fashion scout” (who gave no feedback), was probably not very credible to judge my work.  Instead I took comfort in knowing that a lot of people, including the ASOS Dress Buyers love my work (and are still interested in seeing my prints), Liberty Buyers, friends, credible screen printers, designers, tutors and artist, love my work and most important…I LOVE MY WORK.

So I did question why I didn’t fit into the range, do prints NOT count?  Is my work not ‘fashionable’ enough? And what about this democracy?  I thought a democracy was as below….

democracy /dɪˈmɒkrəsi/ Show Spelled[dih-mok-ruh-see]

[U] the belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves

Who knows and who cares,,, what I do know is that to me, It’s not about fitting in and being commercial.   it’s about being individual and having a strong belief in what I do,, Yes, I did take it personally, I was affected, I did doubt my abilities, I was bitter and yes I did look up democracy……………….. But thankfully only for 15 minutes of my morning and then went and enjoyed the rest of my day.

Moral of this post,,,, don’t be fooled by ASOS Market Place

KEYS

Introducing Keys, these are being made into 3 colour A1 size screen prints.  If you are interested in pre ordering one of these please contact me.

misssamirving@gmail.com

Each print is

£180 Inc. VAT

MIA JAFARI

A competition is always is a good incentive to get inspired and create.  Sketchbook Magazine has launched its first EVER competition and I entered my Racey Rhinos.  It’s a cool opportunity for the winning illustration to be added to a unique design of a Mia Jafari scarf.  I have fallen in like with Mia Jafaris‘ work, which is a beautiful mix of bright and colourful birds, jewels and Iranian symbols which she covers her scarves with, in her own medium she named “digi-broidery” (digital printing and embroidery)….

How wonderful,,, I need to see one of these in the flesh, they sound amazing

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PLAN B

“Thinking of a plan is a start. Planning it out is encouraging but nothing can be
achieved unless you actually start actively following through with your
plans and take your goal forward. We often wait for the right time, but
sometimes that leads to procrastination….” www.facebook.com/ignitethescreen

Had a wonderful weekend to forget the negatives and stay focused after last week’s website setback.  Moving swiftly on I have spent a good part of today making lot of lists, SWOT, pros and cons, checking emails, drawing, cutting and a few spider charts later have come up with a workable Plan B that should help me achieve my short-term goal by Jan 2011….

So the PLAN B is that I will focus solely on my prints and merchandise.  From tomorrow I will be screen printing, making cards and making plans to set up a small exhibition.  Whilst physically working on these I have an appointment to see someone from the Portobello Business Centre to discuss my business plan in closer detail and re-evaluate my finances;  I will work closely again with the wonderful Vanessa Reece http://www.vanessareece.com/ who has so much faith in me to help set me up with some kind of website hosting thing.

A new site will be developed in December to go live end of Jan.  By then I should have enough stock that will be ready for sale in conjunction with a small exhibition and print sale.  I think this should all be achievable and I’m looking forward to the new focus.  It’s all too easy to get down and negative when setbacks happen, but luckily I’m more resilient.  I’m excited again and am driven…. Stay tuned, there is a lot to come … it all starts back here again tomorrow, when I can report back to what’s getting made…. off now to enjoy the bank holiday evening…

Love xxxx