knitwear, basquiat, and barbara kruger

Went to Central Saint Martin's with Scott my last full day in London (can't believe it's been a few weeks by now), wore this particular creation of his on the trip there. It's a spectacular dress isn't it? Can you believe he's only been doing knitwear for a year, about? UNREAL. This dress was inspired by Basqiuat and other influences, I think he did a good job of making his intentions known. We'd gone to the Tate Modern the day before and the influence was startling. Unfortunately CSM was closed when I went -- I am cursed apparently, every time I try to go to a fashion themed library it never happens -- but the entrance hall was open and the lighting was killer so we snapped a few pictures together. I'm lucky with finding light. The clouds moved on immediately after we took these pictures, so it was great timing after a lot of dawling elsewhere being frustrated that we weren't getting what we wanted out of the day.

 I love photography and framing and lighting a lot, it lets me find something very intentional about everywhere I go. We're always walking around doing one thing or the other and when you're on the lookout for a good picture, you see things differently. It's nice to capture an ordinary moment and being able to invest something into it. A nondescript concrete wall can be beautiful too. 

I'm horrible at modeling though, definitely fall into the good ol' awkward blogger standby's, so trying to show the back of this dress without looking like I'm drawing on the wall or peeing is too hard for me. Whatever, I'm not signed to Ford, I don't gotta worry bout that stuff. 

I will try hard, however, to always be a better creative person though, which means I'm never going to stop experimenting with this here blog for as long as I have it, pushing my ideas and my techniques and exploring collaborations. I do read every comment and every email and every criticism and fanmail even if it's hard to answer them all, and I try to channel them into something even better and more productive for myself because it's just the only way I know how to live fully and happily. I am very young and have been able to do many things already so there is a constant worry of me wondering -- have I peaked already? is this it? -- but I think it's more productive for me to just hustle and try harder forever. The universe is expanding and nothing will be enough, but I think working towards being enough is fun while I have the chance. The meaning of life, as Kruger points out, is that it stops. So basically: *Jesse Pinkman voice* carpe diem, bitches.

we can get in trouble just by going free flow

The second to last day in London, Scott and I just went everywhere with me in his creations. This is from his White Project from last year, I remember listening to his development process on Skype while he was working on it. I've seen Scott develop a lot as a designer through his sketchbooks and the signature aspects of his creations are always heavy, intensive knits and large volume. I love the distortion of the body and how I end up moving in his work - the best words for it might be an angelic monstrosity, you know? Some dresses float like on air, and that is a really powerful, sexy experience. But this defies that kind of movement and you as the wearer are forced to experience your clothes in a different way, and I love that. Some of it is stiff and other parts are floaty...it's ethereal in it's own way, it's a very alienating experience. It's always on the right side of absurd for me, I never feel uncomfortable in his stuff. If I try to describe how I feel in it, it's more like a hand is being extended to take me on a good trip. There is a lot of goodness involved.

 I think it's because we come from the same place aesthetics wise and share similar backgrounds. Scott's my designer just as much as CDG is, if not more, because I actually have an influence on what he creates. It's very fulfilling to have someone to collaborate with on ideas and to see them run with it and being able to wear the results in the end is a unique, rad experience. We like the same things to the point we never have to explain our influences to each other. We might not talk for weeks at a time, but then we'll talk for hours and share moodboards and they'll always have a few of the same main inspirations out of coincidence. And since we come from similar class circumstances, we get what the other person is trying to do. Because despite us being fashion kids -- him being a cutthroat kid at Central Saint Martins, me being a blogger-student juggling work and school forever -- we're still not secure or successful in the ways a lot of fashion kids are who come from money. We're always dipping into luxury art and fashion realms but our actual daily realm is eating 99cent muffins for dinner because we're too broke to afford real food because student loans, and materials for our work. So we're always drawn to bringing our aesthetics into our neighborhoods, it's a visual representation of the weird juggling act we're constantly participating in. Photographing his work and our collaborations in neighborhoods that don't match up visually -- that's just our lives, really. We don't match up to the expectations our clothes -- or dreams -- tell us we should have. And I personally enjoy that very much. 

We took a lot of pictures in this dress so it was hard to narrow it down -- you'll likely see different iterations of our approach in the future in this, I want to show you how fun it is to wear. Anyway -- hope all is well and you are safe and sound.