An artistic outing...

Whilst on our trip to Paris, I decided to take the opportunity to do a little design research with the S2 art students. On the Wednesday afternoon Ailie, Rebecca, Lara, Beth, Jonathan and I (and Dr Rankin as our much needed translator!) set off on a hunt for "Les Grands Magasins" otherwise known as the designer shops. 

Two of the fashion designers we study during the art course are John Galliano and Issey Miyake both of whom have shops in Paris. Not only did we manage to successfully negotiate the metro (thanks to Dr R!) but we also found their shops and saw some examples of their work. It was interesting to see how Galliano used text in his designs as well as creatively displaying his work on a cycling theme!  In particular the staff at the Issey Miyake shop were very helpful and informative - they spent a lot of time explaining and illustrating the A-POC technology they use to create their clothes. We also saw examples of their successful "Pleats Please" technique.

Beth and Jonathan are 'reading' this Galliano dress which has been created from fabric printed with newspaper style letters that customers have written to the designer and his subsequent replies...



Galliano used bicycle wheels as display shelves for his accessories and a bike saddle and handlebars as the rails on which to hang his work!

The Issey Miyake staff were very friendly and helpful - in particular I found the visit here very interesting.



Finally, an added bonus to the trip was discovering a giant, pink Dior bunny at the side of the road on the way to the Galliano shop in the 'Galeries Lafayette'.... bizarre!