Fashion Designer Diaries #2: First Days of Art School & Shopping on Newbury Street
8/31/24
I moved into my art school dorm two days ago. I'm not sure how to intro this entry so I guess I'll talk about my dorm. I lucked out big time with my dorm. It's spacious and has a lot of natural light. I definitely got one of the better ones and I already know I'm going to miss it when I move out at the end of the year.
The theme for my dorm was girly with a light green and baby pink color scheme. I'm very pleased with how cute and cozy it is!
Now if only I could get that middle piece of garland to stop falling down...
After my parents left I hung out with some friends and visited their dorms. When nighttime rolled around we went to an ice cream social to well.. socialize..., make new friends, and dance with the life of the party, Marty!!!
I spent most of the next day doing orientation activities and hanging out with friends. The blog-worthy highlight of that days was bingo! I was the second person to win! I won a planner but unfortunetly that meant I was ineligable to win a plushie of Marty the Mascot! :( I'll get him next time!
That brings me to today. I met up with a friend briefly for breakfast and then went on a quick campus tour. I spent some time in my dorm practicing drawing kittens in a sitting position. It's not perfect but I'm getting there. I wanted to start some general drawing practice, but after getting in the zone to draw kittens I felt myself unable to focus, which is why I decided to make a quick Walgreens trip and then start writing this blogpost.
I'm currently both excited and nervous right now., which I think is pretty normal. On one hand when I think of the sewing, photography, and design work I'll be doing I feel excited. I'm also loving the city and my newfound freedom. There are so many places that I want to explore!
On the other hand I'm super nervous about my studio foundation classes, specifically my five hours studio classes that revolve around drawing. Drawing is by no means my strong suit. I'm excited to learn drawing, and I enjoy doing it, but I'm super nervous about looking bad in front of my professors and peers. (the majority of whom are animation & illustration majors). I was talking to a friend who said she was nervous too, and the glasses are graded on a pass/fail basis so hopefully I should be fine. I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm here to learn and if I already knew what I was doing it would be silly for me to go to school to learn it.
I'm eager to learn drawing because I have an interest in textile design. In high school I would spent a some of my idle hours working on fabric print designs such as this one:
I made these more recently:
I drew these designs using an earlier version of the print that I drew in high school. I definitely want to redraw them at some point.
Then there's this print I made for my six year old cousins birthday:
Rina was the first store I visited! The overall theme of the store was girly. I really liked this cute floral top.
I absolutely loved how elegant and chic this dress is.
I loved this store a lot more than I thought I would. While it's not my style or my price range, I really appreciate elegant and chic designs. I feel like Alice and Olivia is a boutique that a lot of rich ladies shop at. (you have to be rich to afford the price tag lol) I am very interested to see what their average customer dresses like on a daily basis. Do they buy from the brand for events only or do they dress chic and expensive-looking everyday. Honestly I think it would be really cool if they dressed chic everyday. It'd be really cool to see people in chic clothes like this roaming the streets.
I used a service called Photo Affections to have it printed onto a pencil pouch. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of it. (It came out a little blurry anyway) For Christmas I want to have it on a water bottle. I'm also thinking that this could be a cute lolita print if I replace "Shelby" with a word like "sweetheart".
Speaking of Lolita I heard from a friend that this city has a society/club for lolita's and fashion enthusiasts alike! I'll have to remember to ask her for the link to the discord server.
My school has a garment printing club that I'm excited for. I would love to have my designs printed on clothes that I can upcycle. Specifically I would love to have the teddy bear in a pinafore, that I drew for a fabric print, printed onto a shirt that I could embellish.
Anyway that's all I have to say for today's entry. I'm off to go eat dinner now.
9/2/24
Last night I visited a friend from high school. We ate popcorn, snow cones, candy, and too much cotton candy while we watched Kung Fu Panda 4. The movie honestly wasn't that bad.
Today I did some exploring in an area of the city I've been dying to explore. I've been there a few times but I haven't had the time to explore the half of it. I was there for a while today and I still didn't explore most of it. (That being because I walked and wanted to preserve my phone battery). Next time I go I'm going to wake up earlier and figure out how to ensure the charging cube in my backpack has battery. (I take a portable charging cube around with me but I have no idea how to see how much battery it has left, so I'm worried it and my phone will die on me at some point). This was I can take my time. I'm also going to use public transit next time I go down there because by the time I got back to my dorm my feet HURT. (plus my phone lost a lot of battery on the walk)
I did take some photos of some fashion and spots that I thought were interesting. Apparently their clothes are made in Italy. This is definitely a store I will revisit and research in the future.
I visited Alice and Olivia next. This was a brand that I had heard of numerous times but never really researched.
The yellow dress reminds me of something that you would see from the Style Savvy brand Enid Chen.
I've visited Captive for the first time last time I came to the city. I fell in love with the store instantly because this hyper-girly store IS SO ME!!! The store carries girly clothes from brands that I admire, such as LoveShackFancy and ForLoveAndLemons. I bought a skirt last time I was here and had to restrain myself from buying anything.
These are pictures from the inside of the store.
I fell in love with this LoveShackFancy skirt when I first saw it in the Miami store. If only it wasn't over $300!😭
I love the use of a solid blue mixed with a floral pattern that also contains that color.
There were a lot of different styles of clothes in this store. I saw girly, chic, feminine, and boho-chic. It definitely wasn't may favorite boutique. I prefer boutiques that stick to one style, maybe two.
I found this cozy and amazing-smelling shop that sold chocolate and nut based goods. I'm trying to save money, but everything looked so yummy! I defiantly want to buy from this shop eventually. I've always wanted to be a regular at cute food places like this.
I love the way the displays are set up. It feels so unique. You don't get this vibe at Ulta or Sephora.
This shop was giving costal grandma energy.
Interestingly this top was at Cattivo last time I came to the city. I almost got this as a pajama top instead of the skirt I bought. I should have done a price comparison.
I'm not a big cake person but this sign made me want to try cupcakes. The shop was closed unfortunately.
I was not expecting to see a consignment store on Newbury Street. The clothes were deffenetly different than what I see at the thrift stores back at home. Nothing particularly caught my eye. This place honestly reminded me to Nordstrom Rack because of all the different styles. It felt haphazardous to me... Just like Nordstrom Rack! The prices were honestly up there too. I know this street is supposed to be expensive but paying well over $100 for used clothes from botique brands I've never heard of is silly to me.
THIS MY MELODY PLUSHIE IS EVERYTHING!!! ITS SO PINK AND GIRLY AND SPARKLY AND BEAUTIFUL!! ONCE I COME INTO SOME MONEY I WANT TO BUY HEEERRRR!!! SHE REMINDS ME OF THE LIZ LISA X MY MELODY PLUSHIE PURSE!!!
These pouches are the cutest and they also remind me of Liz Lisa x My Melody!
I'm loving Kuromi's girly getup.
Snacks!!!
I wonder what makeup products I should try if I ever get the money...
I was really tempted to buy a face mask since I've had more acne recently (probably due to wearing more makeup now that I'm in college) but I stopped myself. This is honestly the most self control I've had in a while and I hope I can keep it up.
I've always wanted to try Korean doe eyelashes. specifically the ones that get more volume at the ends. Maybe I'll try these once I've gotten all the use I can out of my current lashes.
I am IN LOVE with the print for this top. It's funny that I found this because I was recently thinking about having a heart around some florals for a fabric print design. Now I know it looks cute! I'm also in love with the monochromatic color scheme for this top.
I liked this feminine dress that I saw outside a shop. It's giving "Workday Barbie".
I thought this black dress was elegant and chic. It's something your rich auntie would wear.
I thought this was cute. I liked the ruffle detail on top. It does, however, lack detailing that makes it special.
The lively colors and kawaii sweaters on display attracted me to this store.
The clothes in this store were lively and colorful. People who like the dopamine dressing then would appreciate this store. the clothes in this store remind me of the Style Savvy brand April BonBon. If the character Alina were real, she would definitely shop here.
I'm not sure what this is, but I noticed all these flowers and thought "this is my kind of place". The lights were off so I think it was closed. I'll have to look into what this place is.
This shop had a very jazzy vibe.
I visited a glossier store for the first time and really liked the vibe.
some window photos
I went inside a Brandy Melville for the first time. I was hoping to find some simple yet dainty floral tops to wear to bed, but I was let down.😞
Finally I got to come back to the store that I've been the most excited to visit. I discovered this store during my last visit to Boston. Reiwatakiya is a store that sells a variety of Japanese and Korean products. You can find collectables, skincare, snacks, haircare, makeup, and even cleaning products here. Being a lover of Sanrio and Jfashion, I obviously fell in love with this store.
That wraps up my photos from Newbury Street! I want to explore the coffee and pastry shop next time, and make more posts as the seasons change. I'm going to bed now because it's 10:01 at night.
9/11
I survived my first week of classes! Whoo-hoo!
Nothing super noteworthy happened because the first week was mostly introductory stuff.
...
...Actually I take that back. I had to draw a LIVE nude model on the FIRST day of Studio For Drawing. I was not prepared for that...
I must have misread the syllabus, because I walked into that class expecting to draw photos of nude people, not a live model!
We spent the entire 5 hours studio class doing gesture drawings of him. For homework we had to do observational drawings each day of the week regarding our windows and what's going on outside them. I have to do my last one today and I'm kind of dreading it because there's only so many ideas I can come up with.
Today we started doing actual artwork for Visual Language. Last class was introductory stuff. However we did get some homework. The homework was to watch two videos, read three chunky chapters, and write response paragraphs for everything. I enjoyed doing this homework. I completed the video portion while sitting in the park where I made two bunny friends!
I finished the rest of the homework in the city library! It's just an amazing photo-worthy place to spend a few hours getting work done.
In form study we did do an introductory exercise where we had to make various temporary forms and structures using items found around campus. Here are two of the forms I made. 
Art history is just a lecture. On Monday I had the Toys for Animals elective which I recently swapped for Intro to Fashion Studies. So, ironically I can't talk about the fashion class yet.
On the fashion end of things, I did start an upcycling project. I just need access to an iron so I can iron on embroidery patches. Since nothing is finished yet, I'll talk about my upcycling project in a separate post.
I want to visit some thrift stores and join our school's fashion magazine.
That's all for now!
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