Leaving Preen

My time with Preen has come to an end. I spent my last week continuing with the jacket project, and although it is not finished yet I hope the team decide to go ahead with it and the final outcome is presented well! We created packs to send to the seamstresses, building up each patchwork panel then labeling them with which pattern piece they corresponded to.

I really learnt a lot from Preen, because of the amount of production that occurs in-house I got to work along side pattern cutters and seamstresses who had incredible amount of knowledge to share. I got a great reference from them and was asked to stay on/ come back in summer. It's definitely something to think about but with a 5-day week timetable I want to focus on my own design work this term. Needless to say I won't be doing any long term internships but watch out for future little projects! I also ended up at a press event at London Edition hotel. Designers included Kitty Joseph, Alex mattsson, Astrid Anderson and Bobby Abley among others. 

Army Surplus

This week was an interesting one: earlier on some of the interns were sent to the launderettes with Ikea bags full of army uniforms from the RAF in different shades of green. Errands can sometimes be a bit odd but this was a new one on anything we'd been asked to do before. It all became clear that myself and a few other interns were to create 'new' bomber jackets using a current Preen pattern and  the old uniforms, influenced by patched army green one-off pieces from Preen's earlier, punkier days. We experimented with different ways of joining the panels together and the orientation of the pencil pockets, velcro pockets, badges, epaulets and map pockets which adorned the jumpsuits and jackets. It was difficult to get pieces that had been made into curves to fit the body to lie flat again; darts and tucks and any little tricks we could think of all came into play here! The jackets will be part of a promotional campaign celebrating Preen in the near future - I'm excited to see the final pieces!

Justin and Thea are off to Beijing as they were invited to be part of Chinese Fashion Week, lucky them. Packing up the collection took about four rolls of parcel tape as it had to go on the plane too. A new studio manager, previously at Holly Fulton, also joined us this week as this is the lovely Nicole is leaving for Victoria Beckham. Hopefully she has an amazing time but she will be missed, It's sadly rare to find someone who can actually teach and isn't just good at what they do.

In between my jacket making I took a trip to DM Buttons in Soho to collect some buttons for a dress, the Preen archive got a good sort out and I also managed to get to a sample sale at Beach Blanket Babylon one evening in Shoreditch. Funnily enough Holly F herself was there. Other designers who were also involved included Sibling, Kit Neale and Eudon Choi among others.
A packed seven day week as per usual and lots of things in the pipeline for the next few weeks/ months. Exciting times ahead!