DAY 1

I was late, as usual, so running up the stairs did not really get the chance to breathe in the creative air of St. Martin's...
On day 1 I met Ian, a designer and a tutor with the best of British sense of humour, lightheartedness and professionalism.
I also had to draw the person sitting opposite me on an A3 sheet. I had not drawn since 6th grade and that means I was not good even then... the task was to fill the sheet and focus on the details. Opposite me was a beautiful Chilean woman with thick eyebrows and voluptuous lips, wearing black and almost no jewelry I focused on her watch... I think I did not do such a bad job with the pencil but when we had to fill the back of the sheet with the same face but focusing on the shadows using black chalk it was a catastrophe ...
New words started to pile in quickly. I learned the difference between a sketchbook and a layout pad and that there are oil and chalk pastels, but the chalk ones are better... And I learned that fashion design starts with a story and that themes are central to the making of every collection.
It struck me that the beginning of a design creative process is strangely familiar to me. You start in front of a blank sheet, which is what you try to avoid at any cost. You then identify your theme and work from there, focusing on concepts, images, ideas and the threads that connect them. You break the concepts down and try to see what thoughts they provoke in you. The end result is way down the line which will be formed on the basis of the initial ideas, research, the different threads that emerge and disappear and all this broken through the prism of your own creativity. Almost the same as writing a paper...