Home For The Holidays

My second window for the semester! The assignment was to stick with the concept of "Home for the Holidays."

This was actually a really fun window to go shopping for. I ended up finding the product I was going to showcase at Home Goods for just $8, which left me plenty of room in my budget for props. The prop I bought was a box disguised as a book. I decided to illustrate the concept of hiding things; personal things, important things. Old memories, photographs, keys. Things of that nature. The "book" would be placed on a book shelf among other books, decorations and memorabilia that might be found on a book shelf in an old family home. I wanted to really create the feeling that the viewer was "home for the holidays" by building a setup that is warm, wintery, and cozy. No matter what kind of home the viewer grew up in, the display will evoke feelings of familiarity because this type of scene is something that pop culture has idolized as a typical old-fashioned, homey environment. 

As far as building the display goes, I knocked most of the prop shopping out in just one trip to Williamsburg. I picked up the old books at Salvation Army, which ranged from $1 - $3 a piece. I found the old keys and photographs at a place called Junk (actually, two places. Junk has two locations just a few blocks from each other). The old photos were less than a dollar a piece, and the keys were $5 a piece. 

Linear Equations

Finished my first window a while back!

Now, I do believe that my concept was strong here. I really do. I do have a bone or two to pick with the execution, though. Let me start.

The assignment was to pick from a list of trends. I chose "Linear Equations," which pretty much speaks for itself: clean, straight lines, geometric shapes, etc. My concept was to have a pair of hosiery legs in the dead center of the display close together at the bottom and separate at the top, essentially in a "V" shape. The stockings I chose had a diagonal grid pattern, and the background was to be a continuation of the pattern in the stockings. There would be a pair of bright salmon pink tights layered underneath the sheer stockings to create a pop of color against a white background. This way, the viewer's attention would immediately be drawn to the product. The area directly behind the legs would be left blank, so as to not distract from the product. 

This was my concept. Now, let me explain how I made it and what happened.

Being a poor college student, my budget for this project had to be kept small. I called up a local mannequin/display supplier and asked how much a pair of clear plastic hosiery legs would run me. $40 was just more than I could afford to spend on something like that. I did some asking around my department and one of my professors found an old mannequin for me that was ready to go on the chopping board. I ended up sawing the legs off of the mannequin and using those. The main problem with these mannequin legs was that they were big and heavy. The other problem with the legs was that there was no easy way to get them to stand up the way I wanted them to. I ended up building a sort of stand out of wooden dowels and self-drying clay for the hollow legs to be placed over. It wasn't as sturdy as I had hoped it would be. A few days after I installed my display, one of the legs ended up falling over. Additionally, the legs were just too big for the display. The shell I built it inside of is much bigger than the window frame it goes inside of. I failed to take into account how much of the display would be cut off by the window frame. 

I created the background out of what must have been 5 or 6 rolls of electrical tape. It took an unreasonable amount of hours, but I'm fairly satisfied with how that came out. 

Now that it's done and I'm thinking about it, I know what I could have done to make it better. I honestly probably should have just invested in the hosiery legs. They're smaller, lighter, easier to pose, and would have made my whole display look better. I also think that the display would have looked better if the side walls were placed at an angle so that they could be seen better from the front. There's always next time!

Outfit post!

From a photo shoot I did in my photography class with my classmate Shan. 

American Apparel: 

Chiffon Oversized Button Up

Pique Full Woven Skirt

Printed Cotton Bow Hair Clip

Shoes: Elle

Necklace: Asos

BRAIN FACTS

This one's just for fun.
My boyfriend James decided to create a twitter account called @brainfactz, where he posts various questionable but hilarious facts about brains. I surprised him with this wonderful brain hat not too long ago:

All photos taken by me

I actually created the brain graphic with nothing more than pink acrylic paint that I had mixed and a black paint pen. It was a fun little project. I took these photos as well.

Astronauts

My good friend Valerie took these photos of me in a stairwell at her school just a few days ago. 

 

Jacket: Goodwill

Back patch: cut from an old t-shirt

Top: American Apparel

Skirts: Urban Outfitters 

Shoes: Salvation Army

Pins: Garage sale / Etsy

Necklace: So Good Jewelry in SoHo

Lipstick: Sephora Brown Illusion

I've been so into that skirt combo for the fall, I'm upset that it will be too cold to wear it soon. The first skirt is a short black high waisted tulip skirt that I bought from Urban Outfitters years ago, and I put a long sheer skirt, also from Urban Outfitters over it. I actually ended up getting both skirts on sale, now that I think about it! I think that in total, the whole skirt combo cost me $30. Awesome!

I got that cameo pin from a rummage sale about a year ago. The other pin I bought from Etsy, and actually has this illustration by Kurt Vonnegut on it: 

Unfortunately, I bought this pin probably about a year or two ago, so I can't remember the name of the Etsy store from which I bought it for the life of me. 

The evil eye key necklace was purchased recently from a jewelry store in SoHo called So Good. It's a bit of an unusual store, visually speaking, at least. The floors are zebra print, and the hot pink walls are completely covered in jewelry. They have an enormous variety, and are very inexpensive. If want to go to Canal Street to find cheap jewelry, I'd recommend checking this place out instead. The prices are about the same as the street vendors, sometimes even less. I think I paid about $7 for this necklace. 

Anyway! I took these photos of Val right afterwards:

First set of photos taken by Valerie Kamen

Illustration by Kurt Vonnegut

Second set of photos taken by me

Product Shots

I recently had an assignment for photography class to photograph a product in an environment with controlled lighting. I chose to photograph the accessories I was wearing that day, being my favorite pair of shoes and my favorite necklace.

All photographs taken by me

I'm definitely happy with the results! Perhaps one thing I could have been more careful about was the cleanliness of the shoes. I feel like those could have been cleaned up a little bit more before being photographed. In general though, I am happy with the shoot. I must say, I'm learning quite a lot about photography since being in this class for only a few months. It's helped big time. Photography has been an interest of mine for a very long time, but I am finally really learning how to properly use manual settings and control my lighting. 

Employed!

I worked as a temporary sales associate at the American Apparel flagship store in NoHo for the Halloween season, and last Sunday was supposed to be my last day. Luckily, my manager asked me to stay as a regular sales associate! I'm pretty excited, because not all of the temps were asked to stay. I have some previous experience working as a sales associate for the company last year, which I definitely think helped me. I hope to apply to internships with American Apparel in the near future, I like working for the company and I like the general aesthetic of the company as a whole (store design, clothing, etc).

Here's a photo I took of the store's current window display:

Photograph taken by me

I actually had to shoot this for my photography class, the assignment was to go out and shoot store windows. I particularly like this display because it is most definitely inspired by both art history and fashion history. The backdrop and color scheme is Mondrian, of course! And the whole display, clothes styling and everything are inspired by the 1960s, specifically the famous Yves Saint Laurent Autumn 1965 Mondrian Day Dress.

Photograph from metmuseum.org

Anyway, totally excited to continue working! Hopefully I'll continue to make connections and advance my career!