Confessions of a Design School Drop-Out

“I don’t design clothes, I design dreams,” says Ralph Lauren, millionaire fashion business mogul and founder of the design label by the same name. Ralph Lauren started from nothing. He was the son of Jewish immigrants, growing up in the Bronx in New York and the only thing he knew he wanted to be when he grew up was a millionaire. In the 70s he enrolled in a local college for business with a specific interest in fashion design and after 2 years dropped out of school. As a result of his own lines, Ralph Lauren Polo and Club Monaco as well as his countless investments in a long list of other American labels, the man is now worth $8.5 billion.

I came to a decision after much thought

and consideration to leave design school, yesterday while I was sitting in class. The truth is, I lost interest in the program some time ago and have since been struggling to keep my attention on anything school related for any length of time. I knew it was time to leave. For months now my physical health, social obligations and overall creativity have

suffered in a seemingly irreparable way, which was something I could handle, if I felt that I truly needed the program or that it would benefit me to stay in it.

The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was when I realized how much I missed working on Petey the Troll. Meaghan and I had serious plans when we arrived in Toronto this past January – none of which have even begun to come to fruition. For me this is a problem that I can’t not fix.

So now I have a few directions I can take and things I can do in order to more directly achieve the goals I wanted to achieve 5 months ago. Over the next few months I’m going to be moving very quickly, releasing new info and items and photographs all the time.

My next project is a sea foam green prom dress for a lovely young girl by the name of Thyra. Tomorrow I’ll post a few pictures of the progression of a dress such as this (it’s chiffon!!) with

some comments on why I chose to use certain techniques or methods.

Oh ps. my fabulous friends and I are having a Mad Men costume party and I'm working on a few vintage dresses that i'm so friggen excited about I can't contain myself. There will be photos soon.

And o m g! We'll be getting an industrial sewing machine for our apartment really soon so production is about to go through the roof. You know what that means gurrrrls ;

Until next time, I’m Vanessa Petey, and I’m glad to be back.

Confessions of a Design School Student

Petey fans, friends, admirers etc,

This is a bit of a confession note/ a piece of writing inspired by my context and surrounded by

the current decisions I'm making in my life and more importantly, in my career. I felt like everyone should know, so here it is.

Firstly, when I write my blogs, they're directed (generally!) to people either living in Windsor,

my home town, or Toronto, my new home. In Windsor reside the people I miss, who have the most fantastic little art scene going on that no one else in the country knows anything about. These people are awesome, and it's for them that I started doing my work. In TO reside both my Windsor friends and my newest Toronto friends. These are by far some of the most interesting and unique people I've ever known and I count my blessings that they think I'm cool enough to be in

their beautiful lives. It's for all of the afore mentioned people and for those I have yet to meet

that I make these decisions today.

If you know me, you'd probably say I made the decision to move to Toronto so I could go to

Design School. That is indeed what it has seemed for the past 6+ months. But realistically, My choice was actually to go to Design School as an excuse and a reason to move to Toronto. I've been looking for one my whole life, that seemed perfect.

Now that I'm here I don't regret my decision for a second. My life has changed in ways I could never have imagined and I love every day. But I am beginning to feel those pesky feelings I felt throughout the entirety of my sad University career - that I was bored with it, that I wished I

was working on my own art and that the likelihood of it coming to nothing in the end was a depressing eventuality to face. Here I am again in a post-secondary education system feeling the same feelings and thinking the same thoughts and

wondering if the choice was best or not.

Follow?

I miss working on Petey the Troll more than I can say. I try to work my creativity into some of our projects at school, but it can sometimes feel very lack lustre. Meaghan and I spend everyday during the week getting no sleep, rushing to get to work or school or anywhere all the time and

falling behind every step of the way. As for those fabulous friends I mentioned above, they are but a dream in my life, as I co

nsistently become a worse friend who is less reliable and more likely to blow them off due to my insane hectic schedule.

The question now has become, How important is Design School to the development of Petey the Troll Apparel and its future as a fashion design company? How do we get away from the thought

of becoming Joe Fresh and back to the thought of becoming Coco Chanel? And the biggest one of all is, Is it worth not having worked on Petey for almost 6 months and not seeing any time to work on it for the next year to finish a diploma that I'm not even sure will help get me anywhere I want to be?

Time will tell.

Until then,

V

Fabric, Petey the Troll and Wedding Dresses

It's been like FOREVER since I last blogged, I know. Between school and work and day to day life, (I have a new boyfriend, okay!!) it's been a very busy couple of weeks. ;)There are a bunch of things that I wanted to blog about when they were current information such as the Royal Wedding and continuation of the John Galliano saga with the announcement that he would no longer be the creative director of his own self titled line due to the unfortunate drama surrounding him since this past winter.

As for Meaghan and I and Petey the Troll, we regret to inform that due to our dramatically over-packed schedules, we haven't been able to move forward creatively for some time. We are

currently in a period of growth as designers and

stylists and when we finally do start working again on our own creations, you'll understand why it took so long to get there. Hold tight!

At the end of this month, my biggest and most important project yet will

be walking down the

runway...ahem...I mean the aisle at the wedding of my sweet friends Justin and Courtney ofWetFresco Photography (the photographers responsible for 90% of the Petey the Troll photoshoots.) For obvious reasons, I can't post photographs of the work in progress, but be

aware that after the wedding, I plan to post an album of pictures of this masterpiece

creation of mine.

Enjoy the random Toronto life pictures throughout this post and pull your dresses out of the suitcase - Spring is here.

Until next!

New Clothes For Spring

There are several other things I could be doing right now, but my interest writing has been much more pronounced since I graduated from University last April. ...Cause like, I'm in design school now, but we don't do much writing. It's a lot more actual work than theoretical work. :P I have a lot of friends who are graduating this year and are currently in the process of finishing up their semesters with the twelve page papers and the presentations and the horrifying exams.

I don't miss it. But before this turns into a "How I Gave Five Years and $20,000 to the University of Windsor for No Reason" rant, let's talk about happier things, yes?

Now that the weather is tolerable and we can all start wearing our good clothes again, all I can do is watch the people and their

fantastically unique sensibilities that can only be found in a city like Toronto.

They're the ones who are always perfectly dressed down to

the accessories with whatever style they're trying to pull off. They all have registered Starbucks cards and

Smartphones and are a generally hysterical and awesome city culture.

Like for example, the other day I was down town after work and was looking for fabric for a gown I'm making for a girl's prom. (First of all, I love an age when I can go to a

fabric store, photograph it with my phone, send it to the client and she can make her decision and tell me what to buy right there. This is fucking Jetsons shit now man.) And there was one of these

crazily painted streetcars for that radio station Flow 93.5... and I just kind of was really impressed that something with such obnoxious, yet beautiful colours could be floating down Queen, nobody looking twice. Toronto is gorgeous.

So I've got a really insane couple of weeks ahead of me, but I'm ready for it I think. I'm in good spirits and I've got LOTS of new clothes and it's awesome. Is there anything better in the world than buying new clothes in the spring?? Possibly buying new shoes in the spring... but that's really a whole other post.

Later :)

V

LG Fashion Week - Photo Diary of Vanessa Petey

Hey guys!

As you know, LG Fashion Week here in beautiful Toronto has come to a close for this season. The last time I blogged I told you about y first day and how excited I was to see what the rest of

the week had in store. I must admit, despite the fact that we spent a lot of our time moving benches and taking orders, it really was ridiculously cool being backstage and seeing all the fashion drama happening right up

close. Of course, the entire time I had my BlackBerry in my hand and I took asmany pictures

and videos as I possibly could. :)

We'd get there in the morning

(12:45pm...if you stopped for a grande nonfat half sugar free caramel white mocha withwhip and caramel drizzle... I know I'm out of control, no need to remind me) and then we would have an

hour or two at the most to arrange all of the seating, place cards and gift bags in the studio before the shows. Every detail mattered. We had to measure the spaces between the benches to make sure they were exactly straight and aligned with one another. The place cards themselves were a big deal - all having to be lined up and taped down to ensure it was as visually appealing to the industry people as possible.

Obviously the stuff I really loved seeing was the sometimes

outrageous behaviour of the people in the industry backstage . Like for example, Jeanne Becker had a special seat at every single studio show, but she didn't actually show up to any of them. There were 6'11"

models running around everywhere in shoes that I'm sure they needed special training to walk in, not to mention the people running the show who continued to insist that the "socialites" be taken care of first and foremost. :P Love it.But that's so boring.So here are some pictures for you to check out of my backstage fashion week adventures! Some of them are horribly blurry or grainy, but forgive me, it was a panicked situation at

best.

Thanks!!

LG Fashion Week - Life in Toronto in Early Spring

Hey guys!

This is going to be one of those blogs where I update on Petey and my little Toronto adventures and whatever else is up. I hope it's mildly entertaining at least!

This week is LG Fashion Week here in Toronto, Ontario and I am part of a massive team of volunteers who make everything happen with the shows all week. We set up the runways and seating areas and make sure everyone is where they're supposed to be etc. So... that's all great and whatever, but in all honesty there is one major perk to working this event that we're all obviously there for: we get to watch all of the shows right up close and personal. *ehehehehe* It's wicked cool.
Meaghan is also volunteering this week, but she's doing different kinds of work than I am so I'll get an update from her and talk about it later. I work in the "Studio." It's a smaller area for runway shows that are meant to be more artistically presented in a more intimate setting than a major runway. I spent a bunch of time measuring areas to put seating in to make it all look perfectly perfect and then got to sit in the second row corner, surrounded by industry people and press and sponsors and watch the entire show. It was a very cool thing to be a part of. (Watch the blurry video above that I took with my favorite new thing in the whole entire world - my BlackBerry/best friend, for a visual!)

So other than fashion week, I am currently in the midst of a 3 month blitzkrieg of formal wear concluding with three bridesmaids dresses, one wedding guests dress, one prom dress, and one very important wedding dress for a very important friend of mine. It's going to be a little bit taxing, but i am definitely up for the challenge. Also Meaghan like, shaved half her head, which is crazy and awesome. Just so you know.
Ps. Petey is kind of on hold at the moment for the preceeding reasons. we're collecting materials and getting prepared to make the dresses but they are tragically going to have to be pushed back until the fall for release.
It's okay though. It'll be worth the wait, we promise. ;)

(...this is also my way of saying, I'm sorry to those of you who read this, but I'll probably have to keep it to one update a week on the blog for the summer, I'm just going to die of exhaustion if i take too much more onto my plate... :D)

Other than that, I've become obsessed with the clothing I get to see on customers at work these days. I work on King Street where the fashion people are and some of the jackets, coats, scarves, rings, bags boots, heels etc etc etc are flooring me. Not to mention on the street and in the subway and everywhere else.

Keep it up, Toronto. You're fucking awesome.

John Galliano - His work.

Sooooooo I was totally going to blog about John Galliano, I really was. But every time I started reading up on him, ya know, for references and view points etc, I found that nothing I could say could possibly improve his image at this point... and that if I tried, it would look ridiculous. So alls I'm going to do is say this:

When I was about 11 or 12 I stumbled upon Fashion Television one morning on Star TV (Canadiana plug what what??) and saw the most beautiful imagery I'd ever seen in the creations of some of the top designers of the era. These included Alexander McQueen, back when he was just starting out, and Tom Ford when he was with Gucci, not to mention that (1997-98) was the time when Galliano was first hired at Christian Dior. I watched and drooled at everything I saw...especially Galliano. His chiffon bias cut dresses...his sense of colour and contrast that - seriously - I've been trying to copy ever since, not to mention his absolutely perfect sense of form and shape, evident in the majority of his Haute Couture work over the past 14 years.

John Galliano's work at Dior, and with his own self-titled line, has really been the biggest influence on my own work as a designer and it absolutely broke my heart to see his downfall.
So without going into that story, here are a bunch of photographs of my favorite and most influencial John Galliano desings.