Autumn Winter palettes

My sketches are coming together just in time for the Lineapelle 'leather and components' trade show in Bologna, Italy next month. Lineapelle is held bi-annually - this will be my third visit to the fair, though it will be the first time I attend with the intention of ordering materials for my own collection. It's an amazing event, where the best of the leather & fabric industry come together to showcase their new season collections. Designers from all over the world descend upon the fair twice a year and there is no better place to find the perfect leather swatches and components for a collection. However, I have lots of work to do before then and with my sketches almost complete, it's time to start working on the colour palette. It's to be an Autumn Winter collection, so I'm tending towards warm 'fall like' tones in the main palette, with perhaps some hints of bottle and mint green. Here are a few photos from today's work - I'm just playing around with colours & swatch samples. Bisous x

mixing a nice soft pink to offset the warm ruby

initial palette

nice warm tones for winter

I'm certainly a messy worker

swatch samples AW13

swatch samples AW13

the swatch & concept sketch board - a work in progress

Saint Germain en Laye

It was Assumption Day here on wednesday and what better way to spend a public holiday than outside the hot and humid city! Scott and I took the RER (still trying to pronounce this as the French would - something along the lines of airgh-ergh-airgh) out to the western most suburb of Paris - Saint Germain en Laye. It's a seriously beautiful suburb, which feels like a French country town, yet it's just an easy hop, skip and jump from the city centre. Very little is published about Saint Germain en Laye, so we were quite surprised when we came out of the train station and saw an impressive grand chateau perched in front of us, surrounded by a labyrinth of beautiful gardens. We couldn't help but head straight for the chateau grounds and strolled the gardens for a while, stopping only to take in the distant view of Paris city. We finally made our way into the gorgeous town, where we found a wee English pub hiding in the back streets and were quite excited by the prospect of fish & chips and cider for lunch! We had a fantastic day exploring the interesting streets, which were filled with a great mix of ethnic restaurants and boutique shops... we will be back soon, if only for another round of fish & chips! Bisous x

The chateau & it's beautiful grounds

Gorgeous houses with views of the chateau

Chateau gardens

Chateau gardens

La Poste à la Francaise

Lovely quiet streets

Colourful doors

A street of ethnic restaurants

Popular creperie

Bingo!

Shutter love

I fell in love with these blue tiles - a very unusual design in Paris

'Monday compulsory closing' ... But it's wednesday!

Where to next?

Back to the drawing board

I've finally put pencil back to paper this week and started drafting up concepts for my first collection. It's been such a busy 12 months and my designs have been put on the back burner for some time now, so it feels good to get back into the swing of things. The collection needs an awful lot of tweaking and for now I am just playing with themes and moods, trying to get my head around which direction I want to take them. My current sketches tend to be quite heavily influenced by the contrasts of the natural beauty of home and the urban grit of Paris. I have started firming up a couple of forms (shapes) and now I need to look at tone and materials. I took a few quick photos of yesterday's disorganised sketching session, I hope you enjoy. Bisous x 

quick sketches - day & night wear

playing around with swatches & colour

just a handful of inspiration 

texture & tone

A day in Montmartre

Scott and I spent our weekend wandering the bohemian streets of Montmartre - one of my favourite neighbourhoods of Paris. It's the original rag-trade district, which makes for fantastic fabric shopping and fascinating people watching. It's a wonderfully eclectic area, jam packed with atelier studios, bio-organic stores and graffiti strewn streets. After a quick climb to check the view from the Sacre Coeur, we battled our way back through the crowds and out onto the quiet, winding streets below. The hills and the narrow bends were a nice change from Paris' usual wide flat boulevards and with nowhere particular to be, we simply followed our noses and explored. I really love the streets in this area, I could walk them all day - the colourful doors, gentle hills and quiet footpaths, it's my kinda Paris. Bisous x

New cuisine = happy campers!

Well it's been weeks, if not months without a home cooked meal, but we finally have a brand new kitchen in our apartment and I have to say that I have enjoyed the whole renovation process (minus cracker dinners and microwaved rice!). We were lucky enough to be put in touch with a South African building manager who helped us finalise our design, oversaw the building works and organised our builders, electricians, plumbers and so on. It was difficult at times, especially when forced to communicate with local tradesmen after being in the country only a week or so, but this meant I had to learn the French basics très quickly and I now have all of the household lingo down pat. Trips out to Ikea and other home renovation stores were interesting to say the least... I never knew Ikea could possibly take 3 months to deliver! Or that your plumber might decide to go on holiday half way through completing your job... oui, Paris certainly can make kitchen renovations challenging, but all the more rewarding in the end. We are thrilled with the final result and despite the pokey size and bizzare shape of the kitchen, we made good use of space and it actually feels significantly larger than the original design. We look forward to inviting you to dinner! Enjoy the photos. Bisous x

the original bare boned kitchen, pre-renovation ... and new floorboards, the transformation begins

the new kitchen, ready to cook! taken from the same angle as above

the handy mitten 

le parfait jars, full of cutlery & other bobs

bench & storage space

new plates, safely stored

the smeg & the pantry

recycling a wedding sign

straws for scott's daily fruit juice

the butler's sink & oven

breakfast

somewhere to store all those plastic bags