The Weekend and The Window Display

Since working on my PPD4 project last week, college work took a slight backseat as my sister came to stay for the weekend, (I did do a bit more work on my sketchbook for FMT2 though).

My sister and I, amongst other things, attended the York Affordable Vintage Fair on Sunday to see what vintage treats were available. This was the second of these events we have attended and have enjoyed both, however they are very busy so patience is required. For a reasonable £1 with a student card, you can enter the Hospitium in York Museum Gardens and rifle through the clothes, jewellery and homeware available from several small stalls. There is everything from denim shorts to fur coats and leather handbags. We picked up shirts each, mine used to be a large Levi's denim shirt but the lady selling them had re-worked them into cute summery tie-up shirts, and I thought it was quite a bargain at £15. I really wanted to take some pictures in there but it was so busy that you sort of just had to move with the flow of traffic, but I will try and attend the next one and go at a quieter time, (it opened at 10:30 and we were there just after, so it was probably peak time). 

We also went to York Designer Outlet and into the city and shopped 'til we literally dropped, then I had to find the energy to make a Sunday Dinner! But all in all a great weekend!

So that was the weekend, and now for the promised Window Display. I have been waiting for an image for it so I haven't been able to blog about it until now. So on January 15th we had to set up Window Displays made predominantly of plastic bags for our VM project. Quite a challenge really, how do you make plastic bags look fashionable and form a creative and high-end window display out of them? Well, a bit like this:

Our under-water window display was inspired originally by this dress from the Vogue trend website:

My group of Avneet, Becky and I were instantly inspired by the colour and style of this dress, and with my interest in all that lives under-the-sea, decided that this would be the ideal theme to work with. Sourcing blue plastic bags was a little tricky but it so happened that we had plenty of those at work, and I got a hand from home with the blue cellophane (and fairy lights). We wanted to create something really simple and effective which would appeal to the high end market. 

It would have been really easy for us to go mad with coral and fish and all things reef-like, but we felt that a few carefully placed props was the right way to go. So with that we decided on a couple of pieces of large coral / seaweed, which we made from cardboard, ripped up plastic bags and gold spray paint, and some bubbles, (which due to the image quality can't be seen that well, but they are glass baubles filled with iridescent shred). We also decided on using lots of white carrier bags to cover the back and floor of the window, and to also blur the light of the fairy lights to give a more sea feel to the whole display.

When making the actual dress we found that plastic bags were very hard to work with and that it would be difficult to create the flowy effect of the inspiration dress. So instead we decided to create a more up-and-down silhouette and added a belt. I think we still made a very fashionable dress that suited the theme of our window display.

Overall I am very pleased with how this part of the project went, I think that my team worked well together and we achieved the image that we originally set out to. If we had more time and more resources I think that we would have tired to get bigger bubbles so they stood out more, and also more fairy lights. Furthermore, we would have covered the sides of the window with white bags as well, so they fit in better with the rest of the window. But all things considered, I think our attempt at a high end window display, (made out of plastic bags!), was a success. 

Opinions and comments are most welcome.

Right, I think I am all up to date now, and I have just finished my essay proposal, and it's been a sunny day, so happy times!

Enjoy the sunshine, long may it last!!