Switzerland!!!

On Friday we went to Switzerland for a meeting at Hugo Boss, it's close to the border so it wasn't the epic journey that it sounds. This was easily the most well organised day of my trip so far, everything was precision!!
One of the speakers finished his presentation with 3 minutes to spare and u got the feeling it was vital that this time wasn't wasted! Stupidly i had sat near the front in the aisle and kept catching his eye so naturally he picked on me twice!!! first to read from the board (criiiiiiiiiinge) and secondly to ask a question. Of course i couldn't think of a sensible question so i asked him who he was wearing which he seemed to like..........would have been more interesting had he not been dressed head to toe in Boss but there u go.

We did get a tour around the building, saw all the new line stuff AND we were aloud to touch things.......i hate looking with my eyes all the time!!!! sadly we weren't allowed to take any photos inside the building which was a real shame coz it was frigging sexy!! it was all wood and clean lines and walls of water. it had a yoga room, and a language class and a canteen that would put most restaurants to shame! yes we got another free lunch!! ooh!! and free leather bound Hugo Boss notes books and pens!! :)

This is the closest any of us got to taking a picture of the inside of Hugo Boss

After our tour we had another powerpoint presentation, I can't remember what life was like without them! this one involved a lot of graphs and arrows, unsurprisingly i had more questions for this speaker!! I think i made him uncomfortable when i asked him what was done with left over Boss products...........lets just say that Hugo Boss are not at the forefront of environmental textiles.

In the evening we walked to the como aeroclub and arrived confused at a party which appeared to have a fish theme. This evening was described on our itinerary as the 'Wattwash Party' so no clues there!! Luckily for us there was a handy powerpoint presentation standing by!!! As u may or may not know, stone washing denim causes a lot of waste and textiles scientist types have been developing techniques to prevent this. they've managed to come up with a stone washing technique which uses lasers instead of water (clever!!!) and they're calling it 'wattwash' (not so clever). I wish i had filmed the moment when everyone realised that the 'watt' was all part of a terrible pun.......u just can't predict these things!!

Luckily for you i do have pictures of the bizarre night which unfolded shortly after!!

An 'underwater' scene created by students

So.........after eating and polishing off our free drink we made a swift exit to our favourite haunt, Pane e Tulipani..........but not without pausing to take photos in the spangly door way!!

Also for your viewing pleasure.........drinking!!!

Gothic Romance

On Thursday we got lost on our way to the Politecnico; having been spoiled by the car journey on our initial visit none of us could remember where it was!! when we finally arrived we got a chance to present our work to the rest of the people in our group. It was great since none of us could be bothered to do this in an uncontrolled environment and without the aid of a powerpoint presentation. Here is a photo that the people concerned didn't want me to post........

Tough luck guys!

Naturally after such gruelling work a break is necessary...........

Sarah's facial expressions are classic....must remember to dedicate a post to her

After our light lunch we were taken back to the Accademia Galli to work on our swimwear :)

Dad often compares textiles design to school, well nothing makes u feel more schooly than poster paints and crepe paper! I'm not quite sure any of us were expecting this after watching the slick professional presentation the day before! still we pressed on and i think we did the materials justice.........

 yea.......these are pretty bad and i'm guessing the organisers agreed as i heard one of them likening them to Neil Buchanan's Art Attack.........shocking...........

............oh well..........

Dragon Bionda

Wednesday was the first of several slightly strange days in Como.
We left from the hotel in the morning and travelled to Bric's to do a workshop. Bric's for those who don't know (don't feel bad i was baffled too till i got there) are a luxury luggage company.
although the presentation was informative i was quite tired from the night before and struggling to stay awake, luckily other peoples uncomfortable shuffling made me feel less alone :)

So once we'd learned about the company we were told what was expected of us which was to design a new line of leather handbags and luggage......a strange brief for a room of print designers but grabbing the bull by the horns we proceeded!! sadly tho we were all pretty rubbish. we got a free lunch out of it tho! :D

This is not my hand or my drawing, I'd like to be able to take credit for it but I can't! Nice work Sarah!

Here we are attempting to design luggage! Luckily we were in groups of three :)

We thought we'd been super innovative by designing a duel handbag and laptop bag, sadly for us everyone else had the same idea!! On the plus side Mieszko did design a lovely wallet with a bottle holder attachment! Thirsty shoppers you're troubles are over!!

 Hard as we tried I don't think any of us have impressed the people at Bric's........perhaps the feeling was mutual.............

Sarah, Zeffira & Jo looking slightly confused by the mornings activities..........

We were supposed to have a break between this workshop and the next but as punishment for taking a long wine filled lunch we were made to stay for an extra hour!!

We were taken by bus straight to Accademia Galli which is an art school to see a swimwear presentation

Some cool artwork I found walking around the building :)

anyway on here are some of the swimwear trends, like with the others I won't publish all the photos I took (trust me there are a lot) but if anyone wants them just let me know!

After the presentation we were all inspired and looking forward to the following day as we had been told we were to create mood boards and concepts for the swimwear trade show in Cannes! woop woop!! bring it on!!

but first..................

'Thousands live without love, none without water'

i went to the strangest event last night but i'm trying to keep things n order here so i'm gonna have to blog about that after. i covered last weekend and monday in my last post so i'll do my best to cover tuesday and wednesday in todays.

Tuesday we went on a tour of Canepa which is a massive textile company here. they've got their fingers in a lot of pies so i won't go into all the things they actually produce but it was a really interesting tour, we got a look in all their departments. plus they gave us free scarves and paid for our lunch! :)

An awesome flamboyant guy showing us the archive!!

Digital print design room

Silk weaving machine

A smiley man surrounded by fabric, had to take a pic!!

Big pile of Gucci knits which i probably shouldn't have a photo of.......i might not have taken it had i not been told that they count all their products and burn any extras they find. They're not alone tho, Hugo Boss by their own admission do the same but more about that later!

I think this is fairly self-explanatory

  Following this tour we went to the opening of an exhibition about saving water (hence the title of today's post). once again it was in a wicked location!

As always i'm having trouble with the net, it cut out last night before i could post so this is take two!

I'm having trouble remembering exactly what we did after this since i'm now a week behind with my posts but it seems likely that we ended up in Pane e Tulipani, bar and florist, can't remember if i've mentioned this before?! anyway i'm sure there was much drinking and merriment, they make great cocktails!! so far i've only sampled the ones with suggestive names coz their more fun to order but i'll make my way thru the rest so i can give u a full report! :D

now, on to Wednesday!! 

"Yellow is the new pink"

I just watched the latest episode of American Dad. they seem to be getting more and more abstract with every season! anyway, on to monday!

we met in the morning at Politecnico Como for a trend forecasting with Li Edelkoort which was amazing although i have to say its not looking too good for me on the print front. everythings going very subtle and classic. its all earth tones and shades of white. plains and textures and sustainable living blahdy blahdy blah.
on the plus side there are some quite vibrant accents, blue is suddenly a big deal and u should defo get urself some nice silk and throw it together with a pair of jeans coz couture is about to mix with casual!

These are just a small selection of the trends, if anyone is interested in a more detailed overview please let me know!

Following the presentation we went to a press conference which (like everything here) was in a stunning location........

  Unfortunately most of this conference was in Italian so it wasn't quite as informative as i had hoped but Li (we're on first name terms now) spoke English so we got a chance to ask her questions. obviously i didn't because the most intelligent question i could think to ask was 'where did u get ur glasses?'
 Luckily someone picked on Tulay who asked a question about her inspiration so we weren't left looking like a bunch of total idiots, hurray Tulay!!! ;)

This was actually a really long day coz immediately (after coffee) we were shovelled into a bus and taken to Ratti to poke around in their archives.

There was so much stuff in that archive i could have stayed there all day! i took heaps of photos so again, if anyone is even mildly interested in seeing more don't hesitate to let me know. in fact i'm thinking of dedicating a facebook album to the archives i visited this week so keep an eye open for it ;)

It was still only about 6pm when we left Ratti (I should have mentioned that Ratti is a leading textile company specialising in woven fabrics) so we went off in search of food! As i mentioned in my previous post we took another trip up to the mountains, mainly coz Jo and Sarah from the Texprint competitions had arrived the day before and hadn't had a chance to explore yet. anyway we ended up in the same cafe where we spent the evening talking about poo and watching the sun set.

A good start to the week i think!