Jenny Graham

Since starting my second year of University I had contemplated what working as an intern in London would be like.
When I was a little girl, I dreamt of being a model, a dancer, a nurse, or even an artist. 

I could have been any one of those things, but instead I chose to progress onto higher education and continue studying fashion. 

Whilst interning, you hear horror stories of no payment, underfed students and talent exploitation. 

Alas opportunities to learn, figure out your desired job in life and gain a possible employment position at the end. 

My experience was nothing of that sort. 

About three times a week I lounge in a coffee shop opposite Harrods, documenting in a Biba journal my everyday life as an unpaid intern, surrounded by snobby citizens whilst they relax before work and consume their overpriced beverages. 

I will now share with you my side of the story, behind the scenes of a not so glamorous industry…

I arrive in Belgravia, London and find myself standing outside a long black door, centred between Louise Kennedy and Pierre Pierre Paris.
A young girl answered the door and introduced herself as Keta’s assistant. 

When I stepped gingerly into the hallway, first thing requested of me was that I take off my shoes.

Feeling slightly embarrassed as I did whilst placing my Topshop ankle boots beside a long row of Chanel footwear, I followed the instruction nonetheless. 
I paced down the outstretched corridor, as I was lead upstairs into the showroom. 

This area was beyond my wildest imagination, my family house is clean however this was  almost beyond indescribable.
I perched on a spotless chesterfield sofa in the spacious, arched room fitted with cream carpets and white furnishings.
Chandeliers dangled from every ceiling and old fashioned French doors lead out onto fancy terraces. 

In the corner I notice a stack of books variating from Couture designer: Chanel to one of my most looked up to photographers: Tim Walker. 

Dotted around this space were mannequins draped in elegant couture ensembles. 

My personal favourite was a duck egg coloured dress, with detachable organza at the sides and Swarovski crystal details scattered over the bodice.

Large framed mirrors hung on every wall, I kept catching a glimpse of myself every so often to check my hair and make up was still in place.

Feeling self conscious and stuck out of this luxury in my black, slender, polyester dress from EBay, fishnet tights and a corset belt.

These clothes were all the rage on the high street due to grunge, 90s trends making a comeback, however in this environment I felt less cool and more shabby. 

Black clothes, red lipstick and dark features tends to be my trademark, I feel that’s what makes me different and owning this aesthetic allows me to achieve a unique concept. 

Keta’s assistant and I waited in the showroom for a couple of hours and endured small talk before Keta eventually showed her face. 

She was an attractive woman, dressed in Dior who spoke with a lyrical Bulgarian accent.

The first feature I noticed was her hair, a rhubarb complextion, filled with every colour you could imagine. 

My role during this work placement was to be PR and I spent the best part of it viewing various fashion designers’ blogs on social media and updating Keta’s accounts for her. 
The other half of my job was greeting clients and tidying up after them when they left. 
This was the worst part due to delicate, expensive, laced fabrics being strewn carelessly across the floor along with these beautiful, Couture garments.
What I can remember most is the visit of a Bulgarian family, whose youngest member was set to be married. 
They were of course purchasing from Keta and I had to reside in a corner of the showroom on my hands and knees, ensuring the area remained clean and tidy.

I watched intriguingly and wondered what it must be like to own High-End attire and have all this money. 
The girl looked younger than me and even though she was to be wed in the arms of  a wealthy gentleman and I was on the floor like a maid, not even earning a penny for my work…it was the little bride I felt sorry for.
She would never indulge a life of freedom only regret, unlike me as I am gratefully able to come and go when I please.  
Keta’s pettiness was tiring and I was fed up of her taking pity upon herself because she had lacked a rich husband throughout her life.
The woman who owned too many designer clothes/shoes/handbags to count, owned a tall, white townhouse around the corner from Harrods and spent her weekends being transported to Italy in a private jet made out she had nothing. 

What I learnt from this is that fashion is no walk in the park and you need to have a thick skin to survive it. 
After many shopping trips, biting my tongue at racist comments, ignoring her anorexia accusations towards me and completing all the fetching and carrying for her I finally left, gladly returning to my part time marketing job in Surrey. 

 

 

 

We’re all sick of the supposed stereotypes aimed towards people who lead high profile fashion careers, or even study at an art school…”It’s not that hard!” – Said every parent at some point.
Henceforth for my latest blog I have summed up 10 statements describing how people in this line of work are often misunderstood. 

1.) Animal Haters 
This is so false, most people I know who work/aspire to in the fashion industry are vegetarian/vegan. 
There’s also a lot of designers, even buyers boycotting any place who work with fur. 

2.) Alcoholics/Drug Addicts 
We probably get this impression from the Daily Mirror headlines and long-running, sassy comedy: Absolutely Fabulous. 
Personally, I can see why anyone who works in fashion would take up these substances due to stress. 
But honestly, most people who have these busy jobs don’t even have time to be leading exotic booze lives. 

3.) Sexually Frustrated 
Because at some point (especially if you studied at an art school) we probably have had to draw naked figures, or if you have ever worked backstage at any fashion show there’s plenty of people bobbing about naked. 
Sometimes even before the age of sixteen most artistic type people are no virgins to nude bodies. 
Not to mention the disturbing/sometimes unsettling studies of nude paintings/portraits we have to examine…it’s no wonder really! 

4.) All Homosexual 
Which leads onto my next point, this is a huge stereotype that all (mainly blokes) must be gay to work in fashion. 
This is absolutely true and of course every artist type is gay (*rolls eyes*) 

5.) Have To Be Thin 
I must say, anorexia does have a big influence on the fashion industry due to all those front covers of stick thin models. 
But please believe people are so moving on from this now and larger sized ladies are being used as fashion models.

6.) Will Only Wear The Latest Designer Clothes 
Rubbish!  A lot of fashionistas wear vintage clothes, bought from markets in places like Brick Lane and Shoreditch. 
After all fashion always revives itself! 

7.) Snow Queen’s – The Lot Of Them! 
You hear about these cold hearted, cold blooded, never pleased bosses like Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada and although there are some out there, not everyone in the fashion industry is like this to work for. 
Some do care that you eat! 

8.) Love Florals 
I know one way or another they make a yearly comeback for designers Spring/Summer extravaganzas. 
However, most people are fed up with lot’s of cute, feminine florals to a certain degree, especially Miranda Priestly…
“Florals for spring – groundbreaking(!)” 

9.) Selfie Obsessed 
Self obsessed, or selfie obsessed, I’m never too sure which. 
But can I remind you all Kim Kardashian is the queen of social media platform selfies and everyone sucks up to her on her supposed “beauty” (implants.) 

10.) Rich Bitches 
Although common, it’s true that some working class citizens land decent fashion careers without the help of rich parents. 

“They either wear all black, or are rainbow colorful” 
Possibly the only statement I have read about fashionistas which is somewhere near accurate!!!

Let’s face it…the past couple of years have been a nightmare in terms of politics, specifically brexit destroying Britain, not forgetting the death of so many celebrities, including our beloved star; David Bowie.
So we need something to smile about and personally I’m thoroughly grateful as i’m sure plenty of you are for the comeback of 90s fashion.
Layered tops, waist high jeans, bomber jackets, fishnet tights, low-cut dresses and grungy hairstyles is what made the 90s culture incredibly perceiving and what’s not to love about that?
Not to mention, 90s style icons were a lot less fake as opposed to your Hadid, Jenner and Kardashian klan.
Heroine’s such as: Cameron Diaz, Kate Moss Naomi Campbell, Drew Barrymore and Winona Ryder portrayed a unique aesthetic with some style and class attached.
As opposed to the so called role models we have to look up to nowadays, who probably can’t even shave by themselves and rely predominately upon the selfie and implants to keep themselves widely advertised.

Although what’s not to say the way of living if you were to work in the fashion industry wasn’t tough in the 90s?
Sure the property ladder was a lot more affordable, education fees weren’t high and pension schemes were pretty reliable. 
However this was the time period of ‘heroine chic’ movement.
A political debate which contributed to the overall agenda of this not forgotten decade.
The model lifestyle was difficult and deadly, what with young girls encouraged to starve, expose and harm, this bought a massive amount of attention to the public and media alike.

Could you say this controversy changed fashion?
Nowadays, various European countries are weighing models before any contract signing to highlight a specific weight detail to ensure their measurements aren’t below an average scale.
In certain fashion magazines a fair few editorials feature ‘larger, robust’ women.
Even Victoria Secret are cottoning on to the change in model shape and are considering ‘bustier’ women to strut their desirable catwalk extravaganzas.
One identification I think will never be bought back in today’s society is this longingness for starved models.

However we cannot deny that despite all this debacle the 90s was much more fun, with style icons worth admiring, fashion worth following and money worth spending.
In my opinion, not only was this the best decade for fashion, but the film industry alike. 
Rom coms in this day and age are overly unrealistic and predictable, whereas in the millennials era, comedies portrayed a certain edge and characteristic which made them funny and believable.
Same with thrillers, today they’re ridiculously over the top with storylines too hard to follow, but when I was born the new thrillers were something to be frightened of, with a dark and stronger twist running alongside to retrieve more excitement and at the same time tension from the audience. 
Many all time blockbuster hits were released; Pulp Fiction, Silence Of The Lambs, There’s Something About Mary and Pretty Woman to name a few, which are still popular and inspirational in today’s society.

Below I have collected some of my favorite images from 90s films, fashion trends and celebrities to share with you all. x

 

Over the course of the past two moths, my University assignment has been live industry practice.
To explain further, we received a wonderful opportunity to take part in assisting an upcoming brand of our choice with areas they could improve upon, such as: look book content, social media direction, logo designs, etc.

My group and I chose an upcoming menswear fashion brand called ‘Crowther Plant’ who are based in Margate, Kent.
Their overall aesthetic is mainly an indigo, grey and white colour palette, however their most important aspect is sustainability and environmentally friendly materials their products are made up from.

Although, the brand are based in Margate, my group enhanced as Southend On Sea, Essex to be a stronger location.
This is due to a similarity to Margate, for example: a theme park, cafes, obviously a beach and street art.
Except overall we felt Southend emphasized on our proposed visual elements, henceforth there were more colours and objects we could experiment with.

So we spent a cold day by the East coast photographing and filming our final outcome for the brand.
Our footage was a short fashion film to be displayed in the background of the main website based upon a teenagers dream, where the first setting is a young lad drifting off to sleep in a cafe, next he is filmed running around Adventure Island, eating outside cafes, admiring local art, etc. generally having fun with his friends.
The video finalizes with him back in the first cafe waking up, as he realizes the whole scenario played in his mind.

Along with this, our look book is made up of similar perspectives in terms of colour and locations, except we were aiming to assert still life based resources and materials.
We intend to keep our target audience engaged by making our final context short, sweet and snappy but long enough to keep the viewers interested in our objectives.
Finally, we wanted to create a stronger art direction ability, because looking back at Crowther Plant’s previous look books this is an area in which they lacked detail and potential  artistic diversity.

Photography by me
Art Direction by Maria Hanninen

 

 

 

 

 

 

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to do some sort of set design/art direction work involving still life imagery and in a creative way as possible by combining alcohol. 
Due to a lot of my set design props I currently own being very halloween, or children’s tacky party oriented, I thought to myself: why not make the theme halloween party based? 

I felt this way I could also play around with the creative direction more by using not only tacky items, but laced fabric and fishnets as well as clusters of empty alcohol bottles.
The story I’m aiming to get across is a student party that went on the night before, henceforth glass bottles, laced underwear and parts of peoples costumes have been left behind (I do know this from previous experiences.) 
By aiming this at a student party, I could have more fun with the design and make it as promiscuous as possible. 

I hope you enjoy viewing this imagery as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Model: Michelle Connop
MUA: Zara Charles
Photographer & Editor: Me
Camera: DSLR 50D Canon
Location: Rosebury Park, Epsom, Surrey

Follow my website for further editorials: http://jegrah.wix.com/jennygraham

Over the Christmas period, I visited my hometown (Southend On Sea) and photographed using the square Instagram camera rather ugly, or eye-saw buildings that don’t stick out in a good way, such as: squats, the Kursaal and my old college. 

 When I arrived home, I gray scaled my images on Photoshop and printed them off onto various mediums such as: acetate paper, calico, tracing paper and card. 
Besides the acetate, which caused the ink to leak and transform into a gooey mess, my mediums produced great outcomes for my images. 
The purpose of this task is for my fanzine I’m creating at University, mine is completely absorbed around catwalk fashion, hence why I’m representing Southend as not a good venue to host a catwalk expedition.
To some, this may seem like an odd activity to include within ones fashion project, but like any successful artist/illustrator/designer, I like to think outside the box.

Overall, my aim was to make Southend look like one huge council estate,
and I feel I have suceeded this look by adding a black and white filter, which adds effect to making this town look very dull and dreary.
Although catwalk shows have being held in the college, along the beach and various other places, but have never deemed that great a success. 
Therefore, I’m trying to get across to my audience why you wouldn’t want a fashion event at this location and in my sketchbook, I have added stories of the truth behind Southend. 
To explain further, when tourists, or people from completely different towns visit this part of Essex, for the day they think it’s a wonderful place to take a stroll, do some shopping, or go to the arcades. 
But anyone who lives in Southend, will know the truth behind it all…that it’s a shithole and you can’t go anywhere near the Kursaal if you’re a woman, because you will most likely be asked out by some Granddad pervert. 

 

Patternity is a close-up section of an image, highlighting many detailed patterns and demonstrating to us through a lense, how beautiful the world really is, which we take for granted each day.

Patternity Exhibition-London 

On Friday, I went to an exhibition in London, which was completely based on Patternity, where I decided to use the Instagram camera to capture these memories of the outstanding images before my eyes, I also chose to use some filters, to make the images more vibrant and stand out better.
In the first area of the exhibition, were most of the above images, which really enhanced my knowledge of what fashion photography could really be about.
In the next area, was a huge screen filled with a close up of clear, blue sea and this was so beautiful, as it really emphasized the rippling of sea water, which people don’t think to glance twice at.
Lastly, we watched a clip of what patternity was really about and thoroughly explained the concept of this fashion photography theme in great detail, describing how it intrigued an audience.

Overall, I thought this was a great venue in London to hold the exhibition, as it was just around the corner from the Brick Lane vintage stores and many other interesting fashion shops, so all in all, what I’d call a creative part of London.
Although, the exhibition itself wasn’t very big and I would have liked to have seen more of it, because I feel it would have been a larger inspiration to see more images.

Update!  I have recently come back from my trip to New York City with the college and seeing this exhibition was the most fantastic part of the whole eye-opener of the vibrant American city.
This took place at The Fashion Institute Technology Museum, which was an amazing venue in the heart of New York, to view a variety of exquisite Haute-Couture clothing.
Ranging from suede trench-coats, to capes and Oriental garments, this exhibition is a must-see!
The whole white, glistening, spacious area was filled with hairless doll-like mannequins each wearing not only garments, but a story, an inspirational impact to many viewers.
Who, if offered wouldn’t be able to resist adding all of this beauty to their wardrobe collection, all I can say is I can only hope for this Haute Couture 70’s fashion to be revived!
As no clothing as unique as this, by two of the most fascinating designers, deserve to have their work deserted in the past…

My full name is Jennifer-Isobel Graham and this blog is all about my hobbies and interests in fashion!
Previously, I undertook a two year Level.3 Extended Diploma course in Fashion Design (Art and Design) BTEC.
Where I learnt in greater detail about; garment technology, textiles, pattern cutting, dress construction, pattern drafting, fashion figure illustrating and still life sketching. 

Therefore I am currently living in Epsom, Surrey, just outside of South London, attending University For The Creative Arts whilst studying Fashion Promotion and Imaging BA (Hons.)
When I embarked upon higher education, I decided to focus on a different pathway as opposed to designing garments.
My degree consists of fashion marketing, editorial, trend prediction, public relations, styling techniques and graphic design.
Furthermore, when it comes to me leaving university I hope to graduate with a first class honours and to gain employment in the magazine industry, focusing on creative styling aspects.

In the future, along with a successful career I also hope to receive a masters degree within journalism, publishing and editorial concepts.

Hope you all enjoy reading my blog!  xx