That Was The (Critique) Week That Was

1 week. 2 critiques. Major stress, minor sleep.
Monday morning, we worked on our pants with Muriel during Sewing. I worked on making my waistband and sidebands match up. I actually lined up the fabric lines this time! I was very excited and proud of myself. We did the same thing in the afternoon, and then I went to Art History, where we learned about Minimalism. When we viewed some slides, Eva discovered that with some black-and-white striped ones, you could see rainbows if you looked away fast enough. It was pretty trippy, and we spent some time discussing this.
(Interestingly, since we had a critique for Susan the next day, a lot of people didn't come to class. I was the only fashion person in Art History.)
That night, my parents took me to an Italian place on Saint-Michel for dinner, a really good place called Mezza Luna. I got some salmon with pasta, and I communicated Mom's orders to our waiter and waitress. We decided to order dessert, and I asked for the dessert menu. When our waitress came back, she said (in French) that since I could speak well, I got the French menu, and Mom and Dad got the English menu! That was pretty cool. (Dad understood that he and Mom had been "dissed", as he put it, and we explained it to Mom after the waitress left.)
We had a short dinner since I had to go back and put my stuff together for Susan the next day. I spent time mounting my maquettes, colors, and bra photograph, and then did my moodboard. I went to bed at about 4 am.
The next day, we each spread our stuff out and walked around to each person's spot and Susan made comments and told us what we needed to fix for the next time we saw her (in about 2 weeks). It was great to see what everyone else had done, so that I could glean improvements for my own work. (Let me say, Liz has the most impeccable flats I have ever seen. I know that I tend to get asked if I do mine on the computer-I don't-but mine have nothing on hers. Her lines were so clean! I'll have to ask how she does it.) For mine, she really liked my flats and bra photograph, prouncing it to be "one of the best in the class". She told me to redo my moodboard (since it looked "a little schoolgirl" and also had some despised white space) and to redo 1 of my flats (admittedly, 1 I dashed off and didn't like much). In short, she praised what I liked and cared about the most. I got a 16.5 (out of a possible 20), which is pretty good, considering that she doesn't (or at least very rarely) gives 20s.
That took up the whole morning, and when we came back for lunch, she told us about our next project. We would be quilting an evening bag (to go with our evening dress), and used the rest of class to gather materials for our samples. Susan also came around to look at our flats and pick out which one we would do as a project. For mine, I told her that I preferred 4 of them (2 disco, 2 Cannes), she narrowed it down to 2 (both Cannes), and I picked my favorite (which had been my favorite all along). She had originally told me to do them in jersey, but this time, she changed her mind and decided that satin would be good (since jersey requires a special machine that the PAA does not have, and satin would look beautiful).
In French late that afternoon, we discussed the French political system, and did an exercise where we had a map of Paris and shaded in the arrondissements according to if the victory had gone to the PS (Parti Socialiste, the left), l'UMP (Unite Majorite Parti, the right) or les Verts (the Green Party, but not like the Libertarians, because the French Green Party only cares about the environment). It was interesting to see that the eastern part of Paris voted left, and the western part voted right, all except for the lone 2nd, which voted Green.
(We also had some hilarity in there, courtesy of yours truly. Nolwenn was talking, using some vocabulary which I wasn't sure of, and I thought that I heard her say the name of a popular French car, the Citroen. I asked, "Like the car?" and Sharon, next to me, cracked up. Nolwenn actually said "citoyen", the work for citizen. This has happened before, incidentally also with Sharon present. I had thought I had heard someone ask her if she was a model (une mannequin), but they had actually asked if she was American (americaine). Might be some synchronicity going on here...)
That night, my parents and I went out for a long dinner to celebrate. I took them down to Saint-Severin, near the Seine, since I wanted to take them to the same place that I had gone with Nisa, since it had been great. After some wrong turns, we decided to settle on one place. It turned out to be La Harpe, the same place! (I was very happy to have found it again.) We all got the fixed-price menu, with entree, plat and dessert. I (again) got the frogs' legs in Provencal sauce, salmon in sorrel sauce, and profiteroles in hot chocolate. Since it had been a long and grueling day, I got some kir as an apertif before dinner, which was pretty good. On the way back, we walked around the area, which has a lot of walkable cobblestone streets with lots of restaurants, where waiters stand outside and try to lure people inside. We found Theatre de la Huchette, where they are still performing Ionesco's "The Bald Soprano", in its 51st year, according to the poster. I might have to go back and see it sometime.
After the 'rents walked me back, I decided to start painting my Yohji-inspired designs that were due Friday. But for some reason, it (the gouache, and the creativity) just wasn't flowing for me that night. My paintings all looked heavy. I stopped after 9 paintings (I needed 15) and it was around 2 am when I went to bed.
Wednesday with Muriel, we worked more with our pants. I spent more time on the waistband, and next time I'll be able to sew my gloves on! It'll be exciting.
After class, I went to my apartment, changed, and took the metro to Opera Garnier, where I met Mom and Dad on the steps. We went to Galleries Lafayette, where we had lunch at the (really nice) cafeteria. I had chicken with fries (garlic potato wedges) and a chocolate feuillantine for dessert. Fantastic. (The last time, I was there with Mom, and I had gotten the salmon, which had been excellent. But at this point, I had already had salmon 2 days in a row, so I thought it'd be good to give myself a break so I'd still like it.)
After lunch, Mom wanted to show Dad the "seduction fashion", the very artistic lingerie that surpassed being clothes into being art (as Dad said later). One of the most interesting things I saw was a plain white, Swiss-dot nightgown. What intrigued me about this piece was that it was very modest, so it looked pretty out of place. Maybe it was for the French Mormon population (which I'm sure is huge...not), but I was wondering how popular those modest items are. Considering that this is a country that has absolutely no problem with nudity, I wonder just how many natural-born French women are clamoring for these more modest items, even just to be "different"?
Mom and I looked around Galleries Lafayette for awhile, and I wasn't seeing anything that I liked. (The plan had been to get me a nice piece of clothing for my birthday, but the crappy exchange rate was making that difficult.) I suggested going to BHV for clothes, since they had pretty nice ones, so we collected Dad and went there. I found about 6 pieces I liked (most of them dresses) and went to go try them on. I wasn't impressed until the final one. It was a white dress printed with black silhouetted flowers, that hit below the knee. It had some interesting detailing around the bust, in that there were 2 gathered panels that crossed and then tied in the back. I knew immediately that I wanted that one, and so began to change back. As I was looking at the dress, I noticed it had a stain of something down the side. I told Mom, and she went looking for another in the same size. Thank God they had one! We bought it, and then went back to Mom and Dad's hotel room to relax (where I took a nap). We got up and decided to go out for dinner. We went to the Cafe Soufflot (definitely becoming one of my favorite places), where I got the confit de canard (good, but not as good as at L'Oree du Parc), and 2 scoops of cassis sorbet for dessert. (Harlan had told me that she had eaten a cassis macaroon while she had been here. I'll be on the lookout for one.) Then my parents walked me back (they left the next morning), and I worked on my flats, and, again, the creativity was not flowing; I don't know why, I felt suddenly too heavy-handed with the gouache.
The next day (Thursday), we had Flat Pattern and Draping with Anne. She first looked at each of our sketches and advised us on how to do the pattern. For mine, she told me to drape a basic bodice (yay more draping practice!) and then to divide it into panels from there. But first, I drew it out from front, back and side views, so I could see how the panels matched up. Before lunch, I got the back piece draped, and I did the front piece when I came back. Anne told me that I had pinned it "beautifully", and so I took it off the mannequin and traced in the lines with my ruler and French curve. (I'm afraid it might be off, though, because the dart is huge and has a weird shape.)
After class, I took a nap and then trekked to Monoprix to get groceries (like the ever-important dairy products). On the way back, I stopped at the fromagerie (cheese shop) by the Parthenon, and got munster with cumin. (One thing I've noticed: Many shopkeepers will specifically ask you for exact change here. I'm perfectly willing to unload any of my 40 Euros of change whenever I can, but hey, if I want to pay with a bill, that is also my prerogative.)
I then went home, had dinner, and started my draping piece. (I had technically started it a few weeks ago, and had taken the paper back. But since Harlan had been there, it got pushed to the ground under the bed, and was so crumpled that I couldn't use it.) The idea was to make a few boxes of varying sizes, glue them down to paper, and then cut the paper around them in an interesting manner. Did I mention the boxes were in paper as well? The last time I worked in that medium was 1st semester of design school, and it did not go well. This time was no exception to the rule. All of my 5 boxes turned out lopsided, and I had to pin 1 or 2 corners of them to the paper, and then tape the pins onto the underside of the paper. Quite frankly, it looked like crap, crap that you'd never know I worked 4 hours on. I ended it about 2 am and went to bed.
I woke up this (Friday) morning to hear it pouring rain outside (which is rare, since it has sprinkled for, at most, 15 minutes here), so I immediately thought of what I was going to do with the "draped" paper project. I ended up wrapping it up in 2 trash bags and carrying it to school.
In class, we each presented out inspiration book, illustrations and draped piece to Jen and the rest of the class. I was 2nd after Liz, and I made it clear from the beginning that I wasn't happy with my draped piece and wanted to redo it for the end-of-year jury. (Jen wasn't grading us today, just telling us what we could improve on. It also didn't help that I went right after Liz, who also made a draped piece out of paper, but totally put mine to shame.) I was told to vary up my pieces in the collection a bit (since they all had relatively the same hemline), and to add pants/jackets, etc. Everyone else's stuff looked really good, but a lot of people didn't finish since we were all working on Susan's stuff. I certainly got more ideas for what to do in my projects. (I now want to do my draped piece as a dodecahedron, which figured in my collection. Po-Lan had done a beautiful sleeve with points spiraling out, and I really liked it. Jen told me to do one in paper, and one in muslin, my preferred medium, for Friday and we'd decide from there.)
After lunch, we had Hats with Jean-Pierre. I was the only one of the 4 who showed up (since Liz and Andrea had gone to Amsterdam, and Ashley isn't taking it), along with Beliz, Tu, Tenzin and Po-Lan. We went to go get supplies, so we took the bus to this place by the Opera called Ultramod that sells a of supplies. We all amused ourselves by looking at all the shiny buttons while Jean-Pierre took care of some business in the back. Then, we went across the street to his shop. We looked at a lot of his supplies, and he told us that many were made of rabbit skin. We each bought a basic hat (mine was black), some stiff material for another hat (mine was reddish with a tinge of purple) and lengths of bands for the inside and outsides.
After we had all gotten our materials, Jean-Pierre took us to a hat-making atelier, one of only 3 in the world (so this guy gets a ton of business, as evidenced by his photos of recent work for Dior). We toured his shop while he explained everything, mostly about making the wooden heads for the hats and the massive amount of lumber he had in the back. He was also talking about how it was a dying trade, since it takes so many years to become masterful, and you don't make a lot of money at first, and a lot of the young people just aren't interested in it. (In response to a question by Beliz, he said that he had a daughter who was pretty little yet, but that she wasn't interested in her dad's work).
When we left, Jean-Pierre left us, and Tu invited me to come along with the others to an Asian tea that they apparently go to quite often, called Tea Zoo. I got the banana bubble tea, with the mousse au chocolat made with green tea at a fixed price. It was really fun to hang out with them, a good change, and I'd like to do so again.
After we left the tea bar, Tu, Po-Lan and I took the bus back to school. Po-Lan and I sat together and talked about school and stuff, the first time I'd ever really talked to him. We all separated at the school and wished each other a good break (woo 3-day weekend!).
I decided to go to the Louvre tonight, since Friday nights are free for students and open late. I looked up beforehand what rooms I wanted to see (Boucher, Watteau, basically rococco), and took the metro there. I first went in the wrong wing that didn't go up to the second floor, and then I thought I could just walk across to the other wing. (I thought wrong, I had to exit one wing and enter another). They also had the sections I wanted to see closed! (That happened the last time, and I had been hoping to avoid it.)
I also had some trouble with the map. Half of it was that I didn't know that I couldn't cut into one wing from another. When I decided that I wanted to leave, it took me a good 40 minutes to actually emerge into the lobby. I eventually discovered my error after leaving: The floors are (going down) 2nd, 1st, Ground and Lower Ground. I had thought that the way to get out was on the ground floor, and the signs that led to the Louvre Mideval section were to a level below that one that you leave through. Well, no, it turns that Lower Ground level was the one that I wanted. Now I know for next time (and there will be a next time).
I'm looking forward to relaxing tomorrow and the next 2 days!!!