Live Runway Sketches at the 2013 Redress Ecochic Design Awards

Writing this post right now feels so appropriate since it was this very competition, the 2012 Ecochic Design Awards for which I was a semi-finalist and gave my career and my self esteem the much needed boost to start freelancing.

And this year I've promised myself to take deliberate steps toward improving my illustration career, setting goals, pitching more editors, making cold calls - basically being more proactive instead of reactive. The awards last year was also one of the first posts on this blog, I feel like I've come full circle.

This was my first time live-sketching a fashion show and there is nothing more FUN! I can't believe I haven't tried this earlier, it's like life drawing class but with better music and more adrenaline. It's also an unbelievably good way to burn through paper, I bought this huge cheap watercolour pad while on vacation in Beijing, the texture is a combination of toilet paper and recycled cardboard box so this was a great way to finish up some of that. Runway sketching is also really difficult, those models move fast! While drawing I kept thinking about other illustrators who do this so well, like fashion illustrator Danielle Meder, Kenneth Paul Block and Richard Haines. Hong Kong doesn't have too too many fashion shows, but the next chance I get I'm on it.

1. An outfit from this year's winner Germany's Karen Jessen. 2. Mainland China's finalist Xinyan Dai's denim dress. 3. UK finalist Clémentine Sander's coral inspired textural design. 

Click through to see some streetstyle sketches of guests and judges from the show.

Some Lace and Fabric Flowers

Alright, alright, so it's still a while until Mid-Autumn Festival, but I've already eaten a million mooncakes and I've been dying to try out this little circle layout so it might as well be now.

I have some exciting news! A few months ago I was invited to join Zao Zao (早找) which is a new Asian online pre-retailer, it's kind of like Kickstarter for fashion designers, there's a curated selection of designers and they each upload their own designs and customers can pre-order on the site. It's a cool new platform where fashion and tech meet and hopefully it'll also be a great way for emerging designers to connect with customers and for customers to discover and support new talent. I'm so excited now that I can finally say I have a stockist!

So last week my friend Helene and I went on a little photoshoot to take photos to put up on the site and here are some shots and outtakes from the day, stayed tune to see the final photos and to shop on Zao Zao!

The design I'll be uploading is the black Dolce lace top, created originally for the Redress Ecochic Design Competition which happened earlier this year. If you followed my old blog you'll probably have seen these before but I was inspired by the idea of 'Memory & Forgetting' and below are the inspiration board and sketches from the competition.

The opening party is this Wednesday and it's happening at Kapok in Wanchai, please stop by and if you see me come say hi! That same night is also the Social Media Week Blogger talk "What makes a Great Brand/Blogger Partnership" which I'll also be attending! I'm excited to go, they've got some really great speakers and I'm also excited to meet some other bloggers as well! Anyone else heading to the Social Media Week events this coming week?

Photos by the wonderful Helene Kwong! Thanks so much for helping me!
   

Green is Chic at the 2012 Ecochic Design Awards

Sabrina and her covetable earrings.

Nibbles from the afterparty at Assaggio.

I went to the Ecochic Design Awards last night, it's a sustainable fashion competition organized by Redress and I was lucky enough to be able to participate this year as one of the semi-finalists. Although my part finished in April I still got to attend the final judging/fashion show as a general fashion lover and supporter of fellow independent designers. And the show did not disappoint, each designer had such unique style and personality which was really evident in their designs but it was Wister Tsang's avant-garde denim focused collection that won the judges' favour. So congratulations to Wister and to all the other 2012 finalists!

I was going to sit by myself (the horror! No, just kidding, I'm a strong independent Black Asian woman who don't need no man.) but through the magic of twitter I nabbed a seat next to my friend the stylist/social media maven Jasmine Webster and she introduced me to the gorgeous photographer Sabrina Sikoura. 

And for some much needed illustration practice I decided to draw some memorable moments from the night. And below are some more photos from the event, enjoy! 

Wearing all the flowers.
ps. this the shirt I made for the competition!.

Wister Tsang's winning collection.

The Redress founders, Christina Dean and Cherie Wong.
Cherie is wearing a zero-waste dress!