Feeling Good Looking Blue

Yesterday we had Fall Training for the FIDM Speakers' Bureau at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Downtown L.A. I wore a dress I got at one of my recent Goodwill trips. You can't really tell, but it has little black oblong polka dots on it. My daughter really likes this dress. She said it's the same thing they're selling at Urban Outfitters. It's probably from the early '80s and colorful! Yay. Unfortunately some of the pictures are a little blurry but you get the idea..

Dress-(thrifted)

Vintage navy slip-(thrifted)

Leopard belt-(birthday gift)

Bracelets-(vintage)

Purse-(FIDM Scholarship store)

Shoes-(thrifted)

I got to see one of my favorite people, Nancy Riegelman. She is a sketching teacher at FIDM and a very talented artist as well. Not to mention, one of the sweetest and coolest ladies out there. She said she was going to check out my blog. Hi, Nancy!

Nancy is also the author of 9 Heads: A Guide To Drawing Fashion which is used all over the world as a text book for fashion classes and schools.

Nancy taught us how to make the 9 head croquis (kro-kee). Here's mine:

I added hair and a face and some clothes. Trying to keep this blog PG.

I linked this to Thursdays Are For Thrifters by the way. Check it out.

Sunday Best-FIDM

On Sundays I've decided to post about something I appreciate or that I'm grateful for. I always feel better overall if I take the time to remember what's going right. I'm actually grateful for my job (one of my jobs. I mean I'm grateful for all of my jobs but this is one of them. :P)

I've mentioned before that I teach at The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. My degree is in Costume Design for Theatre and I've done that professionally for 30 years (only every now and then at this point) So I get to teach my favorite subjects: History of Costume and 20th Century Fashion Designers.

I love going on campus. All the guys and gals are so cute and fashionable. And there is a public park attached. Here's the view from the faculty lounge balcony.

I think my favorite part of the school is the library. All but a small rack of fiction books are materials related to the majors. We are an Applied Arts College so there are a lot more majors besides fashion. Almost anything I tend to be interested in seems to be represented in the library. For instance, I wanted to learn more about photography for my blog and I found about 5 books there that fit the bill. I'm reading one of them right now that has already taught me quite a lot about my little camera (haha. Read manuals much? ---no)

We also have a fabulous museum. It's kind of famous for displaying some of the Academy Award nominated films costumes around Oscars time.

Burlesque

Right now they have a sweet little exhibit about the Little Black Dress and it includes the iconic dress Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast At Tiffany's. Below is a dress designed by Monique Lhuillier (FIDM Alum)

One more thing, if you're interested in vintage clothes and want to know a little more about them, FIDM has a museum blog that showcases some of the items from our collection and gives some historical background.
They're launching a new website which looks terrific. http://fidmmuseum.org/

Claire McCardell Playsuit from 1948



Oh, one more one more thing. I mention the FIDM Scholarship Store in my outfit posts. It's a store on campus that is open to the public. They get donations from stores like Forever 21, BCBG and Torrid and sell them really cheap. The money goes toward scholarships. There's also jewelry, lots of fabric for $1 a yard and other things. If you live in LA you should definitely check it out.

Nick Verreos  from Project Runway-FIDM alum and teacher

Wow this is the longest post in the world (at least there are pictures). I guess I have a lot to be grateful for. I'm grateful for you, too. Have a great Sunday.