Graduation Day

So after a full year of major stress, none stop work and a little bit of fun for good measure today was my MA graduation. I am now officially a Master of Arts in Fashion and Lifestyle Promotion, which is essentially creative marketing. What did I wear? A swooshy skirted midi dress from ASOS, a gorgeous necklace from Summer and Silver in the Jewellery Quarter,  star tights from New Look and block heeled shoes from Kurt Geiger.

My gorgeous friend Sarah went for quirky rather than formal a stripy shirt and leather shorts. (You probably can't see any of this in the pictures as I was rather flustered and didn't spend enough time on the pictures. Plus, my dads camera decided to make most of them blurry. Always good.)

MA Fashion Exhibition

So after really neglecting everything that isn't my MA for the last year I have finally finished. Hopefully this means I can settle into a nice job in a marketing agency or with an in house team that will let me be creative and, most of all, will help me to learn more and hone my craft. Fingers crossed.

To celebrate the MA Fashion Department is hosting a private view of our exhibition tomorrow from 5-7pm in the PR1 gallery on the ground floor of UCLan's Victoria Building. As I now live 100 miles away I have sadly had nothing to do with the organisation but I am hoping for drinks, nibbles and lots of banter with our guests. If anyone is in Preston you should nip and and say hello, the more the merrier. Here's what you'll see if you do...

Open publication - Free publishing

I need to go somewhere...

I have been sat working away on my MA work for about 12 years now. At least it feels that way, it has completely taken over my life. Oh and I have no money, nothing, nada, ziltch. So I am leaving the North and moving home to the Midlands as I have no more excuses. I have no lectures, it's just time to get on with it.

As well as moving home, which will be a trial I'm sure, I have also had to give up many fun things such as drinking copious amounts of alcohol (I have no money and also no time to waste on hangovers as I am now an extremely professional person), eating three decent meals a day and also holidays. This last one is what gets to me most. I am happy to drink water and eat pasta. I am not happy to be stuck in my little bubble, I want to see the world!

What is making this worse is The Cool Hunter's Facebook page, which keeps tormenting me with pictures of places I want to go. They call their albums things like "Private Pools", "Treescape" and "Amazing Places to Visit Around the World" that are filled with pictures that are supposed to inspire but what they actually do is cause jealousy. They may as well be called "Haha Laura can't go here! :p" (Please note that :p has actually raspberry blowing side effects in my head and is shortly followed by an evil laugh.)

Anyway, because I'm incredibly cruel and I'm sure you're all sat at a desk/on a couch/somewhere equally uninspiring I have picked my favourites from the Amazing Places to Experience Around the Globe album. There are a lot! And a lot more that are on the 'go to' list. I hope to fill you with the joy of knowing you'll possibly never visit some of these. Unless you're Richard Branson. In which case: Hello Richard. What a lovely tie you're wearing. I am a big fan of your aeroplanes and I've heard your private island is lovely. Care to go out for dinner?

 Marble Caves, Chile Chico, Chile

 Gruta do Lago Azul(Blue Lake Cave), Bonito, Brazil.

 Berry Head, Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland, Canada

 Moraine Lake, Alberta, Canada

 The Wave, Arizona

 Hang En Cave, Vietnam

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

The Ethics of Technology

Having started my MA I have been taught the importance of mind maps.  "Mind maps" dears not spider diagrams (but as far as I can see a mind map is what I thought a spider diagram was).  I was told to create one on Concept Draw to see what avenues I should be looking at for research.  The result...I should be researching EVERYTHING!

What interested me most is the fact that in addition to all the usual trend, marketing and consumer malarkey I should also be considering ethics.  Not just any old ethics but how ethical technology is.  This wonderful concept has opened up a world of information to us but do you know the problem with it?  There's too much information.  It's actually scrambling the brains of the youth, with the younger generation (including me) being bombarded with so much we are now the most anxious younger generation there has ever been (or at least that is the gist I got from a recent Viewpoint article).

Technology is, in essence, taking over the world and scientists are making what we see in Science Fiction reality.  The only problem with this?  It's damn scary.  I've seen the Matrix and iRobot, technology isn't good in those films it's downright evil.  I found a whole book based (entitled Technophobia!) focusing on this issue and posthuman society.  So, as you can see, I was beginning to panic slightly.

Well....I panicked massively actually.  That is until I watched a video on Ted Talks called Ze Frank's web playroom.  For once, something was showing me that technology can reach out to people, connect them and make them happy.  So what if we're finding happiness through virtual worlds and virtual connections?  Especially when the people on the other end are real.  Surely if we're happy surely that's all that matters?



There is a lot about this world that needs fixing...and I mean A LOT...but if we start with the positives of technology and work out a way of finding our way through the mass of information that the Internet provides us with maybe, just maybe, we can use it to improve our world and work with us.  That has to be a better concept than it ruling us right?  After all, in a posthuman society we aren't here and that's just no good at all.

Master of Fashion?

I had a plan.  I was going to graduate, work as a fantastical fashion person for 2-5 years and then maybe do an MA/MBA...dependent on where I was and what I fancied.  Well...I am not a fantastical fashion person.

I am a person that gets mad at work, despises the gossip, gets paid less than the others and then ends up crying.  Not because I'm upset...because I'm frustrated.  Thanks to Graduate Fashion Week I have contacts at company's from Burberry to ASOS to pester for work experience but can I do it? NO! Why I hear you ask? Because I live in the Midlands and not in the centre of the fashion universe: London.

So here are my thoughts...maybe I should just buck up my ideas and change the plan around a bit.  Move to London, do an MA and get work experience alongside it.  THEN come out of university once and for alla nd become a fantastical fashion person with lots of experience rather than no experience.

I am very indecisive when it comes to my own life.  (Believe me I would plan your whole life for you though if you asked me.)  Right now I am scouring university websites, bank websites and careers websites in an attempt to make some kind of a decision.  Not really making much headway.  I don't even know whether it'd be clever to focus on fashion promotion or to broaden my horizons and do something more general.

Everyone I speak to says it's a decision only I can make.  Bugger. That's what I was dreading.  Suggestions on a postcard.