Is Small Town Fashion behind the times?

When you get to my time of life, you tend to wear clothes that suit you and hope that perhaps some up-to-the-minute accessories will prevent you looking utterly dowdy!

This is the sort of 'country style' I would expect from a small town in Wales with just a nod towards recent fashion with the Tangerine scarf and the Black and White dress. Not one of these colours is from the Pantone Spring/Summer 2013 forecast though.

I have absolutely no intention of dressing in Neon Yellow - or any other Neon colour, for that matter! And I'll gladly leave platform-soled shoes behind in the Seventies. 

Still plenty of stripes, polka dots and checks are everywhere. But the only sign of the chevrons that I've noticed abounding on shopping websites, was on some Kleenex boxes!

So noticing the latest trends in our local shops hadn't been a priority for quite some time. 

I found a lot of this very bright blue for both womens and menswear. (It was such a sunny day when I took these photos that reflections in the shop windows were a problem and made some of the blues look less bright than they really were.)

Once again the British Heart Foundation charity shop (check shirt, blue skirt and 'Poppies' floral dress) had clearly made more effort with their window-dressing than any of the other charity shops!

But then came the Surface Pattern course I took last winter. And it set me exercises that sent me off to the shops with my camera for precisely that purpose. 

Bright Pink with Turquoise seems to remain popular in spite of not being what Pantone forecasted!

And when I put on my 'designer's hat', it's useful for me know what people are looking for. 

Black and white was by far the most obvious 'trend' and I thought it was quite a novel idea to apply it to a nautical  pattern (the anchors) instead of the usual navy blue.

Abergavenny is a very small town. But it has plenty of upmarket, locally owned boutiques as well as small branches of some of the national chains. Quite a good cross-section of the clothing market, I think.

These I love! In fact I have a genuine 1930s aubergine-coloured lace dress in this style tucked away somewhere in my loft. I always intended to get  it repaired so that I could wear it but it's one of those things I never got around to.

The question is: Do I look to the online trend reports with their super-skinny models and fantastical clothes that often look as they've come straight from the costume hamper of a pantomime? Or do I look to the shops to see what people are actually buying? 

And, most importantly, is there a difference?

What do you think?

Wall Clocks with Polka Dots and Checks . . .

. . . on 

Mugs, Mousepads & More 

Wall Clock, Hearts, Flowers, Checks and Polka Dots by helikettle
 

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Watersoluble Crayons - Perfect for Autumn Leaves!

In a few days’ time, here in the UK, we will be putting our clocks back an hour as we come to the end of BST – British Summer Time.

Not that it’s been much of a summer and the little there was of it seemed to give way to autumn very easily and promptly this year! And even the autumn has been wetter than usual, with fewer than usual bright, crisp days to show off the changing colours of the trees in all their glory. The usual ‘carpets of gold’ have been replaced this year with something rather more soggy and mostly less colourful.

But there have been a few of those ‘golden’ October days, though I’ve never happened to be out with my camera on those days.

So one day recently, when I was waiting for some paint to dry on an illustration I’m working on, I suddenly had the idea of getting out my watersoluble crayons and creating some autumn colours for myself.

 

It really was a case of ‘mucking around’ and only took a few minutes. I’ve had these wonderful crayons for some months now but never had time to really explore their possibilities.  On this occasion, I loved the way I could add water to some parts to make a smooth wash, while leaving other parts in their original, raw, crayon-like state!

After scanning and cleaning up, I used Photoshop to make a 'half-drop' repeat template from them -

- which I then repeated over and over again to make a basic pattern.

By making the white parts transparent, it was easy to try out different background colours. I started with my usual favourite deep blue that I often seem to use in conjunction with orange. But then I became a bit bolder - after all, when you are working digitally, there's no expensive paper or paint to waste!!

Perhaps surprisingly, this one turned out to be one of my favourites -

Next it was time to create some coordinating patterns.
Instead of the summer-y check ginghams I've been making to go with some of my flowery patterns, I felt that a  houndstooth check would be more appropriate; warm and woolly for those days when there was a definite autumnal chill in the air.

And then, by this time firmly in experimental mode, I went on to have great fun with this rather more complex than usual stripe!

And finally, the real fun bit - putting together all the patterns that resulted from that first quick 'scribble' with the watersoluble crayons -

I could have gone on and on - adding a matching polka dot pattern or some conventional stripes - where does one stop?

What has really surprised me is how easily the handpainted and the digital elements work together! I rather doubt whether I'll ever be tempted to create a pattern entirely on the computer. But even with the rather meagre level of digital knowledge I possess, clever computer programs can open doors to pattern developments that would be practically impossible by hand.

Can't help wondering, though, whether William Morris's patterns would have been any different if he'd had a computer!