Hi, yaa! You all right? Thank you, God I’ve listened to it for the last time before coming back to the UK at the end of April. No, can somebody clarify to me why is it the most common form to say hello? I’ve been living in England for seven months now, and I still don’t comprehend it correctly, I reckon. Once, one of my British friends George stated, that I also must respond with the phrase ‘You alright’, and this point has wholly kicked out my mind.

Okay, back to the topic. I’m in Russia and frankly speaking, I’m felicitous and furious at the same time. Happiness has come here because I finally get to see my friends and family, but my stubborn temper has swelled up quite a bit, and I’d lie if I assumed that there’s no coherent reason. It might appear amusing to you from an adult (almost nineteen years old girl), but it is arduous to move back to living in someone’s control.

Before I resume the topic initiated in the previous post, I desire to write a paragraph about the current condition of my wardrobe and what I’ve noticed out during this week. There’s one compulsively obsessive trace of character I’ve got which is called planning. I like to invent plans, and I hate adjusting them. So, I’ve outlined myself my wardrobe on the list of paper, and I conceded that I have a bit of unnecessary stuff even after the decluttering process, and those were warm clothes which I don’t oblige after coming back to Cambridge on 19th of April. So, I carried all of them to Russia. My mind commenced furnishing me questions like ‘How can you be minimalist if you live in a country like Russia, when it’s freaking cold in winter and quite warm in summer?’ or ‘Should I count my winter clothes items as a wardrobe? What is the wardrobe? Is it all your shelf or things you wear? Is there a term for a group of clothes which you wear in winter as well as in summer?’ Yeah, my mind likes to question me.

You’ve likely heard stories from or about smart and successful people who opt to simplify their style. Why? Because it expedites decision-making, empowering them to more efficiently allocate their precious resources (time, energy, money) to more pressing matters. If you are frustrated about getting ready each day and self-conscious about the way you look, then it’s likely because the items you own are no longer the best reflection of you.
A capsule wardrobe is a thoughtfully assembled collection of timeless pieces that work seamlessly together not depending on the season or new fashion trends. It allows you to easily create outfits you love from a limited number of pieces. You will save more time, spend more wisely, and increase your confidence with a sleek signature style. The fundamentals of a capsule wardrobe are using insights and cues from your lifestyle to inform and develop a more definite sense of your very own fashion.

Discussing about the decluttering process, which is the first step I practised on the way to minimalistic lifestyle, I would like to continue talking about the last group of clothes and other items I intended to get rid of in the form of selling those to people who can last the life of the pieces I’ve picked for it. So, my group of things I craved to sell incorporated bright coloured clothes and bags (troublesome to make outfits for me), similar to my capsule wardrobe items (why I need to things which are just the equivalent) and branded pieces. I don’t savour to sell my clothes to my friends because I cannot maintain it since it’s arduous for me to enter into monetary relations with them. So, I gave preference to websites; the progress is going quite well, and I’ve already sold my bag and a pink leather jacket.

Unfortunately, I haven’t suspected this post to be so large sized and full, and there are not enough words to report you about my new approach to clothes care. Yeah, I’ve limited the posts with the 750-word limit, because I immerse myself in writing blog with my head and do not notice that I am writing too much.
Anyways, I will rise my next post with it, and also I will record a separated post about my research in Russia and Italy if I overstep my words limit in the next blog post. Thank you for browsing this and see you soon!

Hey! There is this thing about an upcoming vacation when you merely wholly neglect about work, routines and all those stuff which customarily stress you out every day. Yeah, you are not deluded, I forgot about The Project. I added the previous words at the end of the fourth week of the FMP because I understood that I wasn’t productive at all and the work ultimately didn’t go as intended.
All right, the current week is the last one before the Easter break, and I cannot wait to retire a little bit because productivity suggests not only hard work.

The progress doesn’t follow me anymore. I am tired, exhausted and frustrated. You can’t notice the absence of my development from the side. Maybe you do not see all this, but the term work here is not only about the project, but it’s also about preparing for the vacation.
Besides that, I’ve done minimal work of my minimal topic which was about settling for future researches and analyses of the theme of FMP. For example, I’ve decluttered a big part of my clothes, and my wardrobe is pretty simple and manageable right now; it contains 40 pieces of clothing including shoes, bags and jackets, but excluding underwear, socks and jewellery.
The items I spotted unnecessary I’ve arranged into four bags: “I’m not sure” was the first, “I’ll donate” the second, “I’ll trash” the third, and the last one was “I’ll sell”.
The first packet had clothing items which I infrequently wear or don’t dress at all, but those also seem like things which I could use one day. What I did with this bag is that I left it in my room on the top of my shelf and gave them a second chance. If I touch this bag to take something from it in closest 2-4 weeks, then I keep this item, but if I don’t do this, then I donate all the bag straightly, without looking through stuff one more time.
The second one is an easy thing to explain. There were pieces which I’ve liked, worn and stopped liking due to the editing of style. Those had a good condition and could be used by someone else than me. After preparing this group, I went outdoor and left it next to one of the thrift shops next to my accommodation with the tag “Good clothes”. This bag was the biggest one of what I had that day, and I think it was affected by the difficulty of saying goodbye to things you used to love, I’m sure it is relatable to anyone, who is reading this.
The last group I’ll narrate you about in this post is “I’ll trash.” I assembled and trashed so many items which had a terrible condition caused by many factors: overwearing, overwashing, general oldness etc. I was surprised when I realised that I don’t take good care about things I own and this fact has motivated me to take action and make a change to prevent findings like this in the future.

Let’s finish this blog post here and if you fancy knowing what will happen to “I’ll sell” group and what tactic I’ll follow, what advice and tips find, then keep up with future updates and keep it minimal!
Thanks for your attention today! Goodbye.

Hello there! This week was a signal to commence working on our projects since each student has presented approaches for FMP and each decided on the topic in groups with Chloe. This blog post is going to be about my presentations and general emotions I have after it.
To begin with, I wasn’t ready for 100 per cent, but I felt pretty confident in my ideas because I have been working on them for a while now. On Monday the crazy thought visited my mind, and I started rewriting my proposal for Minimalistic Lifestyle. The fact is that I thought that minimalism is not such an extensive topic for the final project, and I would prefer a theme that I named Saving The Planet. According to my intentions, it could include minimalism, zero waste and veganism; yeah, I was thinking to give up on my primary idea. But after a chat with my tutor and argument with my boyfriend, I concluded that I better keep the minimalistic lifestyle.
On Wednesday, I prepared everything: two proposals, two presentations and necessary timetable to be submitted. But I forgot the fact that I’m not a robot and I need rest sometimes; I’m saying this because on Tuesday I spent so much time working on something which was already perfect. Even though Edward (C&Cs teacher) said that I was doing great, my mind told me that I could be better. The presentations went great: positive feedback, satisfied tutor and me.
You could guess that I’ve chosen the Minimalistic Lifestyle Theme and I am happy about it.

On Thursday I’ve started doing my primary research from the museum which we’ve visited during the trip week. I’ve decided that for Anorexia Nervosa topic manual collage with drawings would be suitable and quite nice looking. And for Minimalism, I drew the Dartford Crossing with watercolours, and for another page, I made the mood board full of images.

To sum up, I’d like to say that I am delighted with the progress although this week was straining and stressful, as well as requiring a concentration of thoughts and hard work.

Hello there! In the last post, I told you about the beginning of our new project and especially about theme selection, the final outcomes for both of them and my emotions throughout this process. There were not many changes since then, but I have been reflecting a lot about my topics, and there were bits when I felt utterly insecure and hesitant about them.
At this moment I’m writing the final variant of the proposal for Minimalistic lifestyle topic, and it is going well.
Let me tell you how the trip week went, what I saw and what inspired me. So, our first destination was London and three museums there: Victoria & Albert Museum, Science Museum and Natural History Museum. My tutor advised me to visit the first one, she assumed that I will have more luck searching for something there. The Victoria and Albert Museum is the world’s greatest museum of art and design, representing more than 3,000 years of human creativity, with collections unrivalled in their scope and diversity.
Unlikely, I just found two photographs by Josef Sudek and Aaron Siskind.

Also when I looked outside through the window and saw this extension to the museum building. It looked like something from another century or from another building; at first, it hurt the eyes, but then I realised the essence of this contrast.

On Tuesday we went to Kettle’s Yard which is located not from our college in Cambridge. I pass it every single day but never had a wish to go inside because I had an impression that it’s just a typical house and nothing is interesting inside. I was half right; this place includes the gallery and the house. I wasn’t impressed with what I saw inside, but works of Louse Bourgeois looked cool together.

On Wednesday we visited Oxford, it was beautiful but I found nothing useful for the primary research.

Thursday was a short day because we had two twin guys from Golden Wolf Company coming to tell about their story of success and demonstrate what their studio does. I found their projects interesting because it looked like they were doing each one under powerful drugs. But anyways it was good to meet them and listen to their opinion on different topics.

Last day of the trip week was the best one for me for a few reasons. Firstly, because we went to Margate, England’s southeast coast located town, which is famous for its sandy beaches. Secondly, because we went to the modern Turner Contemporary gallery, where JMW Turner and contemporary artists displayed their version of art. And lastly, because I had some time to spend with my boyfriend Nicolò while exploring that small and empty, but unexpectable and exciting town.
Our way to Margate was through Dartford Crossing is known as Dartford tunnel, which is a major road crossing of the river Themes, the designer of this minimalistic bridge was Helmut Homberg.

The Turner Contemporary gallery seemed to me mostly minimalistic, and I took some photos, and we finally went to explore new things downtown.

The trip was finished, but I still haven’t done any primary research for Anorexia topic, but now it’s clear to me that I’m going to take Minimalistic lifestyle theme. See you next Thursday!

Eventually, when all the rest options were finished, our tutor Chloe gave us new project papers which said Final Major Project (FMP) Brief on top of it. This is the last project which assumes self-governing and independent work on the topic chosen by the student for 12 weeks. ‘It should demonstrate your knowledge of theories, techniques, tools and materials’. Moreover, the final grade will be based on the lowest mark of the student, so if you miss something, it will alter your entire work, and nobody will be interested in the fact you have done great with other criteria. Okay, now when you perceive the value of it; I also desire to say that you have to show this project to your university as a final grade for the Foundation program. It comes as no surprise that every student got panicked at that moment because we didn’t suspect it.

Unlike other students, my friend and I took it sincerely and instantly went to smoke…Okay, frankly speaking, we were scared as well and at the same time believed that two weeks period is quite a lot for choosing themes for FMP. But despite that, we decided to begin ASAP and commenced brainstorming endless ideas which might be proper for the project. There was a variety of criteria and frames I identified for myself to pick the themes quickly and precisely. The concepts I came up with were spinning around my personality and what is meaningful to me; those were about modelling, tender love, eating disorders, father and daughter relationships, fashion business strategies and lifestyle.

In short, I’ve kept two topics: Minimalism and Anorexia Nervosa. The first one is fascinating and exciting to me and the second is depressing and vital. I was actually frustrated about both, and it made me anxious, and it also became a reason why I couldn’t begin working on proposals. Everything appeared distracting and felt like every little thing aspired me to give up and break in tears. To be honest, it is effortless to let me down because I am strong, but an impulsive person; so if you know where to push you’re likely to succeed.
Talking about success, let’s get back to the topics. The value of work in front of all students didn’t look colossal, but you could feel that tension and fear hung in the classroom, nobody asked questions because we already went through the FMP brief, but nobody understood a single thing.

 

As you understood, my choice of topics wasn’t random, but let me explain. Talking about anorexia, the problem of eating disorders followed me for the last 4 years, but unlike other suffers, I was facing everything alone: the beginning, the way to the lowest weight, the awareness and the way back to the usual physical condition. That’s why I might be able to give good advice and the right words for supporting somebody with the same problem.
As the outcome, I’m willing to produce a magazine in the format of the diary as a final piece, which will contain my tips on battling with anorexia, the motivation for recovery, some articles about healthy eating, illustrations and explaining drawings and exercise program.
My main creative idea is the performance of complicated information to the reader most clearly and understandably while keeping the work stunning. The photos and paragraphs will be created by me as well as the design of all the diary.

The Minimalistic lifestyle is something new to me, but I firmly believe in its power. This topic is interesting to me for the reason that I wanted to attempt to become more mindful and accurate in my daily choices because I’ve lost the focus on things which matter to me. Minimalistic lifestyle looks like a possible way out.
My project is about showing Minimalistic Lifestyle from inside out and getting people familiar with it, hoping that some of them will accept and pick up some tips and advice or an entire thing and adopt it in their life. This topic is interesting to me because I wanted to attempt to become more mindful and accurate in my daily choices and the FMP is a great opportunity for it.
I’m willing to produce a digital magazine full of articles, editorials, useful resources and original techniques. I’ve chosen to try digital format because minimalists don’t really keep unnecessary things like magazines, newspapers or books at their houses.

That’s all I wanted to tell you about my first week doing the final project. Obviously, I’ve started drafting the proposals, and I deem it’s going nicely. Hope to see you here next week, don’t skip the update about the trip week which is going to be full of new cities like Oxford and Margate. Bye!

Hello there! Thank you for being back here, and I’m beholden that you resume keeping up with my weekly blog posts. This week is luckily going to be the last one related to my work on DYOB project because of the upcoming half term, and I’m going to have a trip to Milan, Italy to explore the city and visit the fashion week. Obviously, I’ll not work on the brand there due to my busy schedule and the fact that I’m coming to the point when I have nothing left to do.
Okay, let’s get things done. I’m going to be telling you about three things today which are the business plan, the mockups and planning and the photoshoot for my brand.
I’d like to start telling you about my business plan by sharing my thoughts on this topic. A business plan is like a map that outlines aims, strategies and how to accomplish those two. With a thoroughgoing business plan, you can think critically about your conception and determine if it is estimable and actionable. To me, this task was a little bit time consuming but generally speaking not troublesome at all. I viewed some ideas on the Internet and investigated the issues I need to respond in my business plan.
To continue with, I’ve done mockups for my socks brand which render six different designs and prints. I named this collection “Coffe is better” because of all the styles which are connected/related to coffee beans.

I haven’t done something massive and complicated due to my love for minimalism and the fact that I don’t like overthinking.
And now I’m going to tell you about the most exciting part of all the week which was the photoshoot. Our idea was about showing the identity and uniqueness of my brand in the prettiest way. So my friend and I took coffee beans from the shop and a few pairs of my socks.

That’s all for today! See you after half term holidays!

Hello there! My journey is going well so far, and I’m relishing it every particular bit because I’m doing what my passion brings me to. Today I’m going to be describing to you about my second week of DYOB project and sharing insights of performing a brand.

This week I haven’t done so much work and didn’t get so many outcomes as last week. But I’ve managed to concentrate on the working process and finished SWON analysis, Swing tag designs and Target customer page which took a considerable effort to complete.
My absolute preferred duty to do this week was speculating about my future buyers and addressing the customer page. Given the modern situation of the economy, having an outlined target market is more critical than ever. No one can afford to target everyone. Small businesses can effectively compete with large companies by targeting a niche market. Targeting a specific market does not mean that you are excluding people who do not fit your criteria. Instead, target marketing allows you to focus your marketing dollars and brand message on a specific market that is more likely to buy from you than other markets. This is a much more affordable, efficient, and effective way to reach potential clients and generate business.
To continue with, a SWOT analysis is an incredibly simple, yet powerful tool to help you develop your business strategy, whether you’re building a startup or guiding an existing company. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are subjective to your company—things that you have some control over and can change. Examples include who is on your team, your patents and intellectual property, and your location. Opportunities and threats are external—things that are going on outside your company, in the broader market. You can take advantage of opportunities and protect against threats, but you can’t change them. You’re starting or running a business on your own, you can still do a SWOT analysis. Recruit additional points of view from friends who know a little about your business, your accountant, or even vendors and suppliers. The key is to have different points of view.
Living businesses can use a SWOT analysis to evaluate their steady state and devise a strategy to drive forward. But, retain that stuff are continually developing, and you’ll need to reassess your strategy, starting with a new SWOT analysis every six to 12 months.

Honestly, during this week I’ve learned a lot about business strategies and running own business while reading blogs and articles on this topic. Shortly I plan to extend my knowledge on this topic and develop my ideas to reality.
Thank you for reading my blog. See you next time.

Hello everybody! This morning I was thinking about writing the blog and sharing my emotions, and I couldn’t wait until I find the best time for it during the day. Today I’m going to be telling you what I was busy with during the week. 

Generally speaking, I have been approaching lots of different areas of Fashion Communication and exploring them a lot deeper than I’ve ever done before including some business strategies and branding. What is your brand identity? Is it your logo? Your colour palette? Your infographic style? It’s all that—and more. Ultimately, the brand identity is a particular way to communicate and reflect with the world, differentiate yourself from your competition, and establish a brand experience that encourages people to engage with you. 

Furthermore, I discovered that If a brand comes from a set of associations related to emotions in people’s minds, then branding is an attempt to harness, generate, influence and control these associations to help the business perform better. Any organisation can benefit enormously by creating a brand that presents the company as distinctive, trusted, exciting, reliable or whichever attributes are appropriate to that business. Brand development and upgrading is the process of creating and strengthening your professional services brand, which we’ll talk about when I’ll be facing barriers to accomplishing my tasks based on brand development strategy. 

So, this week we were given the new project, and I was utterly surprised because it was called “Design Your Own Brand.” There were lots of questions and barely a few rapid answers, I wasn’t feeling confident at all due to lack of knowledge. Later on, I started solving problems and achieving tasks. The time I spent doing researches was worth spending time reflecting on what kind of problem I had, how it was like other problems I have encountered, and what different options there might be for approaching the task. A less successful approach is to launch in too quickly, without undertaking the initial reflection and preparation.

Evaluating the process, I’d like to speak about my outcomes and explain my vision of it.

So, I’ve stared with brainstorming my ideas for the mind map, considering what is hidden behind the brand term,  and writing them down in my notebook. Later on, I created a stylish layout which is based on the words “My Brand Is Me” because I think that building a brand depends on the owner(creator) of it. On the same spread of my sketchbook is a little info page dedicated to branding which I did to keep my eyes satisfied. Next two pages are the mood-related ones, where I expressed myself with photos from the Internet. These pages fully show my brand’s vibe and style. The colour swatch page is entirely minimalistic for me because I wanted to concentrate attention on the main thing. Finally moving on to logo pages and there I have attached my mind map with names I’d prefer for my brand, and after that, you can see my long developmental process of creating the perfect logo. The most important thing for me has always been a comfort. When I think of my own brand, I imagine something chill and relaxed, cosy and casual. So, I thought it’s a nice idea to create a brand of socks with different, unique and exciting prints of coffee; shops would be serving an excellent quality coffee for the clients.

You can find my photos of sketchbook below.

That’s all for today, and I sincerely hope that you enjoyed reading my blogs. See you next week. And remember, the one and the only thing more heartbreaking than a poorly designed brand is a beautifully designed one that is never used or misused. 

Hello there and welcome back to my blog! I’m going to tell you about my week of doing the project which was supposed to be done in 2 weeks.

The project we had was called “Colours of My Designer”, and it was about exploring the fashion industry through collaborations. I chose the collaboration of Off-White and Nike named “Football, Mon Amour” which was created during the season of pre-fall 2018 men’s collection. Basically, the main items of this collab became the trainers that had got the biggest hype around it. The “football, Mon Amour” itself is based on black and white items with bright details on it in clothing, there is also a unique orange golf-socks, which complemented almost all outfits.

My mood boards are inspired by Off-White during the fall-winter 2018 and show the difference before and after its collab with Nike.

While doing tonnes of research, I was curiously finding out about the phenomenon of Off-White as a brand and the thing with the belt of Virgil Abloh too. Primary research took me a while because I was trying to digest as much information as possible. So I went to the shop of brand clothes in Cambridge called Giulio, took some photographs of people wearing Off-White or Nike clothes and came up with collage and little research from myself as primary research. The secondary analysis of mine is. About Off-White as a brand and there you can find some photos which show how unique it is. My next page is based on invitations to the fashion shows, they all are different, but there are a few elements and distinctive features.

I absolutely enjoyed the process of doing my sketchbook inspired by Off-White. You can also see my Fashion Concept below.

As you can see above, I concentrated on orange colour as the main one in this sketch because I thought this colour unites all the images there and also it is related to the brand.

Also, I started creating my own fashion invitation from brainstorming some basic sketchy ideas and writing down some description. And the next two pages are fully telling about my final outcome. It looks simple because I don’t think that colour makes something more beautiful, I prefer to keep it simple, keep it white.

Lastly, I’ve done two pages which show the development of all digital pages I’ve inserted to my sketchbook. For most of my layouts, I used Adobe Sketch on iPad or manual collage skills to create something different from digital ones.

That’s all for today’s blog, see you next time!

Hello there and welcome back to my blog. Today I’m going to be telling you about my 1st week in college after the winter break. I came back with the new power and motivation to work. But before going forward and doing a new project, I realised that I can’t move on without finishing my plan from the previous semester. Honestly, I wasn’t satisfied that I didn’t finish it on time, but I still managed to do it.

Moreover, during this week I have decided to start my uni application. I’ve chosen my future place of studying in September, and I thought of going to Italy for Fashion Design.  I decided to continue with Fashion Communication I’m going to Istituto Marangoni in Milan. My choice was based on a few factors such as location, reviews on the educational part of the university and the variety of courses. The program I’m going to be studying there is called Fashion Business, it covers both economic and creative parts, and that’s why I like it.

I’m happy to tell that almost all colleges and universities, you might want to apply to,  have online admission forms where you can control and edit your application. Firstly, they ask to fill in the blank with information about yourself. There are nothing specifical and unusual, just basic things they might need to know about you. Secondly, you have to choose the course you want to study. And pre-last step is uploading the documents such as Diploma/Attendance certificate, Copy of passport, Personal Statement, Passport size photo and Latest/final diploma. Also, there was a skill test which included questions about fashion and basic knowledge of marketing. The final step is making an enrolment fee payment.

After this, all you need to wait until somebody from uni will contact you.

This is how I spent my week applying for Istituto Marangoni. Thanks for reading my post. Goodbye!