A Licentiate backstory - A Graduate's Graduation.

Today I went to my brother's confirmation. Since my brother is the youngest of four, it inevitably doesn't have the same amount of ceremony as it used to. I also feel like I should add that in the past ten years since my confirmation, circumstances have somewhat changed when it comes to religious ceremony in Ireland. It's sad but it's true. For the confirmation my parents wore suits, my sister (who was my brother's sponsor, a kind of moral compass - ha!) wore a leather jacket and skinny jeans and I wore a polka-dot minidress, which my mother said was indecent.

Consider the below photo. This is what I wore to my graduation. This was the second university that I attended (but the first time that I managed to get a degree... long story).




Rented gown and, er, pennant thing - Arts Faculty at UCC. Shoes - Aldo. Tights - Penneys/Primark. Dress - All Saints. Jacket - Lipsy.

I graduated in September and, as you can see, I'm pretty uncomfortable. I'm really not good with ceremony and I usually end up dressing very inappropriately without really thinking (hence the mini dress in church situation). The shoes clacked on the walk up to the college president. He gave me an odd look due to the studded lapels poking out over the gown. The purple tights were a bit of a standout in the class picture. All in all, it was a sartorial miss for the people around me.

But it was my graduation. It was a celebration of all the hard work I put in. It was a time just for me. And that's why I love this outfit. Sometime you just have to go with what you like.

That and purple with navy is a criminally underused colour combo. Ahem

When you least expect it

It's often when you least expect it that things blow up in your face. In my case, something literally did blow up in my face. My computer, to be precise. There, I was, tapping away with no more cares in the world than the average person (so, a lot of cares and preoccupations, but nothing as important as, say, an impending kidney transplant or a hot date with Robert Pattinson) when a slow, insidious wisp of smoke started snaking its way out of the adaptor socket.

At the time, I was writing an article to a very stringent deadline. So I did what any person would do. I just kept on writing and hoping that I wouldn't get burned or electrocuted, or set my duvet on fire. My house is a tinderbox. I get frightened using the toaster or having an overly-hot shower. I wrote all I could until my computer was on the verge of melting into a large, white plastic blob and calmly shut it, flapped it around the place like a Victorian carpet beater to extinguish the smoke and stowed it under my bed, where it currently sits.

Within three hours of the laptop fiasco, I was delivered no less than three pieces of bad news that affected me directly and the general air was that of a vacuum where the bottom has apparently fallen out of everything.

When you boil it down, my woes are men and money. Both are unavoidable and on a par, inevitability wise, with death and taxes. However, you know when taxes are coming, and death only gets to hit you once (if you're lucky). Men and money are indiscriminate in their ability to stike as often and as hard as you'll let them, which works to my disadvantage because I can be incredibly flathiuil with my wallet and, er, my heart.

The man problem is easy to fix. I just have to pop out my contacts and avoid looking at anything not carrying a handbag for the forseeable future. The money problem... That's something that just seems to follow me around like a bad smell, like Eau de Foolish Spending. Like the smell of a charred G5 Mac smouldering away under the bed. And unlike a mans aftershave, this smell is not transient. It's built to linger.

Rene Gruau

This is an old-ish post from the vaults, and one of my favourites. I originally posted it last September but it's still relevant (or at least I hope so). Well, except for the Lisbon Treaty references...



Like fabric-painting and the scaremongering tactics of oddball political activists in the run up to the Irish Lisbon Treaty Referendum (non EU readers can switch off at that bit), fashion illustration seems to have fallen by the wayside without anyone even noticing it.

At my recent university graduation, my Daddy Dearest's business partner gave me a very thoughtful card (and Brown Thomas gift voucher - hello, tortoiseshell Ray Ban CATs with a graduated lens... aham, excuse me) featuring the singular illustrations of Rene Gruau.

I have a very sad love of fashion illustration due almost entirely to the even sadder fact that it's the only way that I can usefully use a degree in History of Art without actually having a job concerning art in any way, shape or form. Gruau's illustrations can be found in 100 Years of Fashion Illustration but any books on the Man himself are hard to find and retail at roughly £300. Ouch.

What I love about Gruau's illustration, hopefully without sounding like an Art teacher (which incidentally is another job that I am NOT qualified to do despite a History of Art degree...sigh)

- Firstly, the starkness and sparseness of composition. Gruau rarely if ever used more than a handful of colours and there's no fore or background. There's no clutter and no distractions.
- The colours that he did use are chosen very carefully for maximum impact. Every colour seem to offset the other one. he didn't outline or make overt definitions, which makes you subconsciously think about the clothes (ok, makes me think subconsciously about the clothes)
- A use of line and a woman's silhouette that makes you think of Richard Avedon's work in the late 40's and early 50's. Both Avedon and Gruau were noted for making Dior's 1947 New Look even more iconic.


Hopefully you can see where I'm coming from, though the above isn't the best picture to prove my point. But you can see how both the photographer and the illustrator same the same preoccupation with line and whimsy. Below are my two favourite Gruau illustrations. Stark, sparse, abstract and totally wonderful. And something that couldn't be achieved with a camera.

A new blog

Hello readers.

I've started up a new blog called The Licentiate. Please do check out my fashion oriented musings and such. I should also point out that this is completely separate from my work - it's just for fun (and rampant self promotion). Become a follower, leave comments... any feedback is very welcome!

EVE, AD 2000!

Does anyone else think that this is oddly prophetic? Marc Jacobs, Alexander Wang, Lady Gaga... you've got a LOT to answer for.



Personally I'd love to have a man of the future who looks like a man off a deck of cards.

Sonia Rykiel x H&M

The H&M in Cork is not widely regarded as the best one... sorry H&M fans. it has a great range of basics and things for tweens and adults, but the selection seems very safe. There's relatively few risks taken in the picks on the floor (and nothing from the Divided Exclusive line, which really should be rolled out in more stores). I was pretty surprised, but excited, to see a Rykiel window display slowly evolving in the shop window.

I came to H&M prepared for scrum the likes of which Donnacha O'Callaghan would would be ill prepared for. Instead, tumbleweeds. Passers-by were showing a mild interest in the knits. I felt like crying. With joy that is. More candy stripes for me...



I'm just that smug.



Love the crown emblem brooch - but I get the feeling that it'll fall apart after repeated dings off the scarf. Ah well.



The cross straps on the sundress can be worn front or back. Might make some funny tan lines though.

The knits are nice and dense and need to be dried flat because they're so heavy. Unlike some diffusion lines I could mention (AnnSofieBackFor Topshop*cough*) you can tell that it'll maintain itself and not fall apart if you take proper care of it. Unfortunately, it's all sold out now.

If the shoe fits...

This is one of my favourite posts from the old blog...
If you're the kind of person who feels sick at the sight of a person's bare feet (and there's more of them than you'd think) perhaps you shouldn't look any further.


I was promised a new pair of shoes. What I got was this... It took my best friend A more than an hour to painstakingly draw in all the aspects of an Adidas Predator (am I right?) soccer boot on my feet. Next time a pair of Ann D's I think. It's the only way I'll get my hands on a pair.

I love my new boots so much - I might just keep them. Below are some detail shots. Apologies for the poor quality. The photos were taken with my awful camera phone and the lighting was a shaky bedside lamp, resulting in overly-dramatic shadows.





My favourite part is the stud detail (though that was the tickliest to have done).

Ello!

Hi, I'm Sarah, and I'm a terrible blogger.

Evidence of my crappy former blog experience can be seen at Cheap&Nasty, which was my internet home until my uncle the PR Guru gently reminded me that calling oneself 'cheap' or 'nasty' might affect what kind of work I get in the future (I'm a journalist and not a porn star for future reference). I write The Graduate for The Cork Independent and freelance a bit. Sometimes I'm on Social Welfare... which is NOT good for buying clothes. It is good for devising recipes involving kidney beans, tinned tomatoes and rice.

This is the product of my obsessions including but not confined to; magazines, stealing my friend's SLRs and fiddling around with the aperture settings, internet shopping, colour schemes, frames of reference and inspiration, history of fashion, the tenets of style, bad taste, out-of-print fashion books, bad DIY, local goings-on, vintage, stuff collected on my travels, patterns and anything slightly insidious, off-kilter or weird. I'll be posting up some of my favourite old posts from Cheap&Nasty before I shut it down. Become a follower, leave a comment, it's all welcome!

Sarah x

Hobbies

Everyone has a hobby. Some people like to free climb up sheer cliff faces and tightrope-walk between two skyscrapers. Some people are masters of useless information, annihilating their opponents at Trivial Pursuit and cutting a victorious swathe throughout Cork's many pub quizzes.

Some people make a bit of money on the side, a welcome incentive to continue doing what they love. Others, on the other hand, suffer such delusions of grandeur that they think their hobby will propel them into the vast strata of stardom (cursory viewing of The X Factor and America's Got Talent provides innumerable examples of the blissfully oblivious hordes).

A hobby is, if anything, the development of a skill. However, my skill is probably up there in terms of uselessness with the waterproof sponge and the blameless government minister. For I can read really, really fast. Yes, it's that useless.

My hobby is reading. Predictable, pedestrian and utterly reliable. When I was in fourth class the library was stocked with Babysitter's Club books and editions of Goosebumps and Sweet Valley High. This was a far cry from home, where my dad was more likely to offer me a biography of Nazi architect Albert Speer than a bubblegum-hued book with a picture of two smiling tweens with California tans on the cover.

I was hooked and like most addicts, I hid it well at first. However, it soon spiralled downwards. I ended up reading three books a day during class, a habit that eventually culminated with a torn copy of Dawn and the Older Boy and a teacher with a severely bruised shin.

When I went on the dole, an insightful friend pointed me in the general direction of the public Library on Grand Parade, knowing that I loved reading but unaware of the speed with which I plow through books. That was August. Now I read on average six thick books a week and I'm pretty sure some library staff members think "Oh no, not her again" and go hide in the reference section whenever I walk in the door. Some people drunk dial. I come home from a night out and look at the online catalogue.

Hobbies are supposed to fill spare time. But when all the time you have is going spare, what happens then? Answers on a postcard please. I'll get around to reading them eventually.

Hobbies

Everyone has a hobby. Some people like to free climb up sheer cliff faces and tightrope-walk between two skyscrapers. Some people are masters of useless information, annihilating their opponents at Trivial Pursuit and cutting a victorious swathe throughout Cork's many pub quizzes.

Some people make a bit of money on the side, a welcome incentive to continue doing what they love. Others, on the other hand, suffer such delusions of grandeur that they think their hobby will propel them into the vast strata of stardom (cursory viewing of The X Factor and America's Got Talent provides innumerable examples of the blissfully oblivious hordes).

A hobby is, if anything, the development of a skill. However, my skill is probably up there in terms of uselessness with the waterproof sponge and the blameless government minister. For I can read really, really fast. Yes, it's that useless.

My hobby is reading. Predictable, pedestrian and utterly reliable. When I was in fourth class the library was stocked with Babysitter's Club books and editions of Goosebumps and Sweet Valley High. This was a far cry from home, where my dad was more likely to offer me a biography of Nazi architect Albert Speer than a bubblegum-hued book with a picture of two smiling tweens with California tans on the cover.

I was hooked and like most addicts, I hid it well at first. However, it soon spiralled downwards. I ended up reading three books a day during class, a habit that eventually culminated with a torn copy of Dawn and the Older Boy and a teacher with a severely bruised shin.

When I went on the dole, an insightful friend pointed me in the general direction of the public Library on Grand Parade, knowing that I loved reading but unaware of the speed with which I plow through books. That was August. Now I read on average six thick books a week and I'm pretty sure some library staff members think "Oh no, not her again" and go hide in the reference section whenever I walk in the door. Some people drunk dial. I come home from a night out and look at the online catalogue.

Hobbies are supposed to fill spare time. But when all the time you have is going spare, what happens then? Answers on a postcard please. I'll get around to reading them eventually.