It's taken a very long time for me to finally sit down and type out this blogpost.
I have ended my 2 year course of Fashion Design at ITE CC and our fashion show ended about a week ago and I truly don't know how to put this feeling into words but I will do my best to.
The fashion show took around the past 2-3 months to complete setting up and organising which I personally thank my lecturers for doing such an incredible job of getting sponsors and the lighting crew and a team of coordinators.
I do realise that alot of schools don't have the privilege of having a team to organise a show for the graduating students and some students actually have to raise their own pocket money to fund their shows.
So with that, I'm eternally grateful for this opportunity.
Especially with us being specifically fashion students in this entire design schools.
It was a first-time sort of project for my lecturers to take on and to see the outcome of this entire project really is beautiful and such a team-effort really blossoming.
I would like to believe that my lecturers have seen our work and are proud of what we've achieved.
A lot of my classmates have done beautiful avant gardé gowns and beautiful workmanship into their individual garments and I respect their intense hard-work and creativity.
As soon as the days roll by, we started cleaning up our classroom.
(Note that our classroom is directly inside the Design excellence centre, It felt like an actual studio where we would Sew, draft, drape and all that jazz. Spent 10 hours a day in there. No joke)
It felt like a second home to many of us whether we liked it or not.
We do this every end of the year, to start afresh and to clean up our mess that we've made.
But to many of us it's just another reality check that,
Hey. I'm not coming back here next year.
This is really over.
And while we were glad we had accomplished what we were given to do.
We didn't want to leave this part of us behind.
And many of us had a hard time trying to deal with this entire situation.
Now, i'm not trying to sound dramatic.
This is how I felt and how I still feel.
It's a feeling of being lost and how sure what to do or carry on.
Being in this 2 year course.
I would always have a goal or a task or mainly, an assignment to complete.
Knowing everyday I would wake up and face my friends, my lecturers, the same enviroment, take the same bus route to and back everyday.
It's the feeling of comfort and knowing you belong.
As my lecturer puts it.
We're being protected.
Being any type of designer or artist,
you know that It's a harsh industry out there.
Especially in Singapore where the fashion industry is just starting to branch out and have more of their own voice.
Being in school felt like going home almost.
Having a protective layer around your shell and now knowing that we're going to graduate.
The shell has to be broken and we have to let loose and be on our own.
This is a privilege, yes.
But also the feeling of being unsure and frightened about the future ahead.
Definitely, yes.
Making friends or being introduced to a new environment wasn't technically very easy for many of us.
On my part,
Secondary school sucked for me.
I never wanted to leave a place so badly.
I wanted to be free and be my own person without all those bitches talking behind my back.
It was a dramatic 4 years for me. I'm just putting it out there.
I'm not saying that me and my friends from ITE didn't fight.
Oh yes we did. We had arguments but we also still remained friends and my group of friends increased as the months went on.
We each had a very different personality and a very different outlook on life and It was the best bunch I've ever spent with.
I never really had a group of friends or a clique, if you want to put it that way.
Although sometimes it was a pain in the ass to go out with almost 10 girls and just one boy.
(Just picture in your head, 10 years. In the school's bathroom. All putting on makeup. changing, doing their hair, charging our phones. It was rough but also amazing how we did it at the same time.)
I wouldn't trade them for the world.
And if I could go through this with them all over again?
Yes. In a hearbeat. No questions asked. I would.
We had cleared our classroom, brought back our tool boxes.
Emptied out our individual spaces and tables and pigeon holes.
It really came to us that It's the end.
And somehow it couldn't come into place how we all could've felt.
We had a day before the actual show to rehearse with all the models and such.
We had done our fittings and alterations before the show day and prepared the venue and had the models walk with their high heels and get them familiar with the stage and etc.
The reality started sinking in and all of us had a glimpse of what it was like and let me tell you.
It became so real, too real.
That we have been working for two years. For this show that's going to last maybe 15 minutes.
We had sat around and watched the crew kind of play around with lighting and the music and all that fancy stuff.
We had seen our models walk the run-way, the timing, how they would turn, walk to which side of the stage and run back onto the stage for the finale walk and all that.
We had casted our models from the CCA club that my class president and my classmates formed.
The in-charge actually scouted our models from the campus so these models of ours were mainly school-mates that were in the same campus as us.
But others are maybe friends of friends or friends of my classmates that were so nice to help.
It's not technically easy to be told to walk the runway and have to count 4 seconds in your head before you turn left or right and having them go through all that in order to help us with our show with no actual pay or benefit for them? It's amazing and all of them are absolutely gorgeous.
(NO LIE NO LIE. When i had to help tiffany with her fitting and when I did mine. I practically started gagging on sight of how gorgeous some of the boys were.)
On the actual day of the fashion show,
We had to turn up at 7:30AM and wait-in for everyone to arrive to kind of rehearse one more time before we eat-up and get ready for the industrial people to arrive.
So we had 2 Show timings, one at 3PM and the other at 6PM (if i'm not wrong)
The industrial slot was basically for some of the fashion designers based in singapore to view our work and what we had to offer.
It was for them to kind of pick and select and hopefully offer some of us jobs in the future.
Most of the designers that attended were from our Internship and most of them were our bosses that took us during our Industrial attachment.
Although I do have to say that the timing on the Industrial viewing was alittle bit questionable.
The show was held on a thursday and It was 3PM in the afternoon.
So probably most of the designers couldn't attend.
When they did attend, alot of them left quickly afterwards to probably get back to work or meetings.
But we did have a pleasant surprise.
This cute lil' lady I was cuddling to death is Miss. Irene.
During my year 1 she had taught me the first of everything.
How to draft a basic block and how I would sew this and that and all sorts of tips and tricks.
About a few weeks or months into January 2013.
She had to leave us for personal reasons and It was a shocker for me.
She had such a fighting spirit for my class and she helped me alot through motivation and trying to help me fight on throughout this course.
At that time, I hated this. My sewing wasn't acceptable to any means and I wanted anything to get out of this place.
We had an assignment, to sew a basic skirt.
I was the only person who didn't meet the criteria and failed that assignment.
And I was really bummed out for that.
But she insisted on me keep on pushing forward and doing my best.
Which I'm glad to say that I made it through this course without any deaths or attempts of suicide.
She is now a lecturer at First Media Design School, of course. Still teaching fashion.
She's such an outstanding individual with a great quirky mind and a hell lot of tolerance.
If she ever reads this.
I love you Miss. Irene. I'm glad I was under your care when I first started this entire crazy journey.
Now. *wipes tears*
In the group photograph of me and my classmates,
you'd find a man beside Ms. Irene.
He too, was my lecturer before this entire FYP began.
He's called Mr.Alan.
During my first year, he had been around from start to end teaching us sewing, helping us with designs, our visuals and artistic knowledge here and there.
He too, left for personal reasons and also went to pursue his own dreams.
Mr alan had played a huge part in my classes time and performance.
Mr alan was always very fun, calm, flamboyant and extremely caring.
He was our mother and Mr Melvin would be our father who we (were) kind of terrified of.
Mr alan has always been good to us, praises all around and maybe along the way took some kindness for granted.
Every lecturer has their bad days and good days, just like how we sometimes go to school with a glum on our face and sometimes we attend classes like we won the lottery.
Mr Alan has such a creative mind and amazing, AMAZING, patience with my bunch.
And with that, my FAPD will be eternally grateful for the laughter and the love.
As the industrial show begins to end and all of us get changed into our evening-wear and high heels and everything.
All the girls running around doing their makeup and the guys individually doing their hair and such.
Some of our emotions started to tatter and mine went for it.
I remember crying alot throughout the day but especially ALOT during the 6PM show.
The 6PM show consists of our parents, friends, relatives attending this show and letting them see what we had put in for the past 2 years and how much our worked paid off.
But it also meant, after this.
We wouldn't be seeing each other everyday, at the same old familiar place with the same teachers.
And after getting dressed.
We went for it.
My mates all decked out in B&W and strutting all the best looks that day and surprisingly the B&W concept wasn't planned by anyone. Everyone just decided to sports B&W that day and may I put it out there.
We all looked fucking amazing.
After the finale walk.
And all the models had to return back stage and all the designers as well.
I just remember full on fucking crying and hugging everybody while the models stood around us and just watched.
I couldn't be bothered.
I remember holding Ardila so close to my chest and hugging tiffany or azri and just crying my eyes out.
I could hear just the sobbing and whispers that all us were in that moment.
So true and so much together.
Apart of us was so glad we managed to finish what our goal was for this entire two years at the same time we couldn't bare to part.
And that started out as just one of the few incidents crying in the entire day.
Granted, the entire day was spent crying more and more so frequently as the time past.
But after that when we had the de-brief and had to start packing up.
Oh.
Those were the real tears.
We had said our goodbyes to one another and the thanks we had for each of our friends.
Also, take note.
Though we love each other as a class.
We had very obvious and notable cliques that we were all separated into.
My group takes up around 10 people in class.
And the rest of my classmates had their individual clique/group they hang out with.
Throughout these two years.
I haven't been very much of social butterfly.
Yes, I speak to everyone but not on a regular basis.
I remember not speaking to alot of people on a daily routine until it was nearing the end of the year which I regret doing.
I remember sitting next to tiffany while we were packing up and she saying to one of my classmates, Adriana.
" I wish I could've known you better. "
And I wish alot of us would have done so.
There are some who I don't even speak to til this day and some who I never gotten more than a sentence by.
Though I'm such a loud bitch and I'm extremely talkative. We just never said anything more than just Hi or Bye to one another.
That's my only regret.
So after this very long blogpost, Which took me forever to write because I kept crying or hunting out photographs that I wanted to use.
(Apologizes for the photo quality. Not everything was taken by my Phone or a professional camera. I took some pictures from twitter or my friends' Instagram. But all rights/credits belong to specific owners)
To all my classmates if you ever come-by this blogpost.
I love you for your individuality and how much time we spent together.
Whether we've spoken or you made me laugh or I did the same to you.
Thank you for these two years and how all of us, with different personalities could make such an out-standing class together really makes me feel at-home with all of you.
To everyone who helped for our show.
Thank you for taking the time off to help my class and lecturers and the models, lighting crew and sound management.
With no pay or no actual real benefit. You helped us with the lighting and the madness backstage.
I hope you take away some new-made friends and experience with us.
Because I can say this for me and my classmates,
We had an amazing time getting to know each and every model and an amazing time participating in our very first show.
To my lecturers if you ever happen to check my blog.
I cannot thank you enough.
3,000 words or 5,000 blogposts will never be enough to thank you for the strength and patience you have shown while teaching the class and I.
We only hope we bring you pride and achievement in due time.
We were so upset to leave you but only so glad to look into the future and bring you joy when you look at us once again.
I and the class love you very dearly and all of you so talented, so beautiful and obtain so much light and love within you. I only have thanks and gratefulness towards you.
And last but never the least.
To my angels.
I love each and every one of you, with all my heart and my mistaken words I spit during school.
My experience will never be the same If i hadn't met all of you and been together so often.
We had argued and we had laughed so much together.
I don't care if we fight nor do I care if we get angry at one another.
Each of you are so so so special to me and I will never forget what memories we've made.
Whether It be trying to squeeze into a movie theatre and having to sit together with 9 together when there's no seats left.
Or how getting a table at the canteen means having to re-arrange furniture.
You made my teenage years feel complete and you all complete me.
I have learnt so much and gained so much patience.
I will remember the tears and how we stole each others' food at lunch.
So when you all read this.
I love you.
So here's the end of the chapter for now.
2 days more to the start of a new, complete adventure.
And I only hope that the older I get.
The more adventures I face and the closer I am feeling whole.
Merry christmas you filthy scums.
x
