The red notebook's journey

I confess that approaching my process and creative work in Fashion design, per se, as already an idea that had come up in brainstorming. But it was only by a suggestion from a subscriber, Adelia, that this idea proved to be truly valuable in my eyes.

And on this week of my 25th birthday it makes perfect sense to do this reflection, almost as a nod to blogspot, so cool in 2010.

I defend the idea that fashion design is not just about the more conventional end result of a collection or a piece for the dressed body. And, in that sense, the experience I have and that I lived was at school.

When I refer to school, I refer to the Faculty — the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon, where I completed both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Fashion Design. I remember that the expression “school” was used a lot and now looking back I have an interpretation for that: giving relevance to learning in the face of academic titles.

This article will be divided into questions that helped me reflect on my work with a certain perspective.

What aspects of my work and my process stand out?

Even though at school the development of projects follows briefs and guidelines, I never felt conditioned and always had the freedom to develop my own visual language and style.

These are the idiosyncrasies, with the bias typical of self-reflection, I highlight in my work as a fashion design student: the sketch marathons; the perfectly imperfect; the stubborn exploration of techniques; the exploration of inclusion; the use of a 1:3 scale dummy; the design of patterns digitally, in vector with handmade adjustments; the faithful company of a notebook (preferably red) and; prioritize sleep.

Sketching is a way for the brain to communicate with the outside world, as we have around 60,000 thoughts a day, I have always focused on not letting ideas fly away from me. Being challenged to make 200 shirt sketches, which I did, didn't scare me. I always drew quickly, it's also true that even I didn't always understand the register of my own ideas. However, this was never a high price to pay for keeping imposter syndrome as far away as possible, working relatively quickly and with pens or markers so as not to be able to erase it if you later questioned the validity of the idea, it was an efficient methodology.

From a more poetic point of view we are all perfectly imperfect, but this concept allows me to embrace and even explore the mistakes I made in the physical realization of my projects.

Exploring techniques is ok, but why stubbornly? Because when you don't have the most refined physical skills in the world, you have to be stubborn to make almost infinite attempts.

But this stubbornness was also present in group projects and, I don't mean, being at opposite poles and in confrontation. When my colleague and friend Boglárka Czárán and I explored laser cutting, we went from a functional point of view. In which the perforations in the components of the piece served to unite them to redefine and alter or customize the design of the piece using thick mesh thread that would intertwine. Of course, all of this did not come about on the first attempt and required several iterations.

I explored inclusive design, I still consider it unacceptable to have more brands and lines of fashion brands dedicated to pets than dedicated to people with disabilities. I'm proud of the shallow explorations I've done along these lines - ranging from fine motor difficulties to different experiences of autism (thanks, Bogi, for that teamwork!). There was an 18-year-old Vera who thought that was what she would dedicate herself to, the 22-year-old Vera had a different perception and the current Vera Lúcia was right with the latter. If you continue reading you will discover why.

As I already said, I always had a fascination with the “Théâtre de la Mode” and avidly wanted to have a 1:3 scale mannequin. And, if I'm not mistaken, it was on my 19th birthday that my parents surprised me with one. This saved me during the pandemic, using less fabric was a blessing when we were cooped up at home and stores were closed. And over time it became one of my talismans.

During lockdown, in pattern making classes we were encouraged to make patterns in Illustrator, and it was something that sparked my great interest and enjoyment. It also saved me a lot of time. It became a characteristic of my work, as my colleagues preferred the manual methodology.

Fashion is so fast and as not everything can be expressed in sketches, it is necessary to write down everything - changes in patterns, dates, directions, briefing, decisions. So yes, I was the person who walked around the college studio with a little red notebook from one side to the other, it was just as important to me as the fabric scissors, the pins or the measuring tape.

The issue of sleep, the idea of ​​nocturnal creatives, may seem unrelated to Fashion — but in my experience, sleep has always been fundamental to my well-being, creativity and productivity. While friends made nights out and being direct a habit, for me, it was always the rule that this was a last resort.

If you had to map my process, how would you do it?

The Fashion Design process generally follows the following steps: inspiration/exploration; concept; ideation with sketches; flat drawings and technical sheets, production, illustration and presentation. Described this way, it may seem quick, but it is a process of iteration and going back and forth. And while you are developing a sophisticated piece, you may be sewing a side seam while barefoot and with a messy hair and I don't want to make tiredness a glamorous trophy, but working hard and dealing with tiredness is part of the process.

What challenges have I encountered along the way?

COVID was the ultimate challenge — after every teacher repeated the importance of attendance based on the premise that we were not doing a correspondence course, at that point there was no other choice than distance learning. Added to this was solving the big question: “How am I going to maintain my creativity when it seems like the world is ending, and we don’t know when and if this nightmare will end?”

Everything seemed like something out of a successful streaming series - four intense and exciting days of ModaLisboa | Lisboa Fashion Week under the theme Awake and one emotionally hungover Monday later, an email from the school announced the start of classes on Zoom. How do we suddenly wake up to all this?

A challenge that now seems unrealistic! But all the conferences, talks, and digital presentations from various brands and designers gave us hope that everything would really be ok.

Without forgetting the stories worthy of telling my grandchildren, many of which I lived with my dear Inês Buinho. Who worked via zoom, while our families prepared for Christmas Eve, and tried so hard not to get distracted by eating sweets? We did, after all, have work to present at a tutoring session on December 28th. Who designed and made a plus size cover, without that being the intention, and did it on a domestic machine and broke an endless number of needles? Us, and a poor Singer who shook so much she almost caused an earthquake.

What skills did I transfer from this path to my current project?

I write about Fashion, focusing on the latter, on what I know what I learned and research about Fashion. I have no training in writing or journalism. And I don't feel this as a failure, as journalism is a professional area for which I have immense respect, the perspective I apply here is that of a “Fashion designer who writes about Fashion”.

So, everything I do I apply what my training was, just the format changed. And if during the collection I developed during my Master's degree I used a red notebook to point out my work and necessary changes to the toilles and final pieces, now it is in a red notebook that I point out the strategy and lessons to be applied in my newsletter and platform. This is the red notebook’s journey.

Why did I redirect my work?

The truth is that I never had a passion for writing, but it was never difficult for me. I always found it easy to express myself in words, but I learned to like and enjoy the act of writing itself.

But there is an equation in my life that has always existed and made me pulse and find incredible happiness. This is the equation: Passion + Fashion x 1 billion + Curiosity + Dedication.

The emergence of the movement for the inclusion of disabilities in the Fashion System happened almost at the same time that I truly accepted myself as a person with cerebral palsy. At the time, I planned to include this topic in my master's thesis. But the second year of my MA proved to be very difficult.

And I realized that not only were there people who were more excited about what would be my dissertation project than me. I also became aware that to move this project forward I would have to do fieldwork whose metaphorical color palette, which physically, mentally and psychologically, was not for me.

So, what did I like so much that, no matter how difficult it was to study, I would never give up? The first independent Fashion Week in the world, the place where I met my fashion family - ModaLisboa | Lisboa Fashion Week.

Not only did I reach the end of this challenge, but in unison with people whose opinion matters to me, I realized that research, studies and writing about Fashion were for me.

From this starting point, I took Lisboa Fashion Week as a protagonist to be maintained, to which I added my perspectives and discoveries about independence in Fashion as fashion’s own System. As in crucial moments, I'm lucky the newsletter fever was high, and I joined Zeitgeist and the rest is being written...

This text was perhaps the one that raised the most doubts in me, when we exhibit our work, there is always anxiety about the acceptance and reception it will have. If this piece of a body of work is a prospective reflection of what we have already developed, this anxiety multiplies disproportionately.

But I hope this text can serve as food for thought, or even as a form of entertainment. The idea of ​​fashion writing also functioning as entertainment may seem to some, in a certain way, something minor. But it is not, the dialogue between fashion and entertainment is increasingly close and constant. Talking about this is for another article…

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