my story so far.

there is a lot more to my story, but 12 minutes was long enough! you'll just have to wait for my book ;) har har har

NON GENDER BINARIES

one thing that will always be a focus of mine is making gender unimportant in the fashion world.

i hate gender, i think its ridiculous and confining.

who wants to be put in a box, who puts baby in the corner? NO ONE PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER!!

although i have travelled far and wide and experienced a lot one thing i have always believed in is that i will wear what i want and be who i want,.

its difficult.

but one day it will happen!

boys will wear what we call womens clothing

and women will wear what we call mens clothing.

if i ever have a child one thing i will definitely not do is decide on the colour of the room determined by the gender of the child.

i will let my child play with barbies and action man. 

gender is a big player in the fashion industry, and i will set out to change that, i will always call my collections unisex, even if they have a skirt or a blouse or a three piece suit involved!

what do i want to do.

that question has haunted me since they asked me in primary school. i still think i want to be a pirate.

i have travelled well, i have ate handmade bread from an african village, i have petted a crocodile, i have jumped from the top of a waterfall, i have prayed alongside a praying mantis, i have caught an ear infection in a salt water pool, i have had a barbecue on a beach of a deserted island in the indian ocean, i have been aboard a submarine as well as seen a turtle have babies and watch them run back to sea, i have swam with dolphins and danced the night away in st marks square under the glow of street performers in venice, i have walked the same floor as the gladiators fighting for fun in the roman colleseum, i have been woken up at 4 in the morning with the chanting from the mosque in tunisia, i have seen the mafia of bulgaria check under their blacked out mercedes with mirrors for bombs i assume,i have ridden camels along the sahara dessert, i have wandered the unpathed roads of northern cyprus, i have ate lobster in south of spain, i have swam in the pool of the owners of 'muller' yoghurt, i have drank coffee in paris under the eiffel tower, i have swam naked in the atlantic ocean, i have drank sangria in a thunderstorm in mexico, i have danced with tribes in gambia, i have set fireworks off atop of a villa of some rich family in africa, i have smoked in amsterdam and rode bicycles next to where anne frank hid for many years, i have viewed the whole of new york from the top of the empire state building i have danced to a street band in a square in portugal whilst passers by looked on, i have ran from hotels without checking out because of the mess i left, i have lived in gran canaria for three months without parents, i have sunbathed naked on the beach and stayed up all night until my mind was gone in different corners of this world i have done much more just remembering them is a test.

but i have so much more to do, i want to carry on with fashion design, but i want to carry on with it rather then fashion carrying me along.

i will carry on studying the arts, i have a keen nose for perfumery, i also enjoy making things with my hands, i paint, i dance i can't sing but i try, and ill carry on trying until one thing clicks, all i know is life is good and I'm in an ideal place.

and ill keep doing what i do because so far it has worked, as i have told many of my class mates who have stressed out because of deadlines 'life carries on after university'. its just another box ticked for me.

ONE THING IN RELATION TO FASHION DESIGN, I WILL ALWAYS! FIGHT FOR NON GENDER BINARIES!

theres more i just dont know where they are :(

my online shops

to start hmmmm ETSY! its the cheapest to run. so if I'm plugging one as my favourite its etsy!

i have two shops on etsy, one my clothing label and my other my craft items.

then there is asos. asos marketplace.
with offers from cosmopolitan magazine to be featured, they wanted money so that didn't happen, YOURE NOT HAVING A PICTURE UNLESS YOUR PAYING ME.

asos actually nearly had me sued, i used a photographers image as my heading on the site, and bam, message from photographer with a cease and dicist. oops!
obviously got out of that one, I'm a poor student i aint got money! get me?!

I saw this as a total learning experience. 

After all in life people come and go circumstances change but they are all on purpose. That purpose is to teach you. To help you grow. Develop. Evolve. 

well here is an image of asos, its quite expensive to run but in reality with the sales, it actually pays for itself, if i didn't spend the money before it was due to come out.

my blog

if you cannot tell already, i LOVE fashion design.
i also LOVE sarcasm.

i run a blog, i review beauty products such as hair protein masks, and i explain how to make antique rustic indian effect wooden frames alongside telling you how to curl your hair without heat, not forgetting how to make perfume at home, and my latest venture floral, crystal infused bath milks.

man of many talents.

or man of many wishes, 'stevie wonder wishers'.


here is a few screen shots, i actually really enjoy this project, i have many interests, from perfumery to cosmetic making to d.i.y to baking, and i just want to share it with the world, because I'm sooooo interesting.

my website

a portal to all my online platforms, kind of like the google of nathan slate har har har…
opening this website i created a one stop experience to all my projects, here you can access my blog, my online shops or peruse my portfolio. i can't be tied down to one thing you see, i spread myself thinly because why would i want to make my life easy ey?

personal projects

i want a life where i work in my own pace not round the clock every season.
We live in a different age now where fashion is not dictated by the season, but by the person.

women can wear trousers and men can wear dresses, almost, in some places, you know what i mean!

so i decided to venture into the world of self employment!

i launched my online shop in second year of university, i spent some of my university loan investing in a website, materials, a new sewing machine.

i created www.nathanslate.co.uk

this isn't just a fashion design website, it is a portfolio.

i run a blog

three online shops

and a fashion design label.

i work hard, I'm always working!

I'm always giving up doing things that aren't going to change my life.

working for my first time in the fashion industry…

i like to tell everyone I'm always working because you gotta work to look this good!

ofcourse thats only in jest,

i started my illustrious career in the fashion industry at the age of sixteen, i snuck into a fashion show for ziad ghanem, not a clue what was going on, with my hair died bright purple and my ripped clothes on from the night before.

I'm sitting here typing this listening to eva cassidy, how times have changed!

i snuck into the show, we was on a day out in london and had a friend modelling in the show we turned up, looked cool got asked to come through this way, and we was standing in my first ever fashion show.

the after party was held at the same venue, beach blanket babylon i believe.

i spoke with a  few people their networking is what they fashion people call it, i just call it talking.

i met ziad the designer, i said i loved his work, even though i hadn't a clue about most of it.

i asked him if he needed any help, he asked me to come to his studio with my portfolio.

all that jazz happened two week later i was his studio assistant, running clothes to different people across london, lugging rolls of fabric on the underground.
buying bottles of wine after the day to sit and eat home cooked lebonese food at his home with his other employees!

this was all fun i had fashion week i worked i got bored i left.

its kind of my story with fashion really, you'll see what i mean in future posts.

my second time working in the fashion industry

illustrious, i told you.

my fashion life eh.

okay so i ended working for ziad,, something about him sending me home because he said i looked unwell… i went home, well sort of, i went to my friends house, i went to my friends house and we went out, i text ziad some general conversation, he asked why i was out if i was sent home unwell, i explained he sent me home i didn't want to go home, he asked me not to come back.

he apologised the next day and the earth kept revolving.

second shot, i Facebook message a designer by the name of stefan orschel read.

a menswear designer, he replies asks me to come meet him. 

i go out the night before this meeting with my friends from london, not friends anymore, as i said, i gave up becomes a constant thing.

well i go out, i party, i dance, i knock over some irate englishmens drink and pretend to be foreign so i didn't have to buy him another drink, i dance some more, i end up on a night bus, i tell a girl i love her shoes, she tells me she has to get off the bus soon as she lives in an amazing place, that place is where i am going the next day, strange she lived with the designer!

well the next day came i show the designer my fashion moves, i get the job, i work i play and i was lent the leigh bowery dvd from the stefan, i sew'd some jackets, i tailored some trousers, i styled some photoshoots, i done some lunch runs, its all fabulous.

i have a good few months with stefan, work play work play.

i break up with my then partner, i stop working for stefan because my heart was broken, or something along those lines.

the world still kept revolving!

my third time in the fashion industry

third time lucky right?

this time I'm at university studying my first year of university, pretending to know everything, wearing black, dressed like some gothic elf, as you do in your first year of university. who was i!

i have friends you see, well i have acquaintances in places. 

hoes in different area codes as ludacris put it once.

i begin working as a designer at boy london. every saturday and sometimes during the week.

i go into the basement of sick on red church street off brick lane, near shoreditch, next to some graffiti of the illuminati and a triangle etched into the bus stop with a  man with a moustache and a beard with his jeans rolled up and a tattoo on his neck. get my drift. it was east london whoop whoop!

i begin working for boy london, with stephane raynor working the till and me and two german girls working downstairs making outfits out of boy printed jersey, selling them in sick.

working on rihannas' jonathan ross ensemble, and nick minaj's boy barbie dress.

i stayed there for a couple of months it was fun, i got to dress up and meet some really interesting people.

it eventually grew thin, sewing for someone else's brand.

i remember taking remnants of material, sewing bandanas and shorts and vests out of the remnants selling them on ebay, getting money, i think that might of been illegal, but i guess it was only going in the bin anyway±

i sewed some more and eventually gave up.

the world was turning quicker, something was coming my way.

competition

i have chosen the seat by mango competition.
a competition to design an accessory for cars, i chose this so i could expand on my knowledge of fashion design, delve a bit deeper into this world, as fashion design ultimately is about selling perfumes and scarves right? haha
i chose this to challenge myself or to break away from my final collection.
i have recently been training myself in crystal healing.

with an emphasis on amethyst as a strong crystal in the "radio waves are bad for you kind of sense"
- amethyst helps breakdown negative energy and focus your mind and soul on positivity.
its a stone that brings health and security.
i decided to imply the notion of amethyst in a print design.
after all the number of people injured on the roads in the uk in 2012 was 195,723
so i thought id add a bit of spiritual safety to each seat!

here is the mood board, showing examples of crystals 

here are the final designs as we only had a select pantone colours to choose from i obviously chose black and white, it wouldn't be 'SLATE' unless it was monotone.

here are the final designs, showcasing a monotone palette and a graphic crystal print.

emulating the city scape, just as the brief ordered, design for the city for an urban woman.  

i missed the deadline, something i need to work on, my timing!

 which you will find more about as i post more to this blog!