What I found useful about my first guerilla project was that it made me research information from other areas about Sebastian Horsley.

Away from his book “Dandy In The Underworld”, I found some good readings on subjects from his online blog sebastianhorsley.typepad.com where every month he rants about his current ideas and whereabouts.

This project was beneficial because it made me very sure that I did not loath, but hated the path I was suggested to explore.

“To Swoon for Mr. Horsley,” I do in some respects… but with the exception to sexual conduct. I respect his ideals on prostitution and sex in general, and he does raise some good points of view, but they are not my morals. I like to follow the monogamist path of life rather than his polygamistic ways. I still believe in the romantic notion of love.

Like Horsley said in my interview, “Full blown Dandyism is very very rare… because you have to give up all the things that other people want to have: marriage, children, careers, possessions, happiness. All the things, incidentally, that don’t matter.” Well they do matter to me!

Maybe that’s why I swoon for him. He is a martyr. He can give up everything in life that matters the most to me. A total realist in some respects, but in my view on the other hand, a total fob.

This also shows to me that there are varying degrees of Dandyism, and that Horsley is a full-blown one.

I must say, I did not “swoon” over making the toile. The synthetic fibres of the fabrics, the sheerness and the tartiness of it made my stomach turn. The whole time I was doing this, I was thinking, “if only I had time to make a made to measure 3 piece suit in two days with all he trimmings.”

This project was beneficial as it allowed me to explore different avenues which in turn broadened my horizon. My passion was lost however. “ This is not dandyism!” I thought. “Just look at it. It’s just Kings Cross in Sydney come 7:00pm.Where is the wit, class, structure and fine cut in this? It is NOTHING!” But I suppose Horsley also sees nothing in this but a fuck.

Anyway, to get on track with things, I did realise that “swoon” was an interesting word to use with Horsley. I swoon over his ego and aesthetic, (not necessarily his morality and lifestyle to an extent).

Regardless of what he says, you can read on to find out that he just contradicted himself (like the bible).

From what I gather, he is nothing without his dress. It feeds his ego. When he is naked he is at his lowest (and usually with the aid of drugs). The chapter on his crucifixion from his biography “Dandy In The Underworld” is a good example of this.

Horsley describes the cloth when on as if Mark Bolan has come out to play with his alter ego. It is his ego I “swoon” over.

Most people know him for this. It was this ego that attracted me to him. I want my collection to display Sebastian Horsley’s alter ego. The man does not make the cloth, the cloth makes the man.

After spending some time with my tutors that supported the idea of the working woman, as well as some self reflection as to how can I push these ideas, I thought, “how can I be different, create a look that's fresh and hasn’t been done before.” Lets face it, dandyism has been done to high heaven with aesthetic. At least one person has to do it each year in a group of grad students. Maybe this prostitution look isn’t such a bad thing after all.

I warmed to the prostitution idea a lot. I lay in bed at night dreaming of mixing fetish PVC working boots with tweed, a ripped spandex dress (like in my previous drawings) with a tailored jacket. This gave me inspiration and finally an edge to the others that had dabbled in this look before! Miss Elise is in her form again, HOORAH!

In saying that, it would not have been hard to have inspiration for a collection with a muse like Horsley. His fruitful past is always a head turner with the perfect mix of love and hate. I’m just over the moon that this man is so punctual with contact. I never have to wait long for answers to any queries in regards to my collection, but then I guess it’s to be expected when it’s all about him.

On the “note of it being all about him,” I wanted to add a personal touch to my collection. I know he is obsessed with sunflowers, so I asked for an imageof his sunflower painting to work into a textile. It was this that I then drew my colour pallet from. This includes vibrant yellows, oranges, reds, with a touch of blue and green with black for my stable base colour. In April I had a meeting with Peter Hislop from the textile department at the Auckland University of Technology to arrange some digital printing of my floral textile when I am up over semester break.

My designs will be a high-end commercial collection with a tailored twist so that a woman or a man can wear them and stand out from the crowd. Much like my own style, this collection will target a market that has the class and ego to pull off such garments in the public eye on any occasion.

I am trying to get into the psyche of this man to understand him. From this I hope to better my collection on the “essence of Horsley.” I know he writes a lot about his current feelings and affairs in his blogs. It is because of this that I would like follow the method of the webblog for displaying my work. If I can use my manifesto in this same way, it might help me better understand myself and epitomise what this muse is all about. Many people might not know of this man in New Zealand, but when my collection is shown to the public, I want them to feel the same emotions I feel about Horsley, a little bit of like, a little of tart, but most of all a whole lot of narcissism!

-See my interview with Sebastian Horsley http://www.fashion.org.nz