The final project for our Creative Technical Studio class was to design a conceptual dress with a focus on its understructure, and how it supports the outside of the garment. Given it was another conceptual piece, I truly was inspired to design something that was in the range of the assignment, therefore focusing on a more avant garde design. Here are some images of my sketchbook where I jotted down the very first idea i had for this garment:
For some reason, I had the idea of “bows” in my mind, so I was automatically drawn to that concept. As you can see, my original design consisted of a mini dress under this removable skirt. Through out the technical process, my design changed, but the previous idea of a mini dress with a removable skirt remained the same, because i truly wanted to stick with the idea of being versatile and wear my garment in many different ways, which i’m very glad I did stick to that idea!
Here is a snap of my sketchbook where you can see how my design changed from the original idea, but the basis somewhat remained the same:
As you can see, I changed the neckline to a very classic one, removed the sleeve, and decided to make a neck piece to compliment the look and in a way, complete the entire garment. Both the neck piece and the skirt can be removed, so the person wearing the garment would have choice of simply wearing the mini dress by itself, or with the other items! Again, I really wanted to incorporate the idea of versatility in this project, so creating something conceptual that can be personalized by whoever is wearing it! What I mean by this is that you can play around with the neck piece and change the way it looks, which you will be able to see further with the final photos of my garment. I decided to use wire because i love the way wire works and looks. I wanted to contrast the idea of ‘rough’ vs something ‘cute’ and ‘sweet’ (which are the two main words that come to mind when I think of a ‘bow’). As a designer in general, not only fashion, I simply love focusing on contrast. I believe contrast has such a strong power in the world of design and can make some powerful statements, both visually and meaningfully. So for this garment, I purposely used wire not just for support as the understructure, but because it compliments my entire concept for this final project.
F A B R I C S
C O N S T R U C T I O N
I began working on the muslin of this design, and it was really simple because it was mainly a bodice and a skirt, and once i had that done I began working with the fabrics straight away for the attachable skirt and neckpiece. Here are some images of that process:
once I got the mini muslin dress and made sure all the measurements were correct, notches were all matching and had no trouble with the sewing process, I was ready to start using the real fabric and start hand sewing all the detachable pieces (neck piece and skirt) and manipulating the understructure out of wire of different gages. So I used a much thicker wire for the “waist-band” and for the shape of the skirt in order for it to support the fabric that would drape on top. Here are some images: 
The back of the dress is really important to this garment. I knew from the beginning I didn’t want to use a zipper, or buttons or anything like that. So I decided to use eyelets all the way through the center back, leaving a little skin showing on the bodice. To close the dress up, I used wire to lace-up the dress, simply to complement the wire work going on through out the entire garment. Here’s some photos of me trying it out on the muslin: I didn’t use the eyelets because it was very time consuming and i knew i could carry it out with the real fabric, so i skipped that step for the muslin but all worked out perfectly well!
R E A L F A B R I C + F I N A L C O N S T R U C T I O N
Once I was happy with the muslin and the attachable piece I made, I began to work with my actual garments and starting cutting the fabrics to sew them all up:
Because the wool was pretty thick, pinning the seams was not enough. I wanted to be really accurate with the sewing and mark the stitches. So I aded a very thin interfacing just to that i’d be able to mark the piece before sewing it together:
Here are some photographs of the process of sewing the garment together. only the mini dress was sewn on an industrial machine. The detachable pieces were both hand sewn:
I began to play around with the attachable piece that was supposed to go on the waist as part of the skirt, and I simply fell in love with how amazing it looked once places around the neck! That’s when I decided that I wanted to use that for the neck piece i had yet to make. These pictures show one of the many different ways that this neck piece can be worn. To make this, i hand stitched most of it and used a lot of thin wire for the inside and gave certain areas one or two stitches so that the person who wears it can have the freedom to “mold” it however they want to. That is part of the reason of why I chose wire in the first place. Again, I wanted it to be a versatile garment, which means it can be very diverse. The wire allows it to be personalized by whoever wears it since they can shape it however they like:
I then moved onto working with wire again to create the attachable skirt:
Once I had the foundation made out of wire, I went ahead and threw on top 2 yards of the sheer fabric of my choice and began to drape and have fun with it, taking photographs of the process of how I came to terms with the skirt shape I truly enjoyed. Once I found the ideal form of the skirt i had envisioned, I went ahead and hand stitched most of the top part around the waist onto a “wire-belt” and then stitched some of the parts where it drapes to give the skirt volume. I did this so that the fabric wouldn’t fall from on top of the wire:
In the end, I decided that I liked this shape for the detachable skirt:
After spending quite a long time hand sewing all the sheer fabric with wire, i went back to the mini dress to finish it completely with the eyelets. I first tested them out on a scrap piece of fabric just to have a little experience with it before jumping right in with the real fabric. Wouldn’t want to risk anything:
Suddenly I was finished! I had a little piece of fabric just laying there and decided to make a little bow to place in the front and to me, it completed the entire garment. Here are a couple photographs of my garment on the mannequin:
F I N A L P H O T O G R A P H S
BEHIND THE SCENES photos:
REFLECTION:
The final project for creative technical studio might have been one of the most stressful projects of the semester for me. Nonetheless, it was by far the one project I felt like I could truly be free and simply carry out whatever idea I had in my mind. In no time whatsoever did I feel restricted from doing what I planned on doing. I learned to simply go with my gut, and do whatever feels like rather than leaning towards what other people might think. Yes, I took many advice and suggestions, but my vision remained clear.
For this conceptual dress, I knew I wanted to play around with draping because it’s a technique I love doing, and I felt like throughout the semester most of our projects relied heavily on pattern making. So I automatically knew I wanted to do that. Also, for some reason I really wanted to play with the idea of versatility, and being able to wear a garment in various different ways/styles. As I kept thinking about this concept I came up with the idea of make attachable pieces to it; the neck piece and the skirt. So, one could easily wear the mini dress by itself, or play around with the other two pieces that come along with it to create something of their own taste, making it a lot more personalized and diverse.
In terms of difficulties, I struggled a little bit with maintaining a consistent thought / idea. My original concept stuck throughout the entire process and my design still remained very similar to my original sketch. Nonetheless, the more I worked on the dress, the more ideas I started to have and I was feeling extremely overwhelmed, but in the best way possible. It gave me a clear vision of how the dress should be, rather than how I had sketched it out. I went with the flow, and couldn’t have been happier with the result!
I did a lot of hand sewing, which is not my strongest area, so I focused on that simply to get out of the comfort of an industrial machine. It took endless hours, but I loved the outcome of the sheer fabric with the wire. A beautiful, soft contrast between the two.
Yes, it was a stressful project and overwhelming at times, but in the end it is always worth it. I feel like after every project in this creative tech class, I’m finding out more about what areas of fashion I’m interested in. For instance, I LOVE that all of our projects were conceptual. Something about designing conceptually through the fashion design lens gives me so many opportunities to be as creative as I can be. I truly try my best to always think a little outside the box, and create something that could maybe have the potential to shock people a little. At least that is what I aspire to do.
Despite the stress, I really enjoyed the assignment, and really appreciated the fact that it wasn’t to just “design a dress”. We really had to think about the construction and all that, which opened my eyes to all the possible things one can do with fashion design.
