Final Lined Garment

Artist Statement:

For our final assignment, we all learned how to line a garment! We were given the option to create a jacket or a dress. I took some time to think about what i’d like to make, and decided on a dress. Despite being very fascinated by learning how to construct a lined jacket, i really wanted to think about the bigger picture, and focus on where i’d like to go in the future, which is costume design. I know i focus more on gowns and i really wanted to take a step further in mastering the skills to make a perfect, clean dress. This being said, i began to have a concrete idea of how i wanted this dress to look. I’d like to mention that i am one who never sticks to a sketch. I always end up changing my mind as I am working, but for this final one, i wanted to remain truthful to this idea i had on my mind. Honestly, i am very proud of myself by the outcome of this, and i made a little video to truly portray how i see the dress. I have a strong passion towards creative direction as well, so i always take my projects a little further and style the garments properly, find the perfect locations to shoot, and film a short clip of it! For the photoshoot i wanted to really dress down the dress, so i took a friend of mine, and we just had a lot of fun running around Williamsburg and shooting with her wearing sneakers and some hoop earrings. I am really proud of this final garment i made, and I really wanted to focus on how i would present it to the public, hence the video and photoshoot!

P R O C E S S

My garment basically consists of two dresses put together, and they can be worn as one or each piece individually. I began to drape the fitted form i really wanted for the first layer, and from that i went on to create a pattern for it and sewn it together in muslin. Creating the muslin version really really REALLY helped me out on this one. It allowed me to make some pretty significant changes in the patterns and make everything a lot better and more accurate for the real fabric. Here are some photos of this process:

FABRIC MANIPULATION

For my junior year, i chose going into the manipulation studios because i feel like there is so much one can do in so many different ways in terms of manipulating fabric. I love hand-on work, so i really wanted to try out fabric manipulation for this final, as a nice transition into what i will be focusing on next school year!

So, once i had all the patterns checked, notched, and properly labeled, i went on to swatching and figuring out what i would do with the manipulation side of this project. I am a huge fan of playing around with colors, patterns, prints and textures and figuring out a way to make them look cohesive and very appealing to the eye. Straight away i was gravitated by this beautiful copper organza that had a slight deep blue reflection, and this gridded, thick, wool-like fabric. I feel like they work beautifully together and loved the end result. For the manipulation side of this, I decided to hand felt the organza, and it gave me this very rugged looking effect, which i absolutely fell in love with. I hand felted the entire top of the gown and a large amount of the skirt. Keep in mind the yardage used for the organza was 7 yards…so yes, it took me ages to hand felt it, but it was very pleasing to see the results coming together! Here as some photos and a short clip showing the process:

A CHANGE IN THE PATTERN

So one of the changes I made in the pattern was to remove the big pleat I originally had put in. The reason why I removed it was not because it didn’t work, it was simply because i was thinking ahead about the lining, and it would be much simpler to attach it if the pleat wasn’t there. So here are some fotos showing the step by step of correcting this pattern piece:

MAKING THE PATTERNS FOR THE FACING

So once the pattern of the base of the dress was perfect, i went ahead and drafted the patterns of the facing:

FIXING THE PATTER OF THE BACK FACING

So after going to class and showing my professor my patterns for the facing, she let me know that for the back facing, i should include a larger area that would cover and support the opening of the skirt ( eyelets 7 inches down ). So in class, i went back into drafting mode and corrected the back facing of the skirt: