Dress silhouette: Baby doll

Material: Bicycle tire tube

Inspiration: Beach ball

Inspiration:

Artistic statement

Tires are inflated objects which share the same characteristics with the beach ball we used in class. However, tires have more specific functions than the beach ball, and the materials of them are totally opposite in style.

When I first thought of tires, words of industrial, masculine, movement, city, straight ahead, so on and so forth, coming to my mind. Tires are originally inflated, adding to my design and combining to a baby doll dress, it will be deflated into a plain piece or curve pieces. Inflation of the tube implies prepared situation, and deflation of the rube implies unprepared situation; plus tires indicating a living attitude of fastening and movement, the whole garment indicates the city people who live in the industrialized and developed cities , especially New York, have an independent and self-conscious attitude and ambitious, diligent, and determinate spirit.

During the process, I easily figured out the silhouette of the baby doll dress made out of the tubes using the muslin first as a draft. But the hard part is to make the bodice attached to the skirt made of stripes of tubes, which are really heavier than the bodice.I tried several ways to make the pieces together. At first, I used sewing. However, the tube is too thick to sew on that the needle is broken twice, and the material didn’t really move ahead under the sewing needle, while I need to push hard to make it continue to sew.

Then, I tried the black tape. It works at beginning, but after several times of try, the tape didn’t really strongly adhesive like I thought, some part of the tube peeled off from the piece. And the appearance of the tape out of the tube seems very unprofessional and informal.

After that, I tried sobo glue. It works at the first time, but while I was adding up the tube at the edge of the bodice, the weight gets heavier, and it can’t stand the weights. In addition, the sobo glue takes too long to dry.
So I bought the rubber glue which I should get at the first. And one thing I learned from this project is to get the right materials at the first time in order to save much time. It stays perfect and become dry in a few minutes strongly. Though it’s strongly attached, it still has a deflect which is the glue leaves much glue mark on the dress that is hard to get rid of. I tried to use hot water with a rag, it just removes slowly and toughly. Then Professor Katz recommended me nail polish remover, which was really easy and cleanly moved the extra glue.

The biggest thing I have ever learned in this project is to deal with different materials, even the recycle stuff can be converted to useful materials or a garment. The treatment to each materials are different depending on their quality, textile, thickness, density, weight, and flexibility. And I also found out the advantages of sewing, which is super clear, clean, fast, and easy. I feel very inspired and innovated from this project while I had a lot of fun.

Final picture