(made from old aprons, table cloths and pillowcases)
Some of these finished photos I already shared, and I wanted now to go more into the process of how the dress was constructed/ how it magically 'appeared' - even if it grew out of my pile of fabrics quite without any design first, per se!
This was the very final stage of the dress; it sat less well with these adjustable straps, so I set them better by taking off the buttons and then sewing a neat square of stitching where the buttons had been. Then a McMA label to finish off: Making Clothing Magical Again!
These are the layers of the skirt, which are from several different garments and linen pieces. I loved piling them on like this! I was going to make a shorter dress, but adding more layers felt better and better; I just kept going until it was suitably 'frufru' 🤭😋🤗
And this was the bodice correction stage, which happened before the end; I used the front of an interestingly-embroidered T-shirt, by cutting it out and moulding it to the shape I wanted: it brought tge waist of the dress in really nicely, and allowed the frilly layers to sit their best.
Above is the moulded front sleeve of the T-shirt that I used for the bodice; pinning it so it would sit right. And below is me testing the straps on the mannequin, to see how long they should be -and seeing which undergarments would sit best under the top in particular.
And now the earlier construction of the dress: you can see the difference between the earlier forms and the final, fitted dress; this illustrates how my undesigning unfolds - feeling into the shapes, textures and structure, and tweaking to the finish-line. 💝💖
The original shape that was forming with an old apron, at the very beginning of the creative process, got a bit lost as I attached skirt to bodice - which is why I made the bodice alteration as described above.
And the very beginning; putting together some layers, and mocking up a general dress shape - which in the end changed a great deal.
