Patterning and Draping

Hooded Winter Wool Dress

Blue Day Dress

Plaid Draped Dress

Ethnic Striped Dress

This was a project consisted of creating a dress on which the plaid pattern was to be arranged in at least three different directions, similar to the dress above. I started first by playing with my chosen fabric, deciding it was a light shirting fabric that I wanted to make into an elegant dress. This was inspired by the idea of a modern take on the Shakespearian character, Lady Macbeth as I saw her. I wanted the dress to be classy but daring, in the same way that Lady Macbeth is feminine but bold in her ambition, and came up with the resulting dress. I draped it on a form and began to see the idea I envisioned emerge. The front is all one piece that has been carefully draped and pleated to create the shape I wanted. The back is also a single piece of fabric which was attached to the front sides and a marked center back zipper connected the two edges of the skirt back which was hidden beneath the excess fabric that was draped to a point connecting to the halter straps of the front.

This dress was created in an exercise wherein the stripes were to be arranged in three different directions. As a personal challenge, I wanted to try to cut as few places and still shape the dress. I didn’t know what the dress would look like when I started the project, I simply picked a fabric that spoke to me and began creating. As I played with the fabric, I knew I wanted the dress to be eclectic in style. I wanted to mold together the influences of the beautiful and exotic cultures of Eastern Indian fashion, French airiness and Japanese elegance. In the end, I had the result of a beautiful wrap dress. It has no seams whatsoever and is constructed out of a single length of fabric. The pleated strap is sewn to the front bodice of the dress and each pleat has been carefully tacked throughout dress to keep its shape. The pleats from the front continue around to the back of the dress and are folded at the point, turning up on the under belt which hooks onto a bar and connects to the other side of the dress. At the top of the right side of the bodice, the pleats stop and give way to the draped folds of fabric which connect to the other side, creating the pleated strap. The extra fabric was then centered and tacked artfully under the pleated point of the skirt belt.

This was a project I completed For my patterning class. I designed it as a winter dress based off of a modern take on the medieval fashions made modern with the use of color blocking. I wanted the lining to stand out rather than blend and so decided on making it silver.

This dress was made for a project where we were given the assignment of creating a day dress based off of a design that we had drawn out. While the thin cheese cloth like fabric created many difficulties during the construction with its stretching on the bias in the end It came out as a beautiful finished product which was both light and airy flowing around the wearer beautifully.