Photoshoot of Final Garment

Here are the photos I took of my lovely pal Eleanor in my final garment around Kelham Island in Sheffield. To go with my theme of growth and decay I wanted to find derelict buildings to use as a background but any that we found just weren't accessible so instead whilst wandering around we found a wall with archways and river behind which worked really well.

For hair we went for a slicked back style, and after a failed attempt at 'glossy eye makeup' we resorted to smoky metallic eyes and a dark red lip.

 

I'm really happy with how the photoshoot turned out and I really enjoyed taking the photos - as part of this project I also produced a lookbook which will be included in the next post.

And Finally here are just a few photos in the studio of my garment on a mannequin.

 



 Em x

Sewing Ruffles and Finishing Touches

 To make the 'ruffles' to represent shrivelled/decayed flowers I started off by using gathering stitching and gathering the organza fabric with elastic, as well as pleating strips to make circular shapes but neither proved to be a success, so instead I took to pinterest to look for diy flower tutorials. I then followed a tutorial by cutting out lots of 4cm circles and sewing four folded circles to a base circle, and repeating with four more trimmed down slightly and sewn on top. After this I literally ruffled the layers and made 11 more to be sewn onto the collar and waistband.

Finally I added some beads onto the petals, tacked the petals to the bodice and voila! Here is my finished garment!

Sewing Final Garment (Part 2)

 I found sewing the insert to the bodice and petals to the waistband difficult because first of all it was very hard to get a neat finish at the point of the sweetheart neckline, and secondly because of the wire overlapping the seam, I had to sew back and forth over the wire to make sure it was held in place.

 Sewing the vent.

 

 Sewing the facing to bodice.

 

 Tacked petals to insert.

Beginning to Sew Final Garment

 Before this stage I'd already sewn the bodice and skirt, then I had to sew the petals together, cut down the seam, turn inside out, press, and sew wire next to the seam with a one toed zipper foot.

Sewing the wire into the petals was challenging because I had to bend it to the curves of the petal and make sure that the wire was as close to the seam as possible, but I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

 I also added darker brown tones to the bottom of some of the petals because some had dried lighter than others and then pinned them to the mannequin to get an idea of the placement on the waist.

 Sewing net insert seams.

Cutting and Dying Fabric for Final Garment

 I chose to use satin back dupion for the main fabric because the dress was structured and the quality of the material was suitable for my 'couture' garment.

For the petals I had to cut and dye each one individually with pigment/brusho inks and then add darker tones with acrylic paint and watercolour paint. Previous to this project I hadn't dyed fabric before so I deciced I would use this technique this time around and it proved to be time consuming but worth it in the end! I also drafting the smaller petal pattern and repeated the same steps for the five petals which would be sewn into the collar.