Dear Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult (Dress 208-217)

Dear Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult (Day 163)

Right now is



Which is why i stuffed up for the second time in a week.

Apololololologies.

Dress I: Layers of folded matte silk reinforced to give it the sharp edge.

Dress II: The synthetic mesh is placed on a metal mannequin and then sprayed (a-la McQueen

) but instead of it being paint, the artist (not machines) sprays a variety of chemicals (each with a different colour reaction), that when coming into contact with synthetic mesh it eats away at the fabric in a three dimensional ‘ burn’ (hence the metal mannequin)













Dress III: inspired by Sydney Nolan’s paintings of Ned Kelly.

Dress IV: Spring/Autumn

Dress V: neckline is cutout of same shape as the appliquéd butterflies.

Dress VI: inspired by the art of the Mix Tape. The loop that looks like a ‘B’ is the curled ribbon/tape at the back of the halter tie.

Dress VII: fallen clock in appliqué. Halter neck dress.

Dress VIII: stone in a pool dress. Layers of mesh, beginning at the neckline and restarting at the ‘rock’

Dress IX: Himalaya dress. Hand painted silk.

Dress X: Inspired by the Eiffel-esque spire of the Melbourne arts Centre.

All my love,

Ip.



Ip.

Dear Weddings (Dresses 196-205)

Dear Weddings (Day 160),
You make people all excited and festive and optimistic. I like that, even if I find the institution a little sillygoose... Most of today’s dresses inspired by the woman on my tram who was all dolled up to go to a spring day wedding.

Dress I: Wedding Dress: silk dress with painted silk feathers)

Dress II: Bridesmaid’s Dress: comfortable cotton with a silk overlay, painted on the stomach region, petals and the central section of the flower then cut out of the dress and arranged as a corsage/hair ornament.

Dress III: Flower Girl Dress: a photographic print of petals being thrown in the air, with some already falling and a border of petals.

Dress IV: To wear to a wedding in winter: silk ‘paragliding’ sail as headband/hood with silver chain and silver bird on a black matte silk dress.

Dress V: To wear to a wedding in Autumn: Tiny panels of grey slate over a lighter grey dress with architectural grey ‘gutter’ (lace)

Dress VI: To wear to a wedding in Winter: Woolen dress with 2D scarf

Dress VII: fringing over mesh on the neck, waist and hem.

Dress VIII: Indian fabric under an elastic corset.

Dress IX: To wear to a wedding in Spring: black ribbon outline hand-painted filling on matte silk.

Dress X: perforated ‘stamp’ hem with ‘wing’ collar and buttons to below the waist.

All my love,
Ip.

Dear Florists (Dress 190)

Dearest Florist,

I always wanted to be a florist as a kid. Who could think of anything lovelier than being surrounded by flowers all day? I live not far from one of melbourne's biggest cemetaries, so there are heaps of florists in the area- and you always hear people mention on the tram (as we go past the intersection where there are THREE florists) how the only purpose of a 24hour florist is apologising for being a shit husband/boyfriend...

But then there are the 'meeting the in-laws' flowers, the anniversary-flowers, the new-nephew-flowers and (best of all) the 15-year-old-first-date-flowers. I'd love to hear all those stories:

All my love,
IP

Dear Meat Market Milliner (Dress 173)

Dear Meat-Market-Milliner,
I do not remember your name. I was very young, and spent the majority of my time toddling around my parent’s ankles at the artists’ market, a collection of odds-and-ends housed in the guts of an old meat market, big bluestone shell, honeycombed with little shops, an art bookshop, the Hungarian goldsmith with the waxed moustaches, the puppeteer who also made masks, the glassworkers, and the milliner. She’d let me into her lair, the back room where she stitched a hundred tiny flowers into the brim of a Oaks’ Day hat, or repair the crown of an old man’s fedora. There is something beautiful about the meeting point of felt and silk, waxed flowers and fruit, netting and feathers.

I was reminded of you by an article in the paper about the tiny workshops in Paris. Embroidery and Featherwork ateliers, where Lagerfeld’s creations are brought to life by little collections of old women, where young girls are introduced to the skills handed down between gossip and political debate over a workstation littered with silk chrysanthemums. What I would do to spend time photographing these women at their work.

Today’s dress is in homage to the skill of feather-pinning. The collar and embellishments are spotted turkey (?) feathers.
All my love,
IP

Dear Flo's 20th (Dresses 153-162)

Dear Flo's 20th
You were MAD. So I forgot to dress. Sorry!

Not Braille, but dice! Same technique 'though.

This dress has printed hands- but real fold/pleats in the fabric.

White Picket belt.

Yes. That is a bycicle wheel. Don't judge me. It's recycling! Even if it's not terribly physically possible.

I wanted to film my first short film in a spiral staircase, needless to say the story I wanted to shoot was too morbid and involved far too many Special Effects. The script is somewhere on my computer 'though, and I might go looking for it to have one of those awkward 'wasn't I strange' nostalgia trips.

Flo's artwork for her party was very macabre. I liked it- but that sort of things rather sticks in your mind.

 I remember my best friend's mum planting sunflowers. There is no happier plant.

This is in no way a cross-promotion with my workplace. I just like stamps.

Odd little beaded/bunched thing. The idea is there bur the drawing is attrocious.

Simple and (to be honest) kind of boring shirt/dress contraption with tiered collars. Oops.

All my love,
IP

Dear Ikea (Dress 96)

Dearest Ikea,

I've never actually been to an Ikea store- as much as I lust after the catalogues, I'm never sure my bank balance could take it. I've bought a few things second hand to realise they were Ikea, among them the FÄRM vase...

I've always loved the lines on this, and i'd love to replicate them in a dress- generous pleats in heavy linen.
I'm thinking of re-doing the signature, it's too big and clunky, so look out for something new- same design, but smaller and sleeker
(Also: apologies for posting a day late: 3,000 word essay meant the dress was designed, but not inked or coloured.)

All my love

IP.

Dear Valentine's Day (Dress 73)

Dear Valentines Day,

In my attempt to make you an exercize in affection and not a work out for my bank account last year I made about one hundred paper roses and covered the house I was housesitting with my boyfriend (at the time). I went Massively overboard, ah; the follies of youth!
I still love making paper roses, and last night, wonderng how they would look in reinforced fabric, I came up with this:
(creme brown lattice, with green mesh inbetween, dark brown ribbon for the 'rosebush' and burgundy rose at the top left. I'll ink the drawing and colour it later Dress 71 has been inked! go check it out.)
All my love,

Dear Ophelia (Dress 62)

Dear Ophelia,
I'm playing you in a production at uni, it's a slightly surreal production (when is Hamlet not?) and I'm really enjoying the rehearsal process- we're on in a week, so I will be really proud of myself if I manage to keep up the daily uploads- I'll still be designing every day, but the show finishes at 9.30 or thereabouts, which means I'll be home really late- and uploading may not happen on the day... We'll see....
We're not using real flowers in my biggest scene, the logistics of winter/isolated performance venue make it impossible, but if we were I would like to make a dress like this one for that scene.

(Dress Specs: Stamped silk-cotton blend.)

All my love,

Dear Chekhov (Dress 16)

Dearest Chekhov,
You're REMARKABLY boring. It does not help that the lecturer looks like a marine biologist. Maybe next tuesday you'll get a dress with a turtle print or lizard scales or something. It would not surprise me: anything to distract myself from the brain-corroding boredom of this class.
I'm not particularly pleased with how today's dress turned out- it was meant to be more opulent and ridiculous, but I think i'm saving that for something Mcqueenesque and/or Baroque in the coming week.

Costume for one of his silly-girl characters. The upper portion of the flower is held in place with a choker-style ribbon tie. Muslin and Silk.

All my love,