Dear Phyllis Dietrichson (c/o Barbera Stanwyck) (Dress 130)

Dear Phyllis,

In high school I studied your film Double Indemnity, an intense and visually gorgeous Film Noir, tagline: From the moment they met it was murder!

(image credit)
Nothing sticks from the student of Film Noir like the good ol' Venetian Blinds trick, signifying mixed emotions and internal crisis...

In honor of Phyllis, queen of mixed signals and the tiny touches that make an outfit complete (remember... this is the 1940s, when sexual repression meant an anklet was the height of titilation!)

A dress fit for a murderous widow; hand-painted, each dress is individually 'shadowpainted'. White dresses are made, and then put on plastic-covered dress forms, each dress is taken to a white room where a light is shone through a filter that imitates venetian blinds- the dress is then hand-inked at a particular angle and with a unique light focus (some dresses would be sharp focus, meaning that the light is close to the blinds and very bright, or soft focus is achieved by soft light a distance from the blinds.)

All my love,
IP

Dear Metro (Dress 119)

Dear Metro,
you don't deserve a dress.
Why?
'Cause you royally suck.
But who else am I going to dedicate a Train-based dress to?
XO
IP

Dear Half-Way Mark (Dresses 102-111)

Dear Half-Way Mark,
You're killing me.
Honestly!




I) flat metal cutlery on a mesh strap. dress is white linen (like tablecloths at a nice restaurant)
also comes in chequered red and white and with a white napkin under the cutlery.



II) flat copper studs on a red dress, or black? opaque crepe.











III) wire reinforced hood in greyblue crepe on a grey crepe dress










IV) as inspired by PonyRider Bedspread







V) orange peeling. cottown with wire reinforcement and ribbon 'zest'









VI) linen and handmade matching buttons








VII) white opaque crepe with mesh windows








VIII) White cotton with fine ribbon over a reinforced hole .









IX) reinforced mesh shoulders and mesh panel








X) brown opaque crepe around the neck, covered in a crepe halter, cotton underlay under the major part of the dress printed with the message scroll.


All my love,
IP.

Dearest New Pillow (Dress 72)

Dearest New Pillow,
I miss you.

I also miss blogging on time.
I promise i'm doing them on time! Just not posting them...
xoxo

Dear Tokyo (Dress 60)

Dearest Tokyo,
My dad spent some time with you in 2008 while I was doing my performance exams for year 12. He had a wonderful time and brought back an array of the wonderful and the bizarre- a particular favourite of mine is the prized (and yet unopened) glow-in-the-dark-masking-tape. Off that prompt he bought some glow-in-the-dark-resin components last month- we did some trials (it looks amazing!) and since i've been thinking of ways to introduce neon into clothes without being 80's/8 years old.

All my love,

To the Young Queen Elizabeth II (Dress 53)

To the young QEII,
It seems inappropriate to write 'dear' on a blog to the young figure of the queen. But I started using the fountain pen nibs I mentioned earlier and designing a dress for the incredible figure of QEII in her early twenties (as set out by this article in the Telegraph) seemed the right thing to do on a train back from the middle of no-where whilst frightning youths looked at me strangely as I tried to stop the ink bottle spilling...

(Dress Specs: Silk with tulle petticoats and corset reinforcement.)

All my love,

Dear Monfash (Dress 50)

Dearest Monfash,
Run by the lovely Benny, you're a record of the interesting, the surprising and the just plain crazy fashion my fellow uni students get away with. Seeing what you pick from the melting pot of clashing styles makes me look more broadly across the campus. I found that the day-to-day fashion which most fascinates me is the more simple, well tailored designs with small pockets of detail or bright colour.

(Dress Specs: Each dark section is a continuation of the light section above it- folded over on the base line, showing the lining,- then it is tacked up, pressed into place, and the next light section is pieced in underneath it. Cotton with satin tartan lining.)
All my love,

Dear Olive/r (Dress 43)

Dearest Olive/r,
You're going to be born pretty soon i expect, no more than a month a way for sure- your mum looks like she's going to get pretty sick of lugging you around for so darn long. But I know the next li'l while is going to be insane (good god it already is.) so I thought i'd make you a little something early, and give it to your mum and dad to take into the hospital with them when you decide to make the grande arrival- it's going to be a bunny, of sorts, made from a pattern sourced at Hazlenuts. Having made four bunnies in the last two days, all I can see is rabbit ears swimming infront of my eyes, which may explain this:

Cotton with piping- pieced.

All my love,

Dear High School,

Dear High School,
It's getting to that time of year when (at my old high school) we used to hotly anticipate the end-of term; seeing as Melbourne gets goshdarned cold around now. We used to have our knees nocking in those silly cotton shifts they made us wear, and waiting for the day when we could turn over our uniforms to the loveliness of pleated winter. Whilst there isn't much love in my heart for the silliness of christmas-coloured-skirts; there is particular fodness left for pleating. I think evenly-spaced pleats is wasting their potential.

(Dress specs: Cotton-Wool blend, with each pleat sprayed with a light edging in grey to give them extra definition.)

All my love,

Dear Vitamin E cream (dress 35)

Dear Vitamin E cream,
You're apparently awesome for scars; and since my legs got busted up rather wickedly last december when I went to the dead sea on insanely squelchy sinking mud (now with added scratchy salt crystals) I thought i'd do something about it; and hell knows if it does my legs any good- it certainly makes them feel awesome. Which got me thiking about textures and such, and thence came today's dress:

Not the easiest dress to draw, although i'll admit I botched it up pretty wicked. Something along the lines of either: low viscosity fabric paint sprayed in four layers- first goes from top to bottom, second from top to just below the knee, third from top to mid-thigh, and fourth layer ends at the upper thigh. That; or it's four layers of very faint grey-black mesh.

All my love,

Dearest Melbourne Weather (Dress 33)

Dearest Melbourne Weather,
This week has been good to Imprint-by-ip- we got our first follower; and we finished our first month of dresses. Almost all the dresses are available to vote for- I will be making the dress for March in May, so you have a month to vote. I will be making Dress 17 (Frankie) in preparation for whatever birthday celebrations I might organise- but if I get more than 40 people voting (in total) then I will make whatever dress is voted in. You might notice that I did not put all the dresses up, as between playing Ophelia and University and two jobs I don't think I will be able to perform seamstressmiracles at the same time (which is to say that the dresses left out are WAY over my sewing skills/printmaking abilities/funds availability)

However, while it's been a lovely week for IP, here in Melbourne it's been pretty crazy weatherwise- a real four seasons in a day situation- which means that you have to bring a variety of clothing; and can only venture into the land of sandals and boots in very small windows of time (very middle of summer and winter respectively) it means that jackets must be lightweight (for when you eventually have to carry them) and tee shirts must be of a cut that does not look silly if you wear another shirt over it. It means that umbrellas in interesting prints that are small enough to be reasonably travelable are in high demand (and therefore far too expensive) and that is why:

(Dress specs: Heavy cotton with petticoats to achieve 'bell' effect. comes with soft grey tights, a soft grey long-sleeve shirt, and an umbrella with the design of a sun and blue skies printed on it.)