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 Ms Baulch (Dress 174)

Dear Ms Baulch,
You were my art teacher at high school- doing your very best to coax any artistic skill out of girls who took the subject out of laziness, and gently pushing those girls who genuinely loved the subject out of their comfort zones. In year ten I did my final (an exercise in pattern and oil pastel) on bats- a capture of my childhood, sitting in the moonlight cinema at the botanical gardens, as hundreds of fruit bats wheeled above, diving at the flickering lights. This dress comes first as birds (but is available in batman print as well)
All my love,
IP

Dear Antoine (Dress 116)

Dear Antoine,

Your book was a central influence on my childhood, now, as it gets cold, I remember snuggling up in my cushion corner (I made one every winter next to the heater for reading) and reading the hours away. Your story entranced me, and enchants me still.

The dress is cotton dyed yellow with light blue printing.

All my love,

IP

Dear Kishkoosh (Dress 113)

Dearest Kishkoosh,
You were my mum's pet really, she absolutely adored you- clever and beautiful, and a lovely creature. I was so young that I was frightened of you- you were this big bird with a powerful beak and you didn't like me because I moved so quickly that I frightened you. Silliness. I realised how much a part of our family you were when the next-door-neighbours' dog killed you. I remember when my dad came to school to tell me- still shaking- he held you while you passed and buried you himself.
When Annie (my ex-drama teacher, and family friend) brought Charlie to us I felt like it was a chance to start fresh- but that didn't work out, because he hated men and kept trying to bite my Father.

I still think maybe one day I'll get my mum another Cockatoo- I know she misses you.

(Inked linen with a satin lining to structure it.)
All my love,
IP

Dear After (Dress 94)

Dearest After,

What a lovely shop- a pity I couldn't afford to stay much longer, I had to go home and do homework (blarg).

But I did come out with these:

I then proceeded to experiment:

Feathers from my found-rainbow-lorikeet-feathers-stash:

Making springs:

Peacock Feathers:

Parts salvaged from a phone:

Nail-Polished-Painted Springs:

And, magically (I have NO idea how this happened. I mean, I meant to make something swirly, but this is very Wizard-of-Oz tornadoesque.)

So, from the springs came a 'lightbulb' dress:

Sorry for the late post,

(I'm not going to post the signature, because this post is so picture heavy,)

IP.

Dear 13/5/10 (Dresses 74-83)

Dear 13/5/2010,
You were too much for me. I didn't manage to do my dress, so I designed 10 today as penance,
We good now?

Stencils of birds with grey 'shadow' stencils underneath.










Structured heavy silk with appliqued ribbon 'clock'











Dyed black cotton with 'blocked' sections










Either lines on the dress, or the paths on which fringing follows











Black diamonds are satin, white is matte.










Elastic with corsetry style reinforcement. The 'garter' sections have a buckle, as does the neck buckle



My favourite of today's inventions- a la the Hermes shorts, 'I love' is spelt in belt loops, and on the back of the dress there are buttons that also serve as dotpoints. The dress comes with a letter stencil and fabric paint.







Top section in strong upholstry fabric, same colour as the base section, done in many layers of crepe. (the lines represent folds in the crepe)








Soft Polyester held on with elastic, heavier weight trousers, with crepe sides.

Cotton with buttons and an elastic waist-band-area

All my love

Dear Tiny Blue Hummingbird (Dress 52)

Dear Tiny Blue Hummingbird,
You hovered outside the window that one morning in Israel when I needed something beautiful to cheer me up. And then again in my dreams last night- you, the young kingfisher who got stuck in my parent's studio one day and who took a remarkably long time to be coerced outside, my great-aunt's grey parrot (surprisingly vicious) and Charlie, the paranoid cockatoo, who I fell in love with, but could not keep (he hated men, and pecked at the feet of any available)

(Dress specs: cotton with a hand-painted tree, comes with 30 fabric leaves (two sided), ten blue fabric flowers, and a hummingbird brooch.)
All my love,

Dear John Gould(Dress 13)

Dearest John Gould,

I first experienced your research into birds when friends of the family, emptying out a warehouse they'd just bought, came upon a tattered, watermarked copy of your 'Birds of Australia' (I'm not sure which volume)

(Image credit: National Library of Australia Archives.)

The pages were stuck together and yellowed with age, but I remember gazing with some awe at the faded drawings (meticulous and strangely pretty- your wife's hand.). Today's dress would be printed with a pattern borrowed from those same meticulous drawings: perhaps a tawny frogmouth?

-Black heavy cotton, with a printed fine mesh back/capelet/ruff (all one piece.)-

All my love,

P.S. Sorry for the dreadful image res. I'm at the bf's house, will re-post later.