Dearest Pina Bauch (Dress Made 1)

Dearest Pina Bauch,
This dress was damn HARD. I've never designed and then made a dress from scratch- i'm not very happy with how it came out, but i'm just relieved it came out on time in one piece. It's really the wrong week to be making a dress- i'm stressed as hell and today has NOT been a good day, but knowing I'm carrying a product of my design in my bag is a pretty awesome feeling.

I started making the dress at about 3pm ( I think) it really did not work, and when I realised that the fabric did not stretch as much as I thought it did, and the quick-fix-remedy I tried did not work, I chucked a MASSIVE tear-fit,  drank a glass of concrete (as they say), toughened the f*** up, and started again. Bloody hell. But I managed to salvage the skirt from the old dress for the new sleeves, and even though my machine freaked out towards the end the new dress was done by 11pm. 

It fits like a hero (losing a kilo or two definately would not hurt either) as long as you don't look at the stitching on the inside. Nothing is worse than tension troubles in a machine.

These photos are even worse than the product, I'm just proving I made it, and I'll post proper photos later.

Image 1: just a plain shot of the dress hanging on my purple door. (awful, I know. I picked the colours for my room when I was 13!)

Image 2: Stretched out the sleeve so you can see the shape of it. If you look closely you can see the elastic straps.

All my love,

(And exhaustion)

IP.

Dear Suzie (Dress 57)

Dearest Suzie,
Monash University Student Theatre has a yearly artistic development festival (ADDfest). However, being so busy means I have only been able to attend a select few of the offerings -something I really regret, I've missed out on so much more the festival had to offer...- The writing debut of a dear friend of mine Izzy Roberts-Orr, a brilliant professional actor's panel, and tonight a showcase of short performance pieces, new theatrical works written, directed and acted by students, standup comedy and a amazingly gutsy and skilful burlesque performance by one of my classmates. Her costume was so stunning, so seductive whilst covering everything (albeit briefly) to reveal beautiful luxury lingerie. I wanted to design something that balanced those elements. It didn't come out in the drawing so much- I want this to be the underdress (in very stiff fabric with satin fused on top), with a ruched overlay of very fine crushed silk all over (even the crisscross section).

(Better photo tomorrow)

All my love,

IP

Dear Pina Bausch

Dearest Pina Bausch,

They talk about you with a kind of reverance I could not understand. Then they showed us this:

To perform in this dress might give the impression that one were even a fifth as electric as this remarkable artist:

(Stretch fabric, white or very pale blue- same colour elastic bands.)

All my love,