Dear Reader (This month's dresses!)

Dearest Reader,
The dresses up for voting this month are
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 102) Knife and Fork
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 105) Patches of Text
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 106) Orange Peeled
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 107) Spats Dress
Dear Half Way Mark (Dress 108) Quoted Cleavage
Dear Ilana (Dress 114) Strawberries and Cream
Dear Antoine (Dress 116) Le Petit Prince
Dear Koko Black (Dress 117) Nom Nom Nom
Dear Safta Haya (Dress 118) Copper and Midnight
Dear Metro (Dress 119) Tracks and Tunnel
Dear City Hatters (Dress 121) Top Hat and Macaw
Dear Darryl (Dress 122) Pallette
Dear Tom n' Jess (Dress 123) Vase/Face
Dear Alice (Dress 124) Carrots
Dear Dad (Dress 127) Space Invaders Arr.
Dear 1980's (Dress 129) Mirror Image Collar
Dear 365ers (Dress 131) Ruled Margins
Dear Collectors Everywhere (Dress 133) Film Trimmings
Dear Renault (Dress 134) Grille'd
Dear Scrabble (Dress 136) Seven Buhbillion Letter Score
Dear Dianna Wynne-Jones (Dress 137) Backless with Torq
Dear Pentel (Dress 138) Graphite 1920s

Vote well! Vote often! Vote wisely!
And please invite your friends to participate, the more votes the merrier!
All my love,
IP

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.)

Dear Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin (Dress 11)

Dear Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin,
One of you, I think is hilarious. The other- not so much (could have something to do with the cruel and unusual massacre of one of my favourite plays ever... Cruelty to Rostand: IP says no.)
My point: 1/2 awesome, 1/2 awful, to the power of Academy Awards= pure butt-kissing-hollywood-schmoozing-BOREDOM. We get that Meryl's amazing. We get that you hate Zac Efron and Whatsisface Lautner because they're youthful. We get that ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE who got nominated needed to be mentioned and fauxcomplimented... Even Neil Patrick Harris, song and dancemeister extrordinaire was boring. How is that possible?
But it gave me time to look at the pretty dresses, and the bending motion of the song-and-dance number Vegas Showgirls' fans inspired the corset-boning in the back of this dress.

Off the shoulder burgundy crepe with architectural (metal) boning to enhance the curve of the back.
Now: Alec, man up. Stick with 30 Rock, that's your forte.
All my love,

Dear Bree (Dress 10)

Dear Bree,
You were wearing a lovely pinafore at uni the other day, and it got me thinking about that lovely cut, and a whole lot of vintage-thrifting-blog-reading got me thinking about oversized bakelite buttons...
Ta Da!

All my love,

Dearest Ovid/Ted Hughes (Dress 9)

Dearest Ovid/Ted Hughes,

I was reading your short story (from Metamorphasis) about the abduction and Rape of Proserpina and the mental image of 'She was heaping the folds of her dress with flowers' meant that all day my ideas involved grecian inspired dresses and using Kansashi Flowers (Japanese fabric flowers) to 'spill' flowers down the front.

This is a two-tier meshy material dress, with full circle skirts and piping on the bottom hem to accentuate the fullness of the skirts. There is a headband attatchment that has a ribbon (possibly wire-structured?) to 'spill' the Kanzashi through the hair. below the bust (the two lines of flowers from left and right that meet in the middle) are attatched directly to the dress.

Kansashi are an AMAZING artform, really delicate and pretty- but fiddly and difficult to make. I'm yet to perfect it, but I plan to do some serious folding in the next little while.

Vivcore has a phenomenal resource page where she posts the extreme old-school Kanzashi she makes:

The occasional Pop-Inspired arrangement:

And tutorials, with step-by-step photos.

Hurrah!

(Tutorials FTW. Some tutorials planned for ImPrint in the next little while.)

All my love,

Dear Melbourne Weather,

Dear Melbourne Weather,

You're crazy and wild and wonderful. And when I saw piles of golf-ball sized hailstones piled up against the RMIT facade I knew you'd pop up in my designs at some point this week. All mixed in with the sweet pollockequeness of this exhibition by Julia Chiang:

(via designboom)

Comes on cotton, and could be done in particular colour groups (autumny colours, pastels, straight blues etc.)

Goodnight,
All my love,

Dearest Sean Ellis (Dress 4)

Dearest Sean Ellis,

There was this girl walking through the university in a pretty green and white polkadotted dress, and suddenly there sprang to mind this image, Sean Biggerstaff leaning on a freezer, staring, one arm propped up; as a galaxy of frozen peas melt at his feet.
(Cashback, Sean Ellis 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTG7u1R6cUQ&feature=related
(See 1:50-2:05 in particular)
So gather the spots on your dress pretty girl, and you can have a galaxy of peas:
All my love,

Dearest Philip, (A New Project)

Dear Philip,

It’s been four years since LiveJournal spotlight brought your ‘2006: A year of giving flowers to people’ project to my attention. It’s been a little while since then, and we have weathered the storms of the years (your blog is the only thing that has survived the shifts in my internet-content consumption). You travel all over the world, changing it intimately, and documenting it with gentle candour. I think it’s marvellous.

2005 started the projects, when you documented each day with two lines of iambic pentameter. 2006 was the start of your interactions with strangers, giving a flower to a different person every day of the year. 2007’s spiritual journey into the life of the saints was both serious, and silly, and marvellous in every way. 2008 harked back to the public interaction of 2006, with you following a different person every day and seeing where it led you. 2009 brought strangeness, silliness, and silver stars, as you altered a lemon in a different way every day:

In the present project, you are kissing a different person on the lips every day. For me, it is a gentle dialogue about the nature of intimacy, and both your most ambitious, and most interesting work yet.

In the same vein, I have been inspired to use this kind of motivational tool to commit myself to broadening my creative horizons.

From March 1^st, 2010, until February 28^th 2011, I intend to design a unique dress, every day. Each month, I will make the most well received dress. The intention is not only to keep my creative mind ticking, but to experiment with new approaches to design- taking inspiration from as many sources as possible, and seeing (and documenting) the elements of the day that have culminated in that design. For example, Fridays, when I have work, will most probably be influenced by the indie designs I see on most of the customers, peppered with the Haute Couture elements I pick up from reading magazines in the slow-periods. Mondays, when I have a full schedule of theatre classes, will no doubt include costume elements, and will be substantially more practical for long-term wear.

Thankyou Thiel, for the interesting reading, and the inspiration,

(Check him out at: http://thiel.livejournal.com/ )

All my love,

xox

IP.