Week 5 - Dress 2

Material : Purple Polyester Chiffon 

Cost Per Meter : £2.50

Amount Used : 2m (additional red chiffon needed)

Sourced From : ????????????????

To completely contrast to previous weeks for this dress using chiffon was something totally new. Hearing from other groups in previous weeks that have used the same material they said that it was a pain to work with and you cant force it to do something that it dosent want to do. Bearing this in mind i completely scrapped the pattern i had created as it would have been fidely and frustrating to make. I opted to not use a pattern at all, which i was apprehensive about as it was like taking my comfort blanket away. I played with the drapes it created and the use of cutting on the bias to increase movement.

The above picture really shows well my "tying" method where i draped the material over a stand then slashed it to create strips of material that i then tied together like a friendship bracelet but on a larger scale to create this mesh effect. I was planning to create a whole dress using this method but it was deceiving at how much the fabric shrunk so i opted to just do a small section and make it a feature.

As i run out of the purple chiffon, i had to add in another section of red chiffon that i had in my fabric bin and i sewed it along the 2 raw side seams and then attached it up to the mesh section for 1 dramatic cascading drape. Because its sewn on the bias it drapes and folds beautifully and when in motion the wind gets trapped in it like a parachute.

In terms of fashionability i do think this could be desirable if the seams were properly finished off and a slip underneath was sewn in. 

I found it particularly hard to attache a zip in as it kept slipping around. But since doing it i found out that you can use paper to stop the slippage which i will try next time.

The images above show the stages from start to finish of the mesh section at the back/front.