Unit 1 (C & D) Arts Events: Ballgowns Workshop/Exhibition

 In July I attended an excellent course hosted by the Victoria and Albert museum and run by the fashion designer Juliana Sissons, it lasted for three days and the aim was to create a toile for a couture ballgown. On the first day we also got a quick look around the ballgowns exhibition that was going on at the same time. You weren't aloud to take pictures of or draw any of the dresses, but I managed to sneak some quick sketches in anyway.

The exhibition gave me the inspiration I needed to come up with a design and I decided to work on something that harked back to late bustle or princess line designs of the late 1880's and the 1890's.

The design on the right is the on I finally went with

The dress is strapless, so I had to create a corset to go underneath the bodice so that it wouldn't fall down. I learned so much from that part of the course, I've always wanted to learn how to make corsets and to be shown clearly and precisely how to do it was like a dream come true. I've managed to use what I learned to make two other corsets since then (one of which I made for the silver arts challenge).
I drafted the pattern for the corset myself based on my exact measurements which means that it fits me perfectly (also means it's more comfortable), then cut it out and stitched the segments together. It was such a confidence boost to see it come together so easily. Once I'd got it stitched together I pinned it to a mannequin and began working on top of it.

I went with a draping on the stand style of designing, since I wasn't quite sure what the pattern for my dress would look like cut flat from paper this seemed the best rout to take. It's made up of -for the most part- simple shapes that I manipulated to give the right silhouette. The parts for the bodice were cut on the bias, meaning they were cut on the diagonal which is -for most fabrics- the direction that it stretches the most it. This means that the pieces will hug the form far more cleanly. Bellow you can see some of my progress in creating the dress on the mannequin. I don't know whether I'd use this method again, it was quite time consuming and I felt like I was going in circles some of the time. I can imagine some ways in which it would be useful though.

We were provided with as much material as we could possible need, which surprised me really because I think I ended up using about four or five metres of off white shot dupion silk (which is normally about £10.50 a metre in a cheap store).
After figuring out how I wanted everything to hang I made some minor adjustments and stitched the pieces I could together.
The course was so instructive and well run, and I met some really interesting people, especially the woman running it, Juliana. She was really fun to be around and wasn't afraid to give constructive criticism, but made it hardly seem like criticism at all. This course was supposed to be for adults, though with my mentality I found it suited me just fine, I saw no reason this should be restricted to just over eighteens.

Once I got it home I arranged it properly on my mannequin and took some proper pictures.

I still want to finish it, and make it out of forest green shot taffeta, it would also fit and look better once the back is laced up properly. I'm not really sure where I'd wear it, but it'd be nice to look at hanging in my room!