week 10- Final Garment- Space Age Dress

The final week's garment was up to the choice of the students, in aspects of fabric and design selection. We had to recreate a garment including ideas of a garment we did in the last weeks. I chose to continue with the curve-geometric features of last week's trousers and make a space futuristic dress but with references to the 60's space age fashion that designers like Andre Courrages, Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne did. Those designers used polyester and PVC fabrics and so did I in order to keep the trend in it's original roots!

I started with the basic block for blouse, increasing the lines down do create a dress pattern. For the back I sliced the piece in the middle and opened the angle in order to add volume. Then I seperated the block in 3 pieces with curved.

I cut the pieces and for the back I sewed 4 diagonal pieces of silver polyester and 3 pieces of elastic, vertical to the first. For the middle piece I continued with the feature of the last week, so with the curves. It looked like an alien spine!!!

For the sleeve I followed the instructions of the book ' Pattern Magic' by Tokomo Nakamichi, Page 40-41.

[ Nakamichi., T(2005). Pattern Magic.Tokyo-Japan. Laurence King.]

This was my pattern.

For the front piece I continued with the same curves in the middle and added a clear PVC pocket on the bottom and a placket with buttons on the top middle.

I finally stitched my two pieces together and added the sleeves. And the dress was ready!!!

General comments about the garment:

I am very satisfied about the outcome of the last dress I made and about the results of the 10 week journey I took with this class. I compare my first skirt of week 1 to this dress of week 10 and the difference is so visible and  surprising. This garment worked really well and passed the message to the viewers and I got lots of positive comments from classmates which means that I can call this garment Fashion, as it has a unique design and its not a commercial piece of clothing, but it has lots of effort put on it and new innovative ideas.

For an opening I used buttons in the front.

I faced a lot of problems with the making of this dress even though the final piece was satisfying. First of all the material I chose to work with was so thick and difficult to sew. First I gave up but then I had to compromise and collaborate with my fabric for the best results, so I change the stitched.

Another problem I faced was that the size of the dress came out to be bigger than I planned and so the shoulders couldn't hold the weight of the dress and I had to pin it.

The fabrics I used was polyester leatherette which costed 6.50 pounds per meter- I used 2,50 meters, wool which costed 8 pounds per meter-I used 1,5 meters and silver polyester which costed 2,50pounds per meter- I used 50 cm.

All fabrics where sourced at universal textiles- Goldhawk Road.