Creating the Vivian dress. The journey from idea to reality
Inspired by my love for Hollywood glamour and bold contrasting visuals, I did a quick sketch of the idea on a pre-sketched body figure template I bought years ago on Amazon.
At the time I didn’t think much about the fabric, colour or how the garment would be constructed. I just had a drawing of a dress that was in my head that I like the look of. Then I hit a brick wall. I wanted to get my manufacturer to create a sample, but I needed to decide what fabric would be suitable to the design, how do I want the dress to feel against the body, and what would the person wearing the dress be doing while wearing the dress.
What contrasting colours would work well with the dimensions and proportions of the dress? So, I decided to seek to use silk velvet because I associate silk velvet with luxury, glamour, sensuality, opulence, and royalty and therefore it’s a strong, high-quality material. Then my emerald green tartan checked mid-length bodycon dress with a sweetheart neckline, spaghetti straps and ruching stitched detail on both sides came to my mind as a point of reference. I’ve owned this dress for several years, and no matter how many times I wear this dress I always love the feel of the smooth, soft, and plush fabric against my skin, it feels like a second skin, and of course, I feel and look like a million pounds.
Then to get the ball rolling, I needed to get my design illustrated so that my manufacturer could clearly see the design elements of the dress. So, with that said I found a fantastic fashion illustrator on Fiver.com and got him/her to transform my basic design into something more visually appealing in that it added more dimensions to the design rather than the flat drawing I had created.
I have a catalogue of all the fabrics currently supplied by Pongees a long established and reputable fabric supplier in East London, and I started researching more about the composition of velvet fabrics available and during my research to understand the construction of velvet I discovered that it is almost impossible to truly source 100% silk velvet fabric as they are so rare and so expensive to produce and hence why most are produced with a mixture of rayon or viscose. I requested some more swatches of silk velvets from another trusted supplier to compare the quality and construction of the material and colour range. Then I decided to use silk velvet with a composition of viscose and elastane.
After trolling through pages of fabric and without much luck, I decided to seek the help of my fabric supplier Eve. Eve has become my unofficial textile consultant; she has been working in the industry for several years supplying fabrics to anyone from dressmakers, costume designers, fashion brands, and individuals and after our first encounter over a year ago she is familiar with me my way of working and the way my mind works plus she is super friendly and easy to talk to. After explaining my predicament in trying to work out the best fabric to use to construct the straps to achieve the structure, I had envisioned. Eve sends over images of potential fabrics, and then I selected a few fabrics and Eve sent over the swatches.
When I received the swatch, the first fabric I selected didn’t work out, I thought I would get the fabric hand pleated by amazing hand pleating company in Potters Bar, it was sun-ray pleated but the fabric could not hold the weight of the dress, then I had to go back to the drawing board as I could not transmit the image I had in my head into something tangible so I started researching the history of sleeves, I wanted an exaggerated strap and whilst scrolling through the images I came across the solution and with the knowledge and experience of my manufacturer she was able to construct the straps and created the volume and drama I want needed to create with the silhouette of the dress.
The first sample needed rework because although the strap construction was fit for purpose, it was still missing the volume and drama, so after my discussion with my muse and close friend Alma I decided we just needed to make the straps wider and add more volume so that it draws the eyes to the wearer’s face first.