Fashion Rotation - Day 4

For the final day of fashion rotation we were set the project of creating a piece of clothing fully out of paper. Whether the piece of clothing be a full outfit, a dress, a skirt, a t shirt, an accessory or even a head piece. We had the entire day to create our piece and started right away.

I used some of my mock up sketches, designs and ideas that I had created the day before for some inspiration on what to make. I finally came up with the idea of creating a full dress.

I wasn't sure how I was going to go about this as I have never done textiles or fashion before, so I had to use some ingenuity and just work it out as I went along with trial and error. In my head I wanted to create a long flowing dress that would start at the shoulders and flow all the way down to the floor, but after experimenting with the paper I realised that the paper wasn't the right texture for this kind of application as it was rather rigid. Therefore I decided on the idea of creating a shorter dress, but not so short that it exposed the mannequin and would be an adequate length for a real person.

After wrapping the mannequin with a large sheet of paper I felt that it was too plain and rather boring looking. So I decided to add accessories to it.

These accessories included a belt, which was made by plaiting strips of paper together to make a weave. I then wrapped this around the waist of the dress to show off the hips of the mannequin and give the dress some overall shape instead of looking blocky.

Another accessory I added was the straps which attach to the belt and go over each shoulder and attach at the back. This is functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. The function of it is to hold the dress up, as they act as straps, holding the dress onto the shoulders of the person or mannequin.

I also wanted to add more to the straps as I felt they were missing something. So I decided to create a rose from paper. I did this by wrapping paper around my finger so that the paper started to form petals. After I created about 5 layers of petals, I stuck a pin through the centre to hold it all together and then stuck it onto the straps of the dress.

Here is my final piece modelled by Hermenia:

 As you can see, the dress fits Hermenia's tall and thin posture quite well and isn't too tight or too baggy.



The straps along the shoulders hold well onto the back of her neck to make sure that the dress stays firmly up.



The weaved belt also makes sure that the waistline conforms to her body shape instead of making her look square.



The length of the dress is perfect for her height, not being too short and giving her the option of wearing leggings or trousers underneath.



The rose on the strap gives a nice feminine touch to the overall dress and is removable if preferred without.