This is the final instalment of my what I made in high school series, and you know what I'm actually a bit proud of this one!
It took a lot of work and it needed to be made at a time when I was rather poorly so it still feels like quite an achievement.
So the project, I decided to make a costume for the queen of the faeries Titania from a midsummer nights dream. Luckily we were able to set our own briefs and at the time I really wanted to work in costume design so I thought this might be good for my portfolio. I've still got all the research and sketches I did for this in the loft somewhere [I'll try and dig them out!]
Anyway the overall concept was that she had fallen asleep in a forest and had woken up and she is very much part of the forest so pieces of it had woven their way into her dress. Hence all the leaves!
I started with a new look pattern, but I'm not sure which? It was a very simple pattern for an aline dress with small bust pleats and no other closures. I took the pattern and re drafted it to make it a wrap front. I then made that up in one layer of the very fine cotton muslin I was working with. Then I pleated the remainder of my cotton onto "shell". I made my pleats uneven in an effort to keep things organic. I also didn't even off the hem at the end, If my memory serves me correctly this was because I had a theory that the stage lights shining through the various layers of the fine cotton would make her almost glow!
The idea of making it a wrap dress was do It wouldn't have to be too heavily altered should to lead actress change, you just simply wrap it around the body, tie it off and shuffle until it looks right [And yeah it looks nice on everyone, from what I remember at least half the class tried it on]
Each one of the leaves is hand embellished and completely individual, and then I tacked them to the ribbon "vines" on the dress! [I actually made a lot of these leaves in bed when I was poorly, your not suppose to but the teacher said I could because otherwise I wouldn't have finished.] the leaves are made from a mixture of green fabrics that my mum and dad brought for me from hobbycraft, I honestly dread to think about how much money went into this dress!
To be honest I'm still so proud of this! to say I made it when I would have been about 14/15? I'm amazed that I put so much thought into it and that I wasn't scared to tackle things like redrafting a pattern.
And that's it! I must have made more things but obviously they didn't deserve saving! Apart from my banging alevel project that was done in art textiles and was based around the life of women during world war two! That was kept to put on display and then went missing....................swines. It even had a christening gown I'd made from an old shirt.
Much Love
Frankie
xxx
