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If Elizabeth Hawes designed a 21st century wedding dress for an Elf

Published by The Dreamstress

Guess what?

Shell’s getting married!

Remember Shell?  She was on the South Island Road Trip, and the tramp of evilness and has modeled the Japonisme dress, and the nougat corset.

And now she’s going to wear one of my dresses for her wedding!

First we had to decide what her wedding dress would look like.  Some clients come to me with a clear idea, but sometimes we work through a design process.  This was the latter.

The first thing that played into the dress design was the ceremony location: Shell is getting married at Rivendell.  OK,  Kaitoke Regional Park, but it’s exactly where they filmed Rivendell for Lord of the Rings.  It’s a stunning location, and Shell and her fiance are both total geeks, so I wanted to create a modern day Elf-Queen dress for Shell.  Something that looked like it would be worn by an elf, but without being costume-y

Shell wasn’t sure what she wanted her dress to be like, but she knew she didn’t want a white dress.  We looked a bunch of pictures and she liked some aspects of a few commercial gowns.

We loved the skirt of this Elie Saab dress. The bodice - not so much

We liked the ruching on this Jim Hjelm frock. And kinda nothing else...

This Liancarlo dress also has great bodice ruching

These are very modern dresses, and the whole point of having me as a dress designer is that I am a historical seamstress, so of course I had to take some inspiration from vintage designers and design techniques.

For Shell’s dress I was particularly inspired by Elizabeth Hawes, and the way she drapes on the mannequin, includes witty design concepts, and often has fuller skirt backs than fronts.  Also; colour!

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/80093534?rpp=20&pg=1&ft=elizabeth+hawes&pos=17

"It Is My Own Invention", Elizabeth Hawes, 1937, Metropolitan Museum of Art

With these things in mind, we did a simple sketch: strapless (with possible attachable straps), sweetheart neckline, ruched wrap-bodice, dropped waist, skirt with fullness transitioning from front to back, moderate train:

Our design sketch

The  design is quite simple, but will really come alive with the right fabrics, and with a few very special additions that the sketch can’t quite capture, but which I can’t wait to show you.

Oh, and there is one more thing to include in the dress design.  It needs to look like a native New Zealand bird.  Specifically a kereru, our native wood-pigeon:

New Zealand kereru. It doesn't look like much until you realise it is the size of a chicken.

It will not, however, look like a kereru in the sense that this wedding dress looks like a swan:

Giles Deacon wedding dress, Spring 2012

So that’s what I’ve been working on!  Elizabeth Hawes does a 2011 wedding dress for an elf queen, inspired by an endangered pigeon.  I can’t wait to show you how it will all come together!

Rate the Dress: Elizabeth Taylor does Civil War in Raintree County

Published by The Dreamstress

Last week the usually popular 1910’s wasn’t quite so popular.  The collar was compared to an ectoplasm, and the whole thing was deemed disjointed.  Despite this, it rated a not-totally-abysmal 5.2 out of 10, mostly because a few of you redesigned the dress in your mind and then rated the redesign!  That’s cheating!  At least give me a rating before the redesign to work from!

This week I wanted to show you something that would knock your socks off: something of utter gorgeousness that you would all be compelled to rate 10 out of 10.  Unfortunately, despite the fact that I come across completely covet-worthy frocks all the time, finding one on demand is difficult.

So I’m showing you something I have had in my ‘rate the dress’ folder for months.

This is Elizabeth Taylor as a spoiled southern belle in 1957’s  Raintree County.  Turns out Vivien Leigh didn’t have a total monopoly on playing those.  In the film she gets to wear a completely over-the-top, pink-and-white, 1950s-does-late-1850s frock, complete with matching parasol and massive hat.

The film clips and still photos show it in two slightly different colours: pale pink or orchid, but whatever shade it was, you still get the idea of utter femininity: the ultimate ruffle and bow covered princess dress.  There is even a doll based on it:

Ignoring the doll’s dress (because cheap satin and an inexplicably ostrich-feather covered hat are not going to help the rating!), what do you think of Liz Taylor’s answer to the iconic green picnic dress?  Does it capture all the excess and romance of the years just before the war, or is it just a dreadful 1950’s pastiche?

Rate the Dress on a scale of 1 to 10  

Chemise a la Yay!

Published by The Dreamstress

I finished my chemise a la reine well over a year ago, and you know what?

I have never worn the completed garment myself.  Not once.

It’s been on quite a few models, but it’s never been on me!  How is that possible!?!

Just too busy I guess, and no good excuse to wear it.

Last Thursday I finally had the perfect excuse; I gave a talk to the Wellington Quilters Guild on Marie Antoinette and the chemise a la reine (provocatively titled ‘The Queen’s Underwear: How Marie Antoinette’s Un-dress Caused a Revolution’ – because a catchy title is always a good thing) and of course I needed to wear the chemise to make the talk come to life.

At the last minute fate tried to conspire against me to force me to get a model for the talk.  I was a bridesmaid on Sat and had to schedule a haircut and style before the wedding, and when was the only appointment I could get?  That’s right – right before my talk.  Eeeek!

No point in getting your hair done if you immediately put it up in an 18th century ‘hedgehog’.  And wearing a wig isn’t ‘keeping your hair looking salon perfect’ friendly either.  The smartest thing to do was obviously yo have a model wear it and hedge her hair.  But dang blast it, I wanted to finally wear the chemise myself!

So I crossed my fingers, prayed, went to my hair appointment, raced home, and carefully pinned my lovely fresh hair over a rat to form a plausible hedgie ‘poof’ with no hairspray or product.  Then I put on a my stays and chemise and raced off to the talk.

And I looked amazing.  I wasn’t expecting that, so I don’t feel too vain saying it.  I only got two bad photos, but you can still get the idea:

Yay! Prettiness! Even with scary flash eyes!

It's poofy and blue and bow-y and has a great hat!

Best of all, when I came home and took out my hair, it smoothed out into almost salon-fresh perfectness.  Win all around!

Now I’m very motivated to finally have a proper photoshoot in the chemise a la reine.