Glam Rock Fashion Show (week seven)

We were asked at very late notice to help out with a charity fashion show which someone was organizing as part of their university course, kind of like how we have had to organize events for our modules. The fashion show was all ready and organized, location and models were all sorted, clothes were ready, and they had even planned to have a celebrity at the event. Nicky Graham from Big Brother had been booked for the event to help host and model at the show. The man who was organizing the event got in touch with Lorna just a week before the show to ask if we could customise some wedding dresses, which he wanted in the glam rock theme, and then he wanted people to help with the styling on the night. When Lorna asked us about whether we wanted to help at the event I was a bit worried. We have got a lot of project work to do, and I already felt behind and as though I was struggling with all the files we need to get done as well as the practical work for the exhibition. But it sounded fun and exciting and would be something good to talk about at any interviews. I half wanted to do it and half got talked into it! It turned out that I didn’t even have a week; I ended up with two days to do the dress. By the time I was given a dress, and with working weekends, I had Monday and Tuesday to get the dress completed as there was going to be a photo shoot on the Wednesday morning, and the show was on the Thursday. When I went in college on the Monday and got given my dress, I nearly had a heart attack. I think I was left with the worst, most hardest dress to change in the entire world!! People agreed! So it must have been bad. There was sooo much material and it was covered in sequins and beads, which just didn’t go with the glam rock theme. It was very girly. I hadn’t got a clue how I could change it in time to fit in with the theme. I decided to use pinks and light purples, as everyone else had chosen there colours and that was a colour theme that no one else had chosen and it was colours which I liked. I started to have a play around. I took off the flowers first with an unpicker and some help from Lucy and Amy else I would have been there for hours. I thought straight away that I could re make a bigger flower which would be funkier and I thought that I could use some inks and other materials to change it and make it less weddingy. I then started to play around with the length of the dress, I pinned up the front and left the back long, this looked quite nice and I thought that this is how I would have it, but as I started to try and work out what to do with the rest, it still seemed too girly and there was still too many sequins on show. I then started to play around with pinning more of the fabric up at the back and sides to make it more rouched. This looked really good but was still very cream. Well I say cream it was more of a pinky horrible cream colour. Vanessa was using black netting on her dress, so I borrowed her fabric for a bit, and had a play around to see how I could use something similar to cover up the sequins. Everyone agreed that this would be a good idea to get some netting in a darker colour to cover the dress, this worked well with the glam rock theme. Sarah and Vicki had to go Hanley to get some more materials so I asked them to bring me some back. In the mean time I started to play around with the flowers which I had cut off the dress. Lucy helped me to dye them using fabric inks. I used burgundy and red fabric inks and a bright pink ink which I had brought in with me. I then stitched the large petals together to make a new big flower. I then had this to play around with as well as the dress so I could get more of an idea of what to do next. Once Sarah and Vicki where back with my black netting fabric I started to play around with where to put it. I covered the front of the dress to hide the sequins, I also twisted it over one shoulder to create a strap as the straps on the dress weren’t very good. They were way to thin for the dress and didn’t work with the theme. This was working really well. I then had to decide what to do with the rest of the dress. I carried on playing around with the length. I rouched up all of the dress and pinned and stitched it into place which took ages. But then I had all different coloured pink bits of fabric, and some pink netting. So I was working out how to use these. I pinned different pieces under the dress so that they were trailing behind. By now it was 8 o’clock at night so I had to go home and have a think about what I could do as I needed to get it done by the end of the next day. On Tuesday I did some more playing around with what to do underneath the dress. I didn’t know whether to make a trail for the dress. Or whether to have just the pink netting under the dress. I also needed to make another strap as I had only got one so far. I didn’t want both to be the same as this would be a bit boring and not very interesting. My flowers weren’t very rock chick either. So I got my rock chick head on and started to try and darken the dress up a bit! I stitched the black netting onto the dress. I had only put it on the front but I then added it to the back as well and used bits of scrap on the flower to make it match and more dark. I used some quite dark pink ribbon rouched up with the black netting on the flower, and I used some beads, dark purples and blues, in the centre of the large flower to add some detail the dark colours worked with the pinks of the flower and the netting and ribbon made it more textural. As I had used some ribbon within the flower, I thought about where else I could use it. I had some of the same colour used within the flower left, so I decided to use this for the other strap. But it seemed a bit too thin. It just didn’t balance right with the other side. It needed something else with it. I had some sequined type of thick ribbon, which was actually an old belt. So I used this underneath the ribbon and it looked really good. I thought it was just right. It added a different texture, but it was still quite bridal. I then used a smaller flower on the front of the dress, and rapped a dark purple ribbon around it to make it more interesting. So I decided to use the small flower on the front, and the large beaded flower that I had made on the back of the dress. So that was it. The dress had been decided. I was worn out. So I thought, quick! Sew it before I change my mind. I spent hours stitching everything into place and trying to find the pins to take them out! I had pinned everything everywhere to keep it into place and then it took ages to find them all so that the model wouldn’t get cuts all over her! I was quite impressed with myself once I had finished making the dress. I had worked really hard and had completely changed it within two days. It looked young and funky and worked with the theme. I think if it wasn’t for the black netting it would have been too feminine with the flowers and ribbons, but the black balanced it out and made it all work together. So my dress was ready now for the photo shoot and for the event. Hopefully everything would fit! And would look good on the catwalk!