Been busy working on a very intricate term garment for school and my lovely Gentleman suggested it might be something fun to share with my readers… boy he’s a smarty!
So our inspiration is Elsa Schiaparelli & surrealism. I love Schiaparelli because she is so quirky and fearless with her designs, while still keeping it elegant.
My dress is specifically inspired by Rene Magritte, a surrealist painter whom I’ve admired for a long time. He is most famous for his pipe painting and man-in-the-bowler-hat paintings. In the interest of fun and trying something different, I decided to make a hat dress!
There have been a few changes to the design since this sketch. The band will be teal and I’m adding a bow like the one on the hat picture and some feathers as well to bring some more Schiaparelli into the picture. I was a little nervous because I’ve never made anything with structure like this before and have just recently learned to work with boning. I was lucky enough to find some very stiff interfacing in the garment district (how lucky I am to live in New York!) that actually holds the shape quite well. The biggest challenge while working has been handling the stiff interfacing – it was bending all my pins!
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| Here’s the under layer… holding shape all on it’s own. |
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| Aside from curved gores, I also put darts on the side panels to add to the shape. |
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| A peep underneath…teal lining! |
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| A look at the shape of my pattern pieces. |
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| A french lining with boning will hopefully help this dress to stay up on its own. |
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| Here’s a rough fitting I did with the top layer of fabric. The curves need to be smoothed out – they are a little too deep. Also, I used a wire mesh (like for a window screen) for the hat brim. Right now there is only one layer but I’m thinking I will use two to keep it more stable. I also might put a piece of oaktag in between the layers to keep it from looking so wavy. Once it’s finished I will add the teal band with a bow and feathers on the side! |
What do you think? Any suggestions on materials that would work better for the brim? I have about three weeks left to finish which I am feeling pretty good about but I also don’t want to get too confident and then be scrambling for time – that’s when I make all my mistakes!
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Happy Sewing!
~Lady M.
Wow! This is so amazing! I love it! I am familiar with Magritte and love the idea of a bowler hat dress. I am not too familiar with sewing so I can offer no suggestions. Good luck and I can't wait to see it finished!
Thanks so much!