A quick gift I made out of some soft pink cotton jersey, and black lace. I’m still using Near Sea Naturals as the source for my cloth, and so far I’m very happy using them as a vendor. This project was quick and fun, probably because attaching the lace gave such a pretty result!
I finally started my organic fashion project! I created a cotton dress with a retro 1957 pattern I found at a local cloth store. I shortened it a bit, the mid-calf length looked a bit too dowdy on a shorter frame like mine. :) This blue-swirled number is “Smurfs on a Cloud”.
The cotton feels quite soft, and I think was a much better choice than hemp. I still think most hemp cloth is too harsh…
Here’s my lovely sister as a willing model:
I got a look into a unique mashup of fashion and technology at this year’s Seamless 2008, held at the Museum of Science in Boston. Designers showcased ideas that wove together traditional textiles with solar panels, wifi, bluetooth, and LED’s.
Some ideas appeared to be in their infancy, but were great concepts. Barbara Layne’s tornado dress had “three small photocells (that) detect ambient light” which merely made the dress flash. A more in-depth approach may have been to read in data from a website to judge if certain criteria met those for extreme weather. Hard to demo, of course, but perhaps a bit more useful. Of course this notion fabric displaying information is partially borrowed from the Project Peau d’Ane, in which Valerie Lamontagne and her co-designers actually did use scientific information to change the behavior of the dresses. The moon dress, for example, had “thermochromic painted flowers embroidered with resistive silver threads”. Take that, lunar fashionistas!
Perhaps the grandest of the pieces was the Project Party Dress, architectural in its scope and definitely a way to bring a different feel to any event. It’s basically a tent worn by 5 women that look like a troupe of killer waitresses, and when it expands you get to see those same ladies stand at the corners like beautiful living gargoyles. I am curious what this party dress would look like done in white or red gauze, to give more of a lightness to the tent and make it more inviting to step inside.
Finally, in possibly the most controversial mix of technology and religion, the Charming Burka by Markus Kison stands alone. It’s a simple idea - give a woman with a burka the power to decide how to show her true identity. Via infomation embedded in the cloth, a woman could choose to send her real photo to anyone around her with a bluetooth-enabled device. Although the designer claims that “no rules of the Koran are broken” on his website, I picture it being just the type of thing a rebellious teenage girl would use to do what she could to show her individuality.
There’s something about Miami that pulls you towards it. It might be the fact that it’s considered the cultural hot spot of south Florida, the center of a Top Chef competition, tropical flora, music conferences and scantily clad women. But there’s something about the city that alternates between stylish and sad. A street lined with homeless people during the day is lined with expensive cars at 2 a.m. People drop 20’s like raindrops on a palm tree. The art deco architecture harks to the impending depression more than a boom. It’s all quite strange to a girl from New Jersey.
One way or another, I wound up at the Miami Style Wars this past Saturday. I went to go meet Roman and MJ at their hotel room at the Intercontinental Hotel. Roman had a hearty handshake and a smile, and I was hypnotized by the sunglass lens necklace he wore around his neck. MJ was amazing, and spoke about her distain for the wealth that it takes to make it in the fashion world as opposed to talent.
The first male competitor shook my hand, but I noticed that he kissed the hand of every other lady competitor once they entered the room and the heat of battling turned up.
Then I saw the guy with the fabric shears tattooed on his forearm.
How serious were these people about this event? Quite serious, it turned out. But it didn’t deter me from attempting to have as much fun as possible.
The event was held at the White Room, a club with walls the color of its name and 3/4 under the stars. They’re also quite liberal about smoking down here.
I was fortunate enough to have a coterie of fabulous women (all writers or artists) who were willing to assist me on stage. Wendy, Jana, Cathay: you are all wonderful, thank you. We took my red theme and blew it up into fashion. In 5 minutes.
After getting off the stage, the four of us were asked by a nervous fellow about to go up with “Which one of you bitches took my scissors?”. Bitch, please.
The trance music pounded, the photographers shot, fabric from old wedding dresses were snowflakes in the tropical breeze. A winner was announced, my original competitor. I know now that she’s one of the “it” designers of Miami. Good for her - but the 2nd runner up was so skilled he gave me renewed respect for fashion.
So here’s our result:
After a long Sunday of programming, I decided to help out my coworker with promoting a contest for Style Wars. The above photo is the result! I took recycled paper towels and soaked them in dark purple grape juice. After the towels dried for a few hours, I constructed the shirt with some thread (and 2 pins). Very fun and Mike did a great job as my photographer.