Nothing To Wear

A birthday party.  This is how it began.  As my excitement grew to spend an evening with one of my close friends, a thought popped into my head.  That thought led me to spend notable time perusing the web in search for something to wear.  I used to have this horrible habit where I would buy a new dress almost every time I went out.  That habit was kicked quickly upon warily standing on my own two feet, paying for rent and the mountain of every other expense I seem to have attracted like a magnet.  So I checked out F21, and with my luck they were in one of their weird transitional-we don't have that cute of stuff right now-phase...you may or may not agree, but my research has confirmed this.  I looked on All Saints website, then came back to reality and agreed with myself that I cannot spend upwards of $100 on a top...$200 on a dress.  I checked some other sites, but still wasn't finding anything worthy.

Luckily, I recently went on a fabric shopping trip downtown.  There, among homeless citizens, I found a great crochet lace fabric that I thought would be perfect for a Bavarian costume I'm currently working on.  I bought it and eventually decided it wouldn't be right for that costume so it was put aside. 

I've been craving a simple high-waist mini lately, and the crochet lace inspired me to try and create a simple yet classy skirt I could wear to the birthday party.  It began with me draping the gray knit backing for the skirt on my dress form in a very messy, haphazard manner.  I knew I only had a couple of days and limited energy, but half-assing this skirt wasn't an option.  I would need structural support for the knit fabric to stay up on my waist, so I re-draped, and re-sewed a skirt with boning and a black contrasting binding along the top.  I also wanted a subtle tail hem...just because. 

I wanted to make a sheer chiffon tank to go with it, but time was not on my side and I ended up pairing it with a simple black tank.  For someone who tends to over-think their designs and tries to come up with the most technically challenging concepts, this was truly an exercise in simplicity.  

Image property of C.A.P.

Image property of C.A.P.

The Art of Failing

I've always admired my mother's ability to apply watercolor paint to a blank canvas so freely and openly.  Her beautiful brushstrokes create dream-like scenes of forests, flowers, exotic animals and seascapes. 

I tried to paint a lily when I was about 10, and was unsuccessful.  I believe this is because I tried to control every aspect, every color, every runny water mark.  I design the same way.  My personal favorite garment I've made is extremely technical, and won two awards - one surface design award for the use of laser cutting, and the other was an overall technical award for my couture collection senior year of college. 

 Now that I'm out of college and work full time to sustain living in Los Angeles, draping, pattern-making and sewing are squeezed into a schedule with a 50 hour work week, a social life, and any other useless time sucks.  Sometimes when I get home all I want to do is eat and watch some show on Hulu, but then I remember my ultimate goal and how bad I want it.  I work on patterns for a dress for a couple weeks in between working and living, make sure they are perfect, cut out a mock-up, put it on the dress form...only to be disappointed that it's not what I envisioned.  You see, when I'm at work and we need a pattern it's a matter of an hour or so that the pattern maker has the pattern completed, it's put up to be cut, and we are looking at the sample by the end of the day.  It's not that easy when it comes to doing everything yourself. 

 So now I have this semi-complete mock-up of a dress that I know I don't want to spend any more time on, and am starting to accept that not everything I start is going to come out perfectly, but in some way still helps me get a step closer to my goal, and maybe one day I'll have a pattern maker who can whip out patterns for me.  Until then I'll try and learn from my mother and take it one brushstroke at a time.