Dream Wedding Dress - Literally

I awoke this morning with the remnants of a dream of me sashaying around the kitchen I grew up in wearing a white debutant dress with a bustle in the back, on top of cascading cuts of different fabrics that I could shake wish my tush and make the fabrics flutter. You better believe this vision got me out of bed. All of the animals and I went to the kitchen to fix animal food, water plants and put the kettle on. Ok, we don't have a kettle, it was in a pot, so you know one item that's going to be on that darn registry list.

I've been considering different inspirations - ballerina, saloon girl - but in the end, fabric is always the main inspiration for me. I took a mound of green dupioni from the fabric cupboard and arranged a bustle out of it for me to draw from. Mind you, it's been about two years since those FIT classes where homework was sketching onto Barbie Bodies. I start with this:

A Barbie Body on translucent marker paper. My desk is glass, so I shine a desk light up through it from the ground. I place a fresh sheet of translucent marker paper over her and begin to sketch the shape of the dress. Here is a picture of Gerdy sitting under said desk, waiting:


I've only got the backs so far, for this set. The dress on the far right is the dream dress I woke up with. Funny thing about that dress from my dream was that my dressmaker had created it for my debutant party (in that dream, we had them every year and this was my final year so I was feeling like a hot shot senior). She had put on a belt with an ivory belt buckle that was in the shape of an emerald cut engagement ring, but two stacked on one, and it was plastic ivory. Sometimes I have dreams where people are wearing these fabulous dresses, and I wish - during my dream - that I had designed them. And then I wake up! So they were mine all along!

What I want in the dress is to be able to just grab the skit, and feel the layers of fabric in my hands as I dance or run across the lawn or something. Ok, it will be a driveway, but still. Sorry about the loud logo watermark. If this gets picked up in Google images, I want the person to at least see that they came from somewhere and not a magical gift from the sky that created itself.

The dress on the far left would end in a bunch of dupioni that is hairsprayed to stay rumpled in a celebration of folds and curves. I guess spray startch would be best. ;)
The strip of somethings on that far left dress are fabric flowers from spiraled strips of fabric, like these. I love these fabric flowers. from Natalie Chanin. I really want those somehow, and think they are so pretty. Oh! I see that the Natalie Chanin clan from Project Alabama produced a book on fabric flowers. I will buy it.

The dress second from left would e tiered dupioni, tucking under itself, ending in some tulle. Not sure about this one, but I liked the overall shape. Thing about dupioni, though, is that it can look too straight. It needs to have an action. The next one was random and came from accidental pleats that the dupioni took on when I shifted its position. So, could be a dress of thick, cascading pleats. Then there is the dress on the right that is a giant dress with icing on it, really. The back is layered of raw edged stripes of ruffled fabrics that have those Tom Ford s-shaped ruffles that were so popular on those suit jackets after Sara Jessica Parker starting wearing them all the time.

Here is the dupioni inspiration. You can do so much draping with dupioni and folding it, or puffing it into different shapes. Of course, the dress would be white, but I had a lot of green.


More to come, hopefully, after I get to the fabric store.