Chapter 3 : Planning The Dress

Chapter 3: Planning the dress

When I'm designing for a customer, I bombard them with questions.  Usually they are surprised by the number of decisions that go into a dress design.  It's not as simple as just choosing a color and style and sending in measurements when you work with me.  (Although it certainly could be, if the customer wanted to just give me a list of colors and measurements and let me do to town on it.  But I've never had anyone take me up on that option!)

I ask questions they never expected until they develop opinions on things they didn't even know they could opine on!  I give them homework:  look at dresses everywhere and decide what they like.  There are loads of pictures online from major competitions that are a great place to start.  And if they are at a feis, they are to notice dresses around them.  They are to report back to me with ideas of what they like and don't like, the dress styles that interest them, and color combinations.  If they can get me a few pictures of what they like in a dress they get extra points.  It is that important  for me that they get exactly the dress they want down to each detail. I then go looking for fabrics so that I can offer the customer a variety of swatches.

As you can imagine, the process goes a lot faster when the dress I'm making is for my own daughter.  A dig through my stash of fabric (three or four plastic bins full plus yards of  velvet hanging in the closet) unearths some good bits that I'd forgotten that I even had.  Turquoise blue satin - one of her best colors.  And black velvet.  But not just any black velvet.  The one with the embossed black on black design or the one with silver glitter?  Meaghan says "but I already had a black and turquoise dress".  Yes, but it looks nice on her and shows up well on stage.  She's fine with it.  So long as I limit the fittings that I make her do to a minute thirty seconds, I can put her in anything I want.  Meaghan is NOT into standing still and IS into speed fittings.

OOH!  And I find a sample of turquoise organza that I purchased for a customer and didn't use.  It matches perfectly and I hope the store still has the same in stock.  Color combinations are interesting.  They either feel right to me or they don't.  If they feel wrong they give me an upset feeling in my stomach.  I run it all past hubby and two dance mom friends (did I mention this is what happens when you come into close proximity of my sewing room?)  They all like it, or say they do.  My stomach is pleased with the combination.  Good enough!

So I'm thinking turquoise satin bodice with black velvet vertical accents, turquoise sleeves and skirt yoke, with a V shaped band of black velvet edging the skirt yoke.  Embroidery in black (silver embroidery would look better on the blue, but when I put the crystals on I'm afraid it will all mush together and you won't see the embroidery from far away.)  The skirt will be turquoise organza - but made with a softer look than the super-curly cupcakes I've been doing.  Maybe I'll alternate with black organza ruffles.  I'll wait until I get to that point and see what looks good. 

Time to get to work on the embroidery design.

The Raw Material