The Process: Deco Dressing Robe

Sometimes working in the shop is hard... on my OCD. When the shop has 10 racks and 15 dress forms strewn amidst 4 tables... *shudder*. I'm a creative minded person, but i also don't create well in chaos. Needless to say i hard-core cleaned the shop after this picture was taken... my boss was very grateful. 

"The process" is something i wanted to highlight on this blog, because i'm still amazed by it. I was given a rendering, and a measurement sheet, and i went to town! my usual process is that i do some draping on a form that i've padded out to their measurements, make flat patterns from what i've draped (the picture below are some pieces for the dressing robe for The Drowsy Chaperone.)

Then i make a mock up with the pattern pieces. i make sure this fits their padded form, then we schedule a fitting with the actor(ess). 

It fit her brilliantly! 

I was telling my friend this yesterday but, when i have a fitting with someone and i have made a mock up from nothing but a measurement sheet and a rendering and it fits them perfectly, and is exactly what the designer wanted... ahhh... it just makes me feel like i really know what i'm doing. It's an amazing feeling. 

Here we were playing around with the pattern on the mock up. We traced the medallion pattern from the fashion fabric onto muslin with tracing paper and tracing wheels, then i cut it out so we could get a better idea of what the fabric "wanted to be..." (cue the crazy designer being crazy) we didn't end up liking the pattern going down the front and bottom edge like that. It wasn't really feasible doing appliques of chiffon on a chiffon bias cut skirt... without me killing myself. 

Here is the robe in the chiffon! It's lovely in person. Lovely, but i had to french seam everything, which takes at least twice as long. Yes it is very sheer. She is wearing it for a scene "show off" where she basically strips on stage. She wears pants and a swimsuit under the robe, and the pants rip off and then she dances around in the swimsuit. And it will be adorable. Sad that this robe is only worn for 5 seconds though... 

    

Here is the collar pinned on. It's supposed to still be kind of drapey, but i did interface and line it for some stability. The fabric is from london. Very deco, also very difficult to work with. chiffon doesn't lend itself to geometric prints well.... it's been a bit of a trial. 

It's even farther along today than when i took these pictures. I will post more as it progresses.