I’ve been on a long hiatus for health reasons. I can’t promise I’m back regularly yet, but I miss sharing my creations with you all. I just finished a dress for my company’s art show and wanted to show you the pictures and go into the details of it.
The theme for the art show was Star Trek, so, being a lifelong Trekkie, I naturally had to participate! I knew I wanted to make something wearable, featuring my favorite character Spock, but I wasn’t sure what, until I stumbled upon this vintage Issey Miyake Vogue pattern:
The style reminded me of something the space ladies on the show might wear for evening, and I could picture a large-scale photoprint fabric coordinating with it. The pattern is rare and was a very spendy purchase on eBay at several times its original price, but I thoroughly enjoyed working with such a finely crafted designer pattern and consider it worth every penny. I’m lucky enough to have at least one other Miyake pattern in my stash (purchased for maybe $5 back in the day), so I’m interested in working with it at some point, too.
Here’s the pattern back information:
And the most interesting construction detail, showing the attachment of the back of the dress to the front. I thread-traced the seamlines onto the front dress piece to make this part easier:
For the fabric, I used still images from the original Star Trek series gathered from the Internet, since the dress is for personal use only. The front drape of the pattern is actually the reverse side of the fabric folded over the front of the dress; so I measured the pattern pieces and laid the fabric out as follows, so Spock’s face would be right side up on the finished dress:
I then had it printed on Spoonflower’s polyester chiffon. Obviously I am unable to sell the fabric due to copyright issues, but was hoping I could get away with a one-off print (and luckily I did!).
True Star Trek fans may notice that everything is laid out backwards – that’s because I initially planned to have the wrong side of the fabric facing outward, with the exception of the front drape. But once I received the fabric, I realized it looked best the opposite way, with only the front drape as the wrong side of the fabric and everything else facing right-side out. So to be extra nerdy about it, I consider this a dress from a “mirror universe.”
Here are the side and back views of the finished dress:
So there you have it — an intergalactic gown for Enterprise evenings, boldly going where no dress has gone before… OK, I’ll stop! What do you think? Are you a Star Trek fan, or would you like to wear a dress featuring images from your own favorite show? Our company art show this year is virtual due to the pandemic, so I’m only submitting photos of the dress, but hopefully I’ll have an excuse to wear it someday soon!
Very amazing!
Thanks, mom!