Making my homeless dress

As this design was a very complicated shape, I realised it would take a lot of planning and experimentation to get the shape right and make it easily wearable. I decided that the best approach was to make it in two parts- an basic under-dress and a complex over-skirt. I drew out how I thought the pieces should be and labelled where they should go. I thought of 3 different possible structures but in the end decided that the third structure would be the simplest and use the least fabric. 

Next I cut these pieces out of pattern paper and positioned them on the stand to try and turn them into the shape that I wanted. I ended up spending a whole day repositioning the pieces and was worried that this structure would not work. i then realised that the paper was very stiff so could not form the soft shapes that I wanted, so I used these shapes as a pattern to make a tiole out of calico to see how it would hang in fabric. For my tiole, I ended up having to change my circle into a bean shape to go get the structure that I wanted. I still wasn't happy with the shape, so I added darts to make it more 3D. 

I soon realised that it would be extremely difficult to make my top connect to the skirt, therefore I had to get rid of one of the front panels and make the dress into two separate pieces. Designing the top was very straightforward, as I only wanted to make a very basic sleeveless turtleneck. I wanted to keep the top simple as a contrast to the complex skirt and prints. 

I ended up having to take apart my tiole to make a pattern, which I felt was as shame but I couldn't see another way to do it and get the darts in the exact right position. I found this pattern extremely difficult to match up because of it very unusual shape. 

I meaured each pattern peice and rounded it off into a square to wirk out how much of each different print I would need. I used the digital printer and printed onto a luxurius feeling silky fabric to create a refined look which was a big contrast to my orginal insiration of homeless people. Once I had cut the printed pieces, I disnt find the garnments too difficuilt to put together, but I struggled techically with the zip and interfacing. Oringally I wanted to use a zip with a rounded ring-pull, but I was told that this was too heavy for the type of garments and fabric so instead had to just use a regular zips. 

I am really happy with my finished garment. I feel my initail sketch has been translated very well into real life and it is both wearable and interesting. If i could change anything about it, I would have used a stiffer fabric for the skirt as then it would have held the shape better.