The other day I was home for the evening to see my sister's play. While we were waiting for it to start, my mom was talking to me about various things and eventually mentioned that she was going to send my sister and me out on Black Friday to go look for dresses for our cousin's wedding, which is in January.
My immediate response was, "Why would I buy a dress when I can make my own?"
My mom's reply was, "No."
I explained that I was actually on the verge of completing my latest work and she shortly said, "Well, wear that one, then."
Unfortunately, I don't think this last dress was one that would be appropriate for a wedding. It's a little costume-ish to go over well anywhere that's not a slightly eccentric cocktail party...and it's way to garish for an event where the wearer is not supposed to be the center of attention (i.e. someone else's wedding).
Anyway, my mom did a whole lot of that exaggerated eye-rolling she tends to do when she disapproves of something while I tried to explain what my latest dress looks like and why it isn't really wedding attire. Finally, in a last bid at discouraging me from making my own dress for the wedding, she came up with, "You don't even have a pattern!" Which is a) irrelevant and b) not true.
So, long story short, I had to come up with a new dress that was not too ostentatious (so, no scarlet brocade) but still fun and fancy and in my style. Because otherwise I really might well just take advantage of Black Friday.
Originally I was going to move on to this:
...and I've started acquiring materials for it. However, this dress is fluttery (it's based around chiffon), light and white. I have sort of a qualm with wearing a fluffy, white, fluttery dress to someone's wedding. So this one will have to be put on hold for the time being. (Also until I can afford all the materials for it.)
So I came up with something that I feel might be more appropriate:
The cut is simple and slim. There's not too much poof there, and yet I still have a nice little flair at the bottom there. The main dress is going to be in iridescent plum dupioni silk:
Yeah, a little flashy...but deep. It's not going to stand out like red or gold-orange. It's dark enough to be somewhat...discreet is probably the wrong word. We'll go with "not eyeball assaulting."
Here's the contrast. It's more eye grabbing and will definitely pop against the dupioni. It's taffeta in black and white stripe, a staple for any quasi-goth dress enthusiast/fan of Colleen Atwood:
After looking at the rendering and picturing everything in my head, I realized that this was what was in the back of my mind. Christina Ricci's dress in the finale of Sleepy Hollow:
It's the final pop of black and white stripe...something that happens in every Tim Burton movie. You spend all of Sleepy Hollow waiting for it to happen and then it finally does in the last two minutes. Brilliant movie (especially in terms of design...I believe it won the Oscar for Production Design because Rick Heinrichs is a BEAST). Brilliant costumes. Brilliant Colleen Atwood...whom I worship.
And here's a little something special to set off the edging at the top and hem of the plum:
Well, I sure as hell am excited. This should be fun and hopefully not too challenging...because it's not like I'm throwing another cosmetic stitching curve ball in there for myself. Of course, I say that and everything will go wrong. Oh well...
