This was a wedding dress I bought in an op shop last year.  I wanted to explore with students in a design studio I taught some aspects of this dress I felt were particular to special occasionwear such as its weight and volume, as well as the act of dressing; actually getting into the dress and what this entails.  I subsequently unpicked the whole thing with a view to using the fabric but before doing so put it on the mannequin to take a photo.  When I took it off the shapes it made struck me as interesting and so I styled these pictures.  I’ve enjoyed having them up on my wall because of the tension I feel when I work between pragmatic red carpet designing, where I sometimes fear I’m veering dangerously close to knocking off whatever Elie Saab did last, and pursuing a “truer” (what does this mean?) kind of creativity, that is influenced by a more “pure” experimentation, perhaps influenced by the form of the materials themselves, and that is not beholden to western conventions of body conscious design.

Below, a quote from The Cutting Class, Wedding Cliches at Comme des Garcons referring to the Comme des Garcons SS12 collection.

But as ever with Comme des Garçons, the rebellion is in the execution. Where you would normally find carefully hand bound edges and french seams on a wedding gown, there was instead roughly cut necklines leaving exposed slabs of wadding. When giant-sized, voluptuous silken bows were used, they were used in a strangely creepy way, binding the models hands together. When boning was used to give the gowns structure it was not hidden discreetly away beneath layers of fine silk, it was instead made into an exterior cage that seemed to be constructed out of plastic boning and wadding.

And below, my photos of that particular collection which is currently exhibited (in fabulous plastic bubbles of course) at Les Docks, Paris.  The “rebellion in the execution” was further highlighted in this exhibition which has been deliberately paired with another exhibition of Christóbal Balenciaga’s archive, featuring original haute couture pieces as well costume references held by Balenciaga that served as inspiration.

Eco-Friendly Practice: Georgia McCorkill

I read back through the post just now and picked out my own quote below as a potential provocation to explain in greater detail at some point…

“The real world nature of the projects means that what you would ideally like to do is not always possible, because everyone involved has to be satisfied that my designs will fulfil the purpose they have imagined for it.  I’ve come to enjoy though exploring the possibilities for this more conciliatory approach to design, because ordinarily as a fashion designer you are encouraged to see yourself in a much more authoritarian role.”

The interview can be downloaded here, or listened to via the web (along with other episodes of this program) here.

With the original dress in Sydney at the Object exhibition, I set about creating a similar one for The Front Row.  The fabric was dyed in Eucalyptus leaves, with some pieces left in they dyebath an hour or so longer so as to create two different shades.  The dress wasn’t finished in time for the beginning of the exhibition and instead this hank of coffee coloured chiffon hung in the gallery over the first week, “I’m meaning to make that up” I told everyone who wondered at what it was.

Lisa of Couturing saw the potential and agreed to wear the dress based on a photograph of the original, and so I set about getting it done.  The pieces are joined with a gold running stitch, each piece is left much as is, the edges folded back so as to fall in small frills.  A gold running stitch along the folded edges is both functional and decorative.

Image courtesy Couturing

Lisa wore the dress to LMFF Runway 2 with black “bunny ears” by Richard Nylon and a vintage Chanel handbag – I felt in very good company.

Image courtesy Couturing, Dress with Richard Nylon

Image courtesy Couturing, Dress with Gwendolynne Burkin

Image courtesy Couturing, Dress with Toni Maticevski

The dress also found itself in good company prior to the parade, here it is photographed with Richard himself, with designer Gwendolynne Burkin and with Toni Maticevski – legitimation by association.

I had put one day in the middle of the exhibition aside for serious transformation of the collection, and made up an indigo vat following on from a  recent workshop (more about this another time).  The chiffon dress was destined next for Leeyong of Style Wilderness and the City Weekly, who had also elected to wear it before seeing it made.  (She had, mind you, styled the original dress in the Fair@Square parade of which she was the organiser, so was familiar with it).  We agreed, that for her, the dress would be dyed in indigo.  What was particularly lovely though was that Leeyong was keen to try out the indigo process on some of her own clothes, and so came along to Indigo day.  We were able to decide together the twist-dyed effect we would attempt.  Leeyong had had plans of wearing the dress that very same day, but the process was much slower than anticipated, and the drying even more so, and in a cruel twist of fate, the gold thread actually broke down in the dye vat and many panels had to be re-sewn!  Clearly indigo is not the “natural” process I had originally imagined it to be.

Image courtesy Style Wilderness

And so, here is Leeyong at the LMFF Red Carpet Runway Presents Toni Maticevski show.  Note the ominous looking sky.

Leeyong and Phoebe, image courtesy Style Wilderness

And here is Leeyong with Phoebe, aka Lady Melbourne, recognise her dress?  You can read Leeyong’s own story, What a Difference a Dye Makes, about the dress on her blog – cute title!  Cruelly, Melbourne chose this night to unleash some absolutely vile weather, and so not only are photos of the guests at this particular parade scarce, this dress, along with two others of mine worn that night, were returned in a sorry crumpled state, which I actually didn’t mind one bit, because this altered state beyond my control hinted at excellent possibilities for the next transformation…

A white organza dress with silver slip was chosen from The Front Row collection to wear to The Spirit of the Black Dress Gala during LMFF.  While the event itself was lovely, the outfit post was a disaster from the beginning.  Arriving home from work when I should have been leaving the house gave me scant time to devote to a hair, make-up and outfit styling regime worthy of a high standard outfit post.  My problems were compounded by having moved house only two weeks prior and not being in possession of the requisite full length mirror in which to develop my outfit.  A cracked 10cm square make up mirror was hardly adequate for evaluating the balance of my proposed combination of shoes, dress and hair.  I resorted to snapshots outside the house to check on hair and make-up.

Hair down?  Oops, note mascara above eyelid.

Half up, half down?  A bit eighties, I don’t know you can pull it off if you were there the first time.

Up and to the side?  Better. Interesting.

Hissing a frantic “I’m almost there” into my phone, I threw on my favourite black tailored jacket from All Saints in London and sped to the tram, checking my outfit in the car windows along the way.  The dress was lovely to wear, the silk slip against my skin made me wonder why I waste so much time in polyester and nylon tops and the organza overlay fluttered around my legs.

Of course I forgot the most important element of an outfit post which is a styled and posed picture of my outfit.  This was taken when I remembered; back home late at night and my interesting up-and-to-the-side hair already taken down.  I also forgot to get any photographs of myself with significant people at the event, of which there were plenty, because I totally let my guard down and became otherwise preoccupied with generally enjoying myself and having interesting conversations with the various designers whose work was featured at the parade.  Each dress in this event must employ strategies of design for sustainability, and thus it was wonderful to discuss the various techniques employed by each person as well as to chat with such kindred spirits about our hopes for our design practices as well as our industry.  I was however photographed with my boyfriend and featured on facebook the next day.  Nine people liked the picture.

This photo by Kellie Dene

Thrillingly, my dress lasted all the way through a raucous maxi cab ride across town to the Chinese restaurant at the end of the night before I noticed the hand stitched organza layer had largely fallen apart and I was trailing organza remnants through Chinatown (a slight exaggeration) The dress was in need of significant repair by the end of the night but I was delighted that this had been the case, as it was my intention that each dress be only as durable as the event for which it was intended.  The organza was promptly detached from its lining and hung proudly in all its distressed and deconstructed beauty for the remainder of the exhibition.

There is a growing body of academic and journalistic literature on this recent practice, and among it I enjoyed an article by Rosie Findlay, whose PhD is on style blogs and who blogs herself.  Rosie’s article “At one remove from reality: Style bloggers and outfit posts” contends that style blogging “presents a mode of presenting one’s self that both embodies fashion’s imagery whilst depicting an individual expression of style as felt by the blogger as they literally dress themselves into sight.”

The style blogger mimics the established fashion media, using the conventions of fashion photography, be it the look book or the editorial genre to “literally dress yourself into view”.  Rosie points out that the style blogging genre has evolved in terms presentation to the point that the purpose of the outfit, details of where it is to be worn or the reasoning behind the photoshoot location are ambiguous or unexplained, however this was not my experience during “The Front Row”.  The bloggers who wore my dresses used their outfit as a conduit to report on the event for which the outfit was procured.  Their posts constituted both journalistic reportage of the event, whist maintaining the conventions of the outfit post.  The event consisted of wearing a particular outfit to it and the outfit post is therefore a valid and personalized means of describing what happened at the event.

The Front Row has been an absolute blast – I am exhausted but have had so much fun with this exhibition/pop-up studio/residency/blogging project/fashion infiltration!  However with the last parade tonight, and the festival guests about to retire back to wherever it is fashion festival guests come from with “fashion flu” as one PR described it, it’s time to wrap it up.  Come on in to matttHQ this Friday, Saturday and Sunday where I will be working on “the map” (or crime scene, depending on your point of view) to see the full collection in all its worn and re-made glory, and have a chat about fashion, sustainability, dresses, dressmaking and designing.

Level 3, The Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne

Open 11am – 6pm

I thought it would be interesting to effect a transformation of the collection created for this exhibition and through small strategic alterations see if I could could create a “new” collection.  You could say it’s representing a change from summer into winter, although with both palettes using cool and warm shades it’s a bit hard to tell which is the summer one and which the winter.  I suppose this is appropriate given we are currently in that confusing fashion state experienced at this time every each year here in Melbourne – Winter collections are arriving in store and this fashion festival is telling to get out and buy them, while outside it’s 30 degrees Celsius…

In any case, the Labour day holiday was spent immersed in a vat of indigo dye, the pastel apricot pieces have been set aside, obligatory Melbourne black added in, and this is the result!

Firstly, Paola di Trocchio, assistant curator international fashion and textiles at the National Gallery of Victoria discussed some of the exhibitions in the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival Cultural Program on Life Matters, The Front Row among them.  Paola described my use of fabric remnants in a succinct way that described the value I place on both these remnants and the practice of the other designers who produce them, but have struggled to express to date.

“They’re derived from the offcuts of bridal materials so very expensive, very beautiful fabrics but of course, the way the patterns are cut mean there’s spaces in between, so she collects those bits of fabric that comes from those spaces in between.”

Secondly, Yolanda Finch, director of creative and designer Resources at LMFF was interviewed on By Design this week, where, among other aspects of the fashion festival, she discussed “the theatre of the front row”:

“The politics of the front row is a very strategic business model.  They’re doing a job and unless it’s a celebrity appreanace, they’re very much doing  a job and they’re acting as great ambassadors for designers a lot fo the time.  Just as the Oscars red carpet is the most powerful fashion showcase, it has a direct impact on sales.”

Lisa from Couturing came in to try her dress for either this evening’s Alex Perry show, or another of the runway shows tomorrow night.  This was a dress I had intended to complete during the exhibition, but this project has been very busy, and I would have preferred there be a few more stitches and a few less pins in the dress at the point of the fitting, it felt quite unprofessional of me to be so ill prepared.  Nonetheless, Lisa was really excited and we arranged for her to pick up the completed dress that afternoon.  About the same time, Cheryl popped in to show me the accessory piece I created for her to wear as part of her “Little Black Dress” Project.  Inspired by the Uniform Project, she has chosen a dress by Melbourne label Bento to wear once a week for the year, accessorized in a different way each time.  She was really enjoying the floaty chiffon, said she’d had loads of remarks on it, and even, spectacularly, an altercation with a fellow blogger the previous evening who claimed that THEY were wearing that item the following night.  “No, I’m wearing it” said Cheryl, and thankfully they managed to ascertain before a drastic dispute broke out that I’d actually made two versions of this scarf for them both to wear at the same time. (note: I may be exaggerating the facts here for dramatic effect)

As if this wasn’t enough excitement, Cheryl brought along with her none other than Lady Melbourne.  Now I have been pursuing Phoebe to take part in The Front Row, to the point where I’d been asking myself, “If I send her another e-mail, does that constitute stalking?”  So to have her walk in the door and just -  pick out a dress – just like that was very exciting.

Further action today came in the form of discussion about fabrics with one of the Industrial Design students from RMIT who delightfully brought me a ginger bread loaf!!  Mum arrived and we set to work sewing to finish the dress for Lisa.  Once again, I was reminded of the way in which for me, conversation and thoughts usually flow easier when I have a needle and thread in my hand.  Dress finished and a quick lunch eaten very late.  Lou popped in to grab something for the Penthouse Mouse parade tonight.  Finally, I ducked upstairs for a drink at the media lounge set up by Pybus PR on their balcony for the festival and then managed to make it home at a semi reasonable hour.  Overall, I was really excited to feel the momentum “The Front Row” is gaining among participants.

This slip was sewn today to be worn under a chiffon dress.  An irregularly shaped piece was folded over and tucked to create a slip form and I like the loose and slightly asymmetric shape.

The pinboard has been updated with more links – with thanks to my other RA Nina. x