Fashion: Mum's Dress, Tentatively titled: The Fall of Icarus

From the Mara Chua Bespoke Collection tentatively titled: "The Fall of Icarus".

It's my mom's dress for a wedding where she's participating as a sponsor (ninang).Im using her as my latest guinea pig (opportunity) to experiment on newer techniques and to carry out certain ideas lingering in my head for a few weeks now. Ideas I want to make a collection out of for my Mara Chua line.

I guess this dress will serve as my prototype for the other looks. And I hope I do get to finish 7 looks. Considering all 7 are pretty ambitious and costly.

I'm still not yet sold on "Fall of Icarus"... While, the gold fabric reminds me wings and flight and classical Athens, it's very easy to go cliche and extremely inaccurate if I use Icarus and Greek culture as my central theme. Considering that the setting for Icarus is Crete and the Cretan (Minoan) civilization is very very different from the Greek ones of the time. Sure, it was told from the point of view of Greek poets... I just dont want it too look all drapey drapey and flowy flowy 'Greek'.

Picset:

In the pictures posted above, you will see a bit of the development process. From the final fitting where the dress is 90% done to the beginnings when we were hand stitching pleated material onto the bodice. :)

Music: Call Your Girlfriend

fun song about breaking 'the news'. how cool is that?! haha.

i was the 'her' in the song once. not very long ago. it's a funny feeling smiling and

singing along with the song and meaning every word in the lyrics fully knowing how it felt.

Music: Crash Years

It's an unusually rainy January in Manila. While I love rain and gloomy skies, I find the current weather such a downer because the January I remember was so much better- bright, sunny with a cool breeze. I'm not complaining too much though. I'd rather rainy cold over sunny and hot and sticky. ANYTIME.

The music video is by the New Pornographers. The funny colored choreographed umbrellas should be clue enough that I was trying to connect this video to our current weather situation and attempting to lighten my mood a bit. :)

Fashion: Mock dress

While in the previous fashion post I mentioned about my love for pattern experimentation, that experimentation is usually derived from an already drafted basic bodice pattern. That being said, an ill fitting bodice will result in an awkward and disproportionate looking shape relative to the body.

What I'm trying to get at? There's wisdom in something as basic as perfecting the fit of your bodice pattern and knowing how to make the bodice fit different body types properly.

This rule/ wisdom applies especially to designers who offer bespoke/ couture services since the bodice in question changes on a per client basis. A designer concentrating him or herself in pret- a- porter only needs to base her proportions on predetermined industry sizes... This means that, he/ she doesn't have to concern his/ herself in certain 'nuances' like say a certain individual's wider bust (apex) distance or torso and then paired with, say,a narrower chest width- considerations when you're in the business of engineering patterns and creating clothes that should fit the individual perfectly.

I could go on and on and on about the importance of knowing how to properly draft, construct and finish the basic bodice. If fashion had its own "pillars" like Islam does, a properly drafted/ draped basic bodice would be one of them. It can make or break your garment since the bodice is the foundation of your garment. Poorly made foundation is just inviting trouble and lots of additional unnecessary work and wasted time. A good fit and a bodice you can consider successful is usually achieved through detailed measurement taking and certain adjustments you only really know by instinct/ experience and a good grasp on basic mathematical and geometric equations... Before I lead anyone to believe that you only need to know drafting to be able to successfully make a garment. Drafting is only the beginning phase of the process. I feel the need to highlight what I previously mentioned: constructing and finishing are 2 very different stories since they involve a certain level of competence/ mastery of a completely different skill called sewing.

*In the picture is a mock dress made of canvass for my wedding client to fit soon. The the said dress is an additional feature for wedding clients to give them an idea of the general silhouette, determine if the length of the dress and straps are right and most importantly to further ensure that her wedding dress will fit her like a glove. As it would be pretty costly to make mistakes and wrongly cut wedding fabrics.

I chose the picture since it showcases a dress in it's most basic/ naked form. You can pretty much see an unobstructed view of the bodice. A good dress/ bodice should be clean from the inside out. By clean meaning, smooth lines and shape, no puckering, no loose thread, generally uniform seam width and a good fit.

Fashion: Cutting Edge

in this video, you get to see a video tour of isabel toledo's exhibit held last 2009. what caught my attention are those snippets with pictures of black colored odd basic looking shapes on white paper. those are the flat patterns... the blue print of how those dresses are made. i belong to the school of fashion design where i tend to concentrate more on the ergonomics,engineering and hard science that goes into creating/recreating certain forms. i find the most satisfaction in being able to mathematically compute form and to be able to translate 3-D form into flat 2-D pieces. even more satisfaction in being able to minimize seams (some seams integral to contouring the shape of the body) in order to minimize fabric usage.

right now, i can think of what i believe is the very different thought process involved in drafting shapes/ forms and eventually flat pattern pieces vs draping; and the fact that i have very very very short patience for embellishing as to the why of my fascination and obsession.

food: LUNCH.mango, soy sauce and rice

lunch. pseudo vegetarian (i've "always planned" on changing my omnivorous diet into a vegetarian one- for health and aesthetic reasons, again another blog entry). hahaha. had the pork viand been enough i wouldn't have thought of having this.
while in the process of deciding whether or not i should open the can of argentina corned beef, slice some onions and make another viand (which i was too lazy to carry out plus the prep time was too long for my still hungry stomach and yeah, i was thinkng about all the fat going to my hips, thighs, arms...), i spotted the mango. hungry, i had it sliced, scooped the meat out, added soy sauce.
lunch.

new year

lots of things happened. most of them good.

i'm rather optimistic, positive about the coming months/ year.

the purpose for this entry was to do a bit of recap of what happened from my last blog entry until uhm now but running through everything that transpired is such a chore. i guess i should be more religious about chronicling those said events. for reference/archive purposes of course- the main reason i probably created this blog in the first place.

i'm posting this particular piece (refer to pic) to, at least, fulfill the purpose of this entry. this piece is a personal favourite and to be very honest, i consider this a personal milestone. it's symbolic of me (reluctantly) embracing the world of weddings and bespoke garments. as for the reason behind the reluctance, i think that deserves yet another blog entry. :)

this piece is "002". it's made of cream chiffon circles and bias strips on charmeuse base.