At the beginning of July this year, I approached a local drag queen to ask if they would be interested in collaborating on a piece as part of my research. Their involvement would be stating the sort of garments they would like, giving feedback throughout and at the end trialling the final garment. They agreed and sketched out a quick idea of the basic shape they wanted to achieve (exaggerated hourglass) and told me of their preferred colours (nude). I sent back a couple of potential designs:
Following this we had quite a nice back and forth correspondence, with him scribbling over my designs and me scribbling back.
I made a basic jersey dress according to his measurements and in this image we were discussing necklines and how to make the front more interesting. We agreed on a teardrop neckline eventually, because it would highlight his chest plate better.
The hardest thing about communicating remotely like this was choosing fabrics, as it involved a lot of discussion and sending images. It was difficult to get across which fabrics would work with which, and not being able to lay them out on front of us as I would normally do, it was tricky to reach an understanding.
I was initially thinking that the dress and 3D shapes should be in 2 different fabrics, so that I could use a stretch fabric for the dress and something much stiffer for the 3D shapes. He was adamant that the look would look more complete if it was all in the same fabric. I am glad he insisted on this as (after seeing the final garment) I think he was right. After agreeing the shape and deciding to revisit the fabric later, I did a mock up in calico.
Again, these images were sent backwards and forwards, changes made and so on. I found the whole process really interesting and will be writing about it in my report.
There were some nice shapes involved in making the hip piece, which hung from the waistband, also shown in this photo:
I had some issues getting the teardrop shape to look like a teardrop - it looking more egg shaped at one point! This was down to the tension on the bust due to the excessive padding. I tried a few ways of stabilising it before it got sewn into the dress.
Similarly, when it came to making the 3D sections, I had to learn a lot about interfacing in order to get the different qualities I needed from this one fabric. I found that the stiffest interfacing was too brittle to work on the body without bending and creasing, but also that, with this fabric in particular, fusible interfacing didn't adhere very well and didn't look great, bubbling in places.
I plan to go into greater detail with my research into interfacing in my final report, as it's something I've found really interesting and has been a factor in a lot of my MA work. I can state now though, that we were both very pleased with the final result and plan to work together again in future.
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