I had been looking into how shoulders are used in the world of drag, but also investigating why they are so prevalent. There's a great little clip from the Masterclass with RuPaul and Zaldy, link here, about designing for broad shoulders. Zaldy is the designer behind all of RuPaul's stage wear and explains how to create the illusion of an hourglass figure.
Exaggerated shoulders are another way of achieving this. By having high impact shoulders up top, you narrow the waist. Padding the hips also helps with this illusion.
I wanted to make a piece that explored this, and was interested in trying out pleated fabric that expanded as it got bigger. The below image on the left was my first attempt, but I found that I couldn't get the pleats big enough or far enough away from the body to have a big impact. I decided instead to use the pleats as a base, almost like those you'd find on a biker jacket (see image on the right), and build up from there with free-form pieces.
I numbered the sections and started roughly forming the 3D shapes.
Before putting the whole thing together properly, I tested out just the 3D shapes to make sure they'd sit away from the body but also that they'd hold themselves up without needing support. I used a coated jersey fabric, and interfaced the 3D shapes to give them structure. The body pieces were not interfaced but they were lined with a black stretch lining.
Once it had been pressed, the coated jersey fabric had a leather look to it, which I think worked really well with the 'biker jacket' aspect. The next steps for this will be getting feedback on it, lining it fully and taking some better photographs.
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