The Good Witch

While studying fashion design, I embarked on a project to create a couture dress in an all white palette. The simple colour of the garment gave me the chance to experiment with interesting texture and play with fabric manipulations, as well as giving the garment life through dramatic asymmetrical length and proportions.

The garment was almost completely hand stitched, using techniques such as ruching, pin tucking, pleating, beading, applique and French seams. Fine natural fibres such as silk, cotton and linen were combined with viscose, nylon and lurex to give the garment a third dimension of contrasting matte and shine.

I have written this post to give the viewer a behind the scenes look at what goes into the making of a hand crafted couture garment, from inspiration, through to material, construction and final editorial shoot. I wanted to give quite a detailed insight, therefore this is my most lengthy post yet!

Toile Stage - Achieving the perfect fit in the early stages is so important. After that, the design lines are roughly sketched in

Here I am playing with ruching techniques to curve around the torso and add movement. I used stiffer fabric to add dramatic texture, and lighter fabric where I did not want to add too much bulk.

Early experiments with the tulle underskirt to give volume to the dress.

Ooh the fun part - selectng fabrics!  I am always a kid in a candy store when choosing fabric, and end up buying too much! Here are some beautiful close ups of the fabrics selected.

 Cottom Lurex

 Nylon Tulle

Here is a fabric manipulation technique where I layered silk chiffon over viscose and stitched random pleats all over to join the fabrics together. Where the fabric is not joined, I cut away the silk chiffon to create a raw edged textured finish. All the fabric was cut on the bias to prevent fraying. You can see this fabric panel featured on the left bust.

Silk Lurex

Silk Organza

Glass bugle beads, glass pearl beads. Too many choices!

An intermediate fitting of the final garment. This is so important as the fabric being an organic material, moves, contracts and expands as you work with it.

Ostritch and Coque feather embellishments being hand stitched onto the shoulder

The layered organza skirt has been artfully applied over the tulle underskirt, layer by layer. The dress is almost there!

A back view, almost completed! The neck binding needs to be carefully hand stitched onto the garment for a flawless finish.

I always try to be creative and think outside the box with the editorial shoot. I drew inspiration from the character of Glinda the good witch from the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.  I was intrigued by the virtuous and wholesome nature of her character, and the kitsch and artificial way in which her character is brought to life in the film. I decided to explore a darker side to her and give her a decidedly wicked streak.