A-Dress-A-Day

Day 11: Mission Accomplished

I've been on a blog hiatus for the past few days...as I was away from a computer and my ECO-PRO. However, I have some fabulous new dresses that I have designed just for you ( whom ever you are). Today's dress was created in less than 5 hours. I made a quick trip to my soon to be permanent fabric store located in the Bronx, as it is convenient and the sales associates are extremely helpful. Today I chose four different fabrics-mainly stretch material, including the material that I used for today's dress. The fabric was very easy to pin and work with, unfortunately I only purchased 1 yard of it...just enough to construct this dress.
I absolutely loved the braided gold and black trimming , which reminded me of the trimming seen on an army-style jacket. At first, I was going to add the trimming to both sides of the dress, however to be more unique I added it to only the left side and used the remaining to create a halter for the top. I think that the trimming as a great texture and color to the dress. The length of the dress is much longer than my past designs--as the material causes the dresses to rise when walking (and to satisfy my mother's request : )

Day 11: Material

Material:

Black Stretch Nylon
Gold/Black braided trimming
Black Thread

Inspiration: Trendy w/ Texture

Day 10: Mission Accomplished

Have you ever visited a clothing store where the environment of the store reminded you somewhat of a car dealership? Well, that is the exact experience I had when shopping for this fabric in the Garment District. I happily walked passed the "too-expensive-for-my budget" fabric shop and a few other fabric stores that I had visited and found myself at another fabric store directly off of 8th ave ( if my memory serves me correctly). The store appeared pretty small from the outside, but once inside there was a large array of different fabrics. I looked around for a few minutes before I was approached by a very eager-to-sell gentlemen (used loosely). He offered his assistance to cut a few yards of fabric for me. I came across a sales box, which I seen another shopper ravage through and decided to take a glance. I found a brown, teal, and gold designed trimming that I thought would look FAB as detailing on a dress---and ask for helping cutting it. Unfortunately, the trimming was very tangled--making it difficult for the associate cut.

Every other fabric that I appeared to take interest in, the sales associate asked me if I wanted to buy it. This started to get very annoying by the tenth fabric that I touched, so I gathered my items and walked to register. By this time I had realized that I did not want to purchase the trimming as none of the materials I planned on purchasing match the colors---and I DID NOT want to waste my money. I politely told the car sales-- I mean sales associate that I would not be taking the material--in which he replied " I already cut it". Not wanting to argue... I paid for my items and vowed that that fabric would never be graced again with my presence.

Day 10: The Material

Material:

Striped Black/White/Sheer Stretch Cotton
Black Jersey
Black Thread
Grey Thread

Inspiration: Night/Club

Day 9: Mission Accomplished

I finished this two piece dress much earlier tonight--- I was just too lazy to upload the pictures until now. I simply adore the texture of the brocade fabric so I decided to utilize a metalic brocade in today's design. I decided to create a more classic, "toned-down" and classy dress for Day 9. I utilized a black a gold trimming to make the skirt portion of the dress drawstring. Due to the hard texture of the brocade fabric, when the drawstring is pulled it created a puffed look to the dress--which I adore. I decided to use the black jersey fabric because it toned down the shininess of the dress and complimented the black floral print. Enjoy fellow fashionistas!

Day 9: The Material

Material:

Floral Print Metallic Brocade
Black Cotton Jersey
Black Thread

Inspiration: Fancy

Day 8: Mission Accomplished

Whew...almost didn't complete this dress in time. Here it is 11:00 p.m. and I just finished adding the finishing touches to the dress (for the blog at least). I designed a very classy dress for my 16 year old cousin, who will be modeling for you all tonight! The rose brocade material was very hard to work with, as it shears too much and I am in dire need of a serger sewing machine ( any buyers?). I need to research a better stitch method to prevent the material from shredding--or I will just be using only jersey and spandex material for all of my dresses (blah...no variety). So if anyone has any tips or ideas to help me with this issue it is very much appreciated.
I love love the "pleats-on-pleats" on this dress and I hope you admire my creativity !
P.S. (ssshhh...the sleeve is not attached yet and I did not make the belt)

Day 8: The Material

Material:
Rose Brocade
White Thread
Pink Thread

Inspiration: Pleats/Trendy schoolgirl ( I will attempt this again! )

Day 7: Mission Accomplished

A week's worth of my dresses...completed...YAY (to my luck I have been getting rave reviews)! Hope someone in my small blog world is as excited as I am. For the design of today's dress I re-used the neon pink and neon orange spandex material, pink thread, and 2 shoulder pads. I wanted to design a retro-styled (80s) dress with distinctive shoulder pads...but for 4 for $1.00 I should have had less faith in the shoulder pads---Lady Gaga would be so unimpressed. Nevertheless I created this great two piece jumper dress with "shoulder pads". Hey MOM...this dress is knee-length!

Day 7: The Material

Material:

Neon Pink & Neon Orange Spandex Material

Pink Thread

2 Shoulder Pads

Inspiration: Retro

Day 6: Mission Accomplished

Not that anyone noticed...but I decided not to design a dress on Sunday--the day I have renamed "Fashion Sabbath". However, I did create one today, that I'm sure most will like. I got the inspiration for this dress from the Queen: Cleopatra. The style of dress that she is often seen adorned in motivated me to create my piece seen below. Although it is not the original style halter top dress, it has the essence of Cleopatra. I reused the multi-colored neon spandex material, which I have been given great reviews for, and created this:

Day 6: The Material

Material:

Neon Multi-colored Spandex Material

Peach Jersey Material

* I am in love with this fabric !!

Inspiration: Cleopatra

Day 5: Mission Accomplished

Five days down...25 more to go. I had such a hard time designing this dress thus the finished product is not what I imagined or designed. At first I wanted to create a baby doll style dress with a short pleated skirt---I ended up with a tube top pencil skirt with "some" pleats. Pleating this skirt was the most tedious part of making this dress...much harder then it looked. After I finished pleating the skirt, I realized that "I HATED THE PLEATS".--but by this time it was too late. I decided to flip the pleats to the bottom of the dress and gather the top portion of the dress. Okay enough with the long drawn out description of how I designed the dress and here it is---> *not my best but a great addition to the collection....

Look: Tube Top-Tulip Pencil Skirt

Day 5: The Material

Material:

Peach Colored Jersey Fabric
Peach & Red Jersey Fabric
White Thread
Invisible Thread

Inspiration:
Floral/Tulip

Day 4: Mission Accomplished

I definitely thought out of the box when I designed this party dress. My inspiration for this dress was derived from a silk tiger printed dress from Bebe. I would have to say this dress is for the more bold and unique individual. It is a side cutout dress mini dress with a partial tulle fabric train attached to the back. To be honest, the white fabric that is connected to back of this dress was not intentional...if I were to redesign this dress it would be the first to go.