26.10.15

Experimental Dress Making part 3

Sewing without a pattern.

Chitose Abe, the Japanese designer responsible for the brand Sacai, is renowned for her unconventional combinations, reworking traditional notions of what a garment should be through intriguing reconfigurations.  The Spring 2015 collection included numerous skirts all of which combined layering, shaped inserts and contrasts in colour and fabric.




With that in mind I took three different fabrics all in royal blue and combined them together to make a wrap skirt.  
 
The pattern was marked directly onto the cotton voile lining using chalk, three large curved rectangles in the shape of a smile.  These pieces were then used to cut the outer panels; enzyme washed linen for the back, waist band and ties with silk voile for the fronts.


Once again the stand was invaluable in working out the configuration of the waistband and the tie lengths.  Heavy top stitching was used to define the seams and waist.



So it's not a Sacai show moment but I love it all the same.  The skirt is shown here with THE LONG SKINNY for which the sewing pattern is available through my Etsy shop.  All the fabrics used came from Tessuti in Melbourne.

The shape has become something of an obsession since watching the 1955 Agnes Varda film La Pointe Courte.  Wearing a long flared skirt a young wife walks about the fishing village of her husbands youth contemplating her dying marriage.  The serene femininity of the garment as she moves seductively about belies the underlying turmoil.  Exquisite costume detail throughout and well worth watching.  

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