FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
Dancing seas
(click images to to enlarge)
Other Credits
Fotos by Kerstin Hagge
Outline the story …
While contemplating this years theme I sat at a lonely danish beach and stared out over the windswept sea.„Yes, that’s it“.
My favourite piece of nature, a must have for every real vacation, my get-to place to think and feel close to myself are the heaving northern seas like the Atlantic where it meets the westernmost coasts of Scotland or the North Sea around Jutland.
Dark blue waters, always changing and bouncing, surging waves atopped with foamy streaks and white crests.
What kind of dress could carry this agility, this everchanging mood?
A dress made for dancing.
A while ago I happened across an episode of the Spanish talent show „dancers“ from two years past and I was fascinated by Macarena Ramirez in her bata-de-cola style flamenco dress. The ruffle covered train was flicked and twirled while dancing, it floated around the dancer like waves.
So I dived deep into the internet for informations on how to create this kind of dress.
And, as I‘m a convinced non-dancing person, I also had to learn how to appropriately wear and move this kind of dress to set the waves in motion. What fun!
Outline the construction…
This is my first attempt at a project of this scale. I used a allmost fitting pattern from my stash for the top, but had to draft the skirt from scratch So I took a depiction of a pattern for a basic five piece flamencoskirt an made a smallscaled papermodell, to which I added a train, and proportionally upscaling to draft a pattern The mock-up fitted surprisingly well, only two minor adjustments necessary, but finding the right points to connect the skirt to the top was tricky The dress is made from two layers of cotton fabric for strength, that are sewn separately This way I was able to sandwich the edges inbetween the layers and only had to tack down the seam allowances The outer dress has a handdrawn white pattern to make for a more natural look of the wave-structure because the fashionlayer, a sequin and bead embroidered tulle, ist to monotonous patterned Skirt and tail of the dress have 3-5 underside ruffles made from sturdy Petticoat tulle They are box pleated and finished with biasbinding The topside ruffles are circular, all finished with small pleated ruffles of different fabrics (tafeta, tulle, lace, chiffon and shiny polyester) and colours to simulate the swaying of waves and their white crests The majority of the dress is machine sewn, except for the seams that involve the tulle fashion layer These had to be sewn by hand because of the sequins and beads I
I absolutely adore this ! You did an amazing job at recreating the sea waves and the colors are stunning !
Having made several bata de colas and as a Flamenco dancer myself, I applaud your creative design. The length of the skirt looks perfect and the movement is lovely. Well done!
I love that you have captured the movement and the structure of the garment
Love this! The movement is wonderful. You definitely depicted waves!