FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
Winter Hayle-Blackburn
(click images to to enlarge)
Other Credits
Photographer: Ella Claire Morgan https://www.instagram.com/ella.claire.photo/
Outline the story …
Winter Hayle-Blackburn is a character from The Lunar Chronicles series. Lunars have the special ability to influence the bio-electricity in other people and thereby control what they do and see. After a traumatic experience as a child, Winter decides that this ‘gift’ is cruel, and declares that she will never use it again. When her stepmother discovers this, she forces Winter to cut her face so that she will have to use her gift to hide the scars. Winter endures the pain, refuses to give in and wears her scars with pride. In middle school she meant a lot to me as one of the only black/mixed-race characters I was reading about, so I decided to dedicate this project to her.
The dress is heavily influenced by Greek chitons, because according to the book most of the art and architecture on Luna is inspired by Roman and Greek depictions of the moon. I also included a drape reminiscent of a sari, because her late mother is thought to be South Asian based on the book’s description, and Winter holds close many of her mother's symbols. The embroidered moon phases at the waist and hem are based on the fact that in the book many members of court are described as having embroidered symbols on their clothes. In designing this, I imagines that she would wear this garment for a formal court event, such as the coronation of her cousin at the end of the series.
Outline the construction…
The majority of the dress is made out of an off-white satin, double layered on the bodice and single layer for the skirt. The underskirt is a grey-blue chiffon. I also used matching blue embroidery thread and seed beads to decorate the waistband and hem at the front.
The bodice is made of two layers of channels that are gathered by ribbon and tie at the back. It was my first time using this technique, though it was one that I had wanted to try for a while. I generally make things that have much more structured bodices, and are usually boned, so it was a bit of a challenge to make something softer, and more draped. At first I was worried that it needed an understructure of some sort, but in the end one thing I love about the dress is how comfortable it is, and I think it’s effortlessness really fits the character it is designed for.
Design-wise, I had some challenges with the skirt. Initially I had a simpler design in mind, but when paired with the bodice, the two didn’t go together very well. I experimented with a couple of ideas, and finally decided on the drape across the dress, because it fit with the other inspiration that I was drawing on for the design.
Overall it was really exciting to make something that was such a departure from my usual work, and I’m very proud of how it turned out!
SO many thoughtful design choices and I love the moon phase embroidery on the hem.
The drapery is exquisite!
Oh the colours and silhouette of this is stunning…
Cannot get over this dress and these incredible photos. Amazing work and beautiful art direction!
The silhouette of this dress is amazingly beautiful. And the embroidery is such a pretty detail. Your text makes me want to read this book, it sounds so cool!
I love the beading details!
I just love everything about this! The concept, the execution, your posing and styling. Excellent work and I totally hear you about the difficulty of working with a draped design when you’re used to a lot of structure. You’ve done it so well!
the drapery is really cool !
Really, really beautiful! I love how elegant and graceful this looks on you, the draping definitely works wonderfully for this silhouette, and stunning photos too! Well done!
Beautiful job! Very evocative and expressive design and execution!