Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Daily Dress: Umbrella Frock

Today's amazing dress comes to you courtesy of La Bricoleuse, a blog by a costume craft artisan who teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill MFA program in Costume Technology. This umbrella dress is the thesis draping project of one of her graduate students, Shanna I. Parks. Here's what La Bricoleuse says of the project:
For Shanna's creative draping project, she chose a dress from a chewing gum advertisement, the original of which was definitely a Photoshop creation--the model wore a dress with a parasol canopy for a skirt. Shanna's challenge was to make the artist's vision a reality. Because she had assisted me multiple times with altered parasol canopy forms and done her own explorations in that area, she was prepared to rise to the occasion!

Here's a picture of the understructure of the skirt:


Amazing, isn't it?

The whole effect reminds me a bit of Alice falling down the rabit hole, her skirt opening up like an umbrella.

25 comments:

  1. Absolutely AMAZING!!! I love that dress - so innovative!

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  2. The world need more people like you. Thanks for making old new again!

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  3. Love it! Shanna is actually a friend of a friend, so I'm delighted to see her work featured here :-)

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  4. Ha! Love it! Love it! Love it!

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  5. Funny! This one was a dsds candidate (german pendant to American Idol) who interpretated "Umbrella" from Rihanna, just about a month ago:http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/01334/dsds1203_zazou_DW__1334723s.jpg

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  6. That's too cute. Kind of looks like someone put an umbrella and a tutu in a twister and this is what came out on the other end. I love it!

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  7. My thoughts exactly: Alice in Wonderland.

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  8. That's awesome! I would totally wear that to a Halloween party.

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  9. Now that is original. Sort of dangerous too, a new type of chastity belt, no?

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  10. Absolutely stunning! O_O
    I love this idea :)


    http://alicecloset-sewing.blogspot.com/

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  11. Dear Gertie

    Love your blog - I read it everyday. I just came across this short video on Style.com - about draping and patternmaking by Nicolas Caito. You were the first person I thought of!

    Here is the url: http://www.style.com/video/fashion-moments/fashion-moments/1896809784/nicolas-caito/930790596001

    Thanks for your great blog!

    Louise

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  12. How... how does she sit down?

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  13. well, this number will certainly swerve eyes. very imaginative

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  14. Love it! There are some really great fashion design programs in the US (and I suspect in Canada as well) and I would love to see more student work like this featured in The Daily Dress.

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  15. It reminds me of this duct tape prom dress that I saw a while back. Here's a picture: http://www.promaholics.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/ugly-prom-dress.png

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  16. My husband saw this and said "I didn't want to get my high heels wet so I built them an umbrella." He said it a snooty high pitched voice that had me ROFL.

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  17. That's interesting.

    Did women of yore who wore hoop skirts have that girdle-like thing also?

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  18. I love the look, but it reminds me the frame at least of a cage crinoline.

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  19. I hope she got an A+ for this!

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Thanks for your comments; I read each and every one! xo Gertie

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