Saturday, November 20, 2010

Seattle Modified Style Fashion Show 2010

Here is my finished dress in the Modified Style Fashion Show (Saturday, Nov 14th, 2010).  Annika looked so good!

Annika modeling my dress at the Modified Style Fashion Show 2010

Here's a link to photos from the whole show:  http://kerrydahlen.smugmug.com/Fashion/Modified-Style-2010/14708964_XUZKg#1095688417_RUPjm.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Modified Style, Adventures in Dress Making

During the last two weeks I spent all of my free time working out the final details of a dress I designed for Modified Style.  For those who are not familiar with this Seattle/Portland based non-profit recycled dress making fashion show competition, Modified Style is a challenge to make a dress out of a mysterious bag of recycled fabric scraps  in order to eventually raise money for charity.  Check out this post in the Slog.  It is a wonderful organization and I am lucky to have been able to participate in the first one in 2008 and again this past weekend.  All of the dresses are unique and amazing; they are creative visions released for good fun.
Ki modeling the dress I designed for Seattle Modified Style 2008
Ki and I - Seattle Modified Style 2008

I have learned so much from designing and crafting these dresses together; mainly that I am capable of designing and creating a unique dress!  Also, on the other hand, I know very little about sewing and tailoring in general.  It was very exciting to learn how to make a gathered skirt and how to use my sewing machine to make button holes.  I meant to document my dress making process as it happened over the past 2 months and of course I did not.  Now I will recapture as much of the process as I can, mainly with pictures.

To begin, here are the scraps I started with for Modified Style 2010:



And some of my first ideas.


Brainstorming with fabric


One last thing, a little side note, somehow I won best dress overall in this last competition!  I am a terrible winner- it's always hard for me to believe that I deserve to win because I believe that when everyone works so hard at creating something unique that everyone is a winner.  However, I worked my ass off and I'm really excited to get the wellness massage I won:)

Another side note, my friend Annika and I designed and modeled our dresses for each other.  I got to model her whimsical fairyland dress featuring a hoop skirt made out of a bike tire.  She won most creative dress.  She worked her ass off too!