I have always been in awe of Iris Van Herpen’s creations, since I first saw her work featured in vogue. Every collection blows me away. In this collection, ‘Roots of rebirth’, Van Herpen takes inspiration from fungi. The expansive and varied forms of each fungi species allow for out of this world designs.
In the bottom right corner, a picture of Van Herpen’s incredible electromechanical headpiece is shown. I took from this the idea of using hardware to create structure and motion in my dress.
In this collection, Van Herpen used fabric made from plastic fished from the ocean by an environmental organization. I think it’s amazing that this designer is so ethically conscious while also being so prominent in the fashion industry. They have dressed icons including Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez. It’s important to have these leading figures going forward and I am thrilled to be starting my journey into the fashion world with such change and awareness for the environment.
This collection is called ’Sensory Seas’. The fabric in these dresses move with such fluidity and grace as though they are actually under water. She seriously understood the title. Watching the models walk in this show is mesmerising, you would not regret watching.
Again this sparked an idea in me. I loved how slinkies moved so fluidly, so I incorporated them into my project.
POND PLANTS COLLAGE
I saw a clip on the news of a lake in Cameroon that was becoming covered in a strange looking pond plant called Salvina Molesta. Though I probably should have been more concerned with the devastating effects the invasive weed was having on the locals and wildlife in the area, I was more absorbed with the cute little fairy-cup looking plants on the screen. I researched a few more pond weeds but decided to stick with the Salvina for more development.
SALVINA MEDIA MANIPULATION
I explored the form of the Salvina Molesta plant with a variety of media. I wanted to develop a fabric leaf for my project that resembled the Salvina plant while also being efficient to make.
SALVINA ACRYLIC PAINTING
This painting is another step in the development and understanding of the pond weed. I used acrylics to create a realistic picture of the greenery. This took a lot of trial and error to reach a realistic-looking drawing but I was happy with the final product.
DRESS SKETCHES
After my research I started trying roughly sketching ideas, using the slinkies for movement and the illusion of the surface of a pond. I liked the idea of a tiered dress, however I was concerned with the weight of the metal slinkies and frames. I decided not to go with the tu-tu style dress in the bottom left corner because I thought that the slinkies wouldn’t move as well due to them resting on the skirt’s fabric. Finally I made a decision and chose the center sketch.
SKIRT FRAME
I wanted to construct a structured frame to hang slinkies from and create a fluid movement. These pictures are small prototypes which allowed me to think about how the real-scale frame will work. From the prototype, I decided I would curve the lengths of metal upwards at the bottom rather than keeping them straight like in the first picture.
From this, I also confirmed that I would only do one tier instead of the two or three tiers. (For reference, these are approx 8-10 cm tall.)
FINAL SKETCH
This is my final design for the dress. I found a suitable lycra for the top and underskirt. I sewed up the two green fabrics to create the Salvina Molesta leaves.
To add a different media and create some alternative textures, I crocheted some small leaves in two tones of green. I love how these turned out, especially how they looked bunched together.
Making the frame
This dress involved a bit of elbow grease. I measured up the lengths of the aluminium hollow rods to the right size and cut them with the angle grinder. I kept the offcuts to use later. I still had to make the hoop for the outside of the skirt, so, for this part, I filed down the edges of some full length metal rods to a sharp point. These were then wedged into the hollow offcuts to be used as joints to create a hoop.
FINAL PRODUCT
This is the final product. The finishing touches really brought it together I think. My favourite part is definitely the slinkies. I reached my aim in that I wanted it to move as if it was pond plants on a water surface.
I took inspiration from Alice in Wonderland’s tea party with the Mad Hatter with this shoot. I thought the dress was quite magical and the blue colour reminded me of Alice.
Éabha Daly Design 