For the final project, I decided to make a dress constructed entirely out of newspaper. One of the requirements for the final project was that it had to be a reflective and bibliographical piece. My dress relates to myself because it is representational of a garden and the garden represents my childhood and growing up. More specifically the texture on the dress is representational of flowers and the type of dress represents a young and up beat feeling.
The way I constructed the dress was that I first started with a pattern. The pattern acted as a base for the dress. I wanted to get the basic shape of the dress and then keep adding more and give it more personal touches. Since the dress is made out of newspaper, I reinforced it with duck tape so it would be less likely to rip. The top and bottom were constructed as two different pieces then later put together. After making the basic shape of the dress and putting the two pieces together, I then started with details. The crumpled newspaper on the dress is representing flowers. I chose to add the crumpled newspaper for two reasons, one is that I wanted to give it texture and secondly it goes with concept of my reflective piece. The flowers on my dress gradually become less as it goes up the dress. I decided to do this as a design point of view. It gives the dress unity. Without the flowers on the dress, the dress does not look complete. The texture gives it a finishing touch and adds to the piece that much more.
Through out the three weeks we were working on the dress, I encountered many design problems and construction problems. One design problem I had was the pink sash. At first there wasn’t supposed to be a sash at all but once I put the two-piece together it didn’t look ascetically right. I also had a hard time figuring out what color to make the sash. In the beginning I had it pink but then I kept on looking at it and thought it was too distracting. However, once I changed it to white, it blended too much with the dress. I went back to my original idea of a pink sash and glad I stuck with it because it separates the dress from the top and bottom. Another set back that I encountered while making the dress was that it had no stretch to the material. I forgot that while measuring you have to make sure to leave a lot of room because the newspaper will not budge. I had to keep adding panels to the dress because I kept on making it too small.
Overall, I really enjoyed this final project. Out of all the projects we were assigned this semester, this one was by far my favorite. I went through some design and construction problems but I learned from my mistakes and know for next time what to do and what not to do.
