Jean Paul Gaultier

Last week while we were traveling Canada for vacation, my hb and I visited the fantastic exhibition “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier “From Sidewalk to the Catwalk” in the museum of fine arts.

This exhibition will travel to Dallas Museum of Art (November 13, 2011 – February 12, 2012),

the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young (March 24 – August 19, 2012),

Thee Young (March 24 – August 19, 2012), the Fundación Mapfre – Instituto de Cultura, Madrid (September 26 – November 18, 2012) ,

and The Kunsthal Rotterdam, the Netherlands (February 9 – May 12, 2013).

The exhibition was fantastic not only to see the 140 garments which were shown but also the display with 30 of the dress models/ mannequins have animated faces.

The clothes are not just displayed on our average mannequin: in true avant garde style faces of those close to Gaultier are projected onto the mannequin’s modeled heads- Gaultier’s own countenance is even present on one lucky model (see video below, it is truly mind blowing). Thierry-Maxime Loriot, the curator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts explains the innovative method of display: “If you know Jean Paul Gaultier’s world then you see how creative and how alive and fun it is. It would be wrong to show his work only on boring mannequins.”

Copied from  http://www.stylelist.com/2011/06/24/jean-paul-gaultier-montreal-exhibit/

My husband took a lot of pictures (+ 130) of the garments ( allowed by the museum but no flashes)

You can see them all at  my flickr album

If you have the opportunity to see the exhibition please do, it is phenomenal.

I admire the designs but also the fantastic craft/workmanship from all the people who made those fantastic garments.

see this leopard skin dress’ which is made entirely from tiny beads embroidery.

6 months ago I watched the Arte documentary “The day before Jean Paul Gaultier”on Dutch television with Dutch subtitles, maybe you can watch it too via

AVRO Close Up portal – Close Up: The Day Before: Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Gail Gondek at The Center for Pattern Design Conference

 San Francisco California Oct 2, 2009

Silk charmeuse lined suede shell with pick stitch detail around armholes and hem over sequined skirt. Worn with a silk/wool angled circle wrap and stone disk pendant on a black silk cord. – Gail Gondek patterns for Ralph Rucci

The Center for Pattern Design held its first annual conference on Saturday. Pattern designers and educators from near and far came to talk about their art, and listen to a great group of people involved in designing and making patterns at the all day conference.

Julian Roberts spoke about his methods of subtraction cutting, with great folded paper demos of how it’s done, along with some of dresses made by participants at the previous day’s hands-on workshop.

The keynote speaker was Gail Gondek, who has designed patterns for Ralph Rucci and Peter Som, after many years working with Geoffrey Beene. She talked about some of her experiences working with a designer to create their vision in cloth, about the process of taking a design from concept to the runway. Afterwards, we got to look at some of her pieces from Ralph Rucci, inside and out.

Wtih Gail’s permission, I took a few photos to share with you, knowing you would love to see some of these details as much as I did.

This silk dress had his signature back zipper set into the side panel instead of the center back seam.

 

Here’s a detail of the front of this dress. A spaghetti cording is whipped to the body with silk embroidery thread, the same detail as seen on the center back.

I loved the easy ‘floating away from the body’ shape of this black sheath dress –

 

 

 

 

Check out its lovely little peek-a-boo detail at the lower center back – just a little surprise – in an area where most women still can show a flash of skin and get away with it, no matter what your age. The display mannequins are covered in black leather, so the contrast doesn’t show up so much as it would if skin was showing thru the cut out.

The fabric is a double face wool crepe – a truly wonderful soft but firm hand. That’s a fabric that I will have to look into. If you have seen any in your travels, let us know!

 

 

 

The peek-a-boo detail was used on this jacket as well, on both the front and back. The contrast satin insets at the waist seam are a nice touch too.

 

Sigh! Wouldn’t this jacket just be lovely over that sheath dress…??

Thanks to Gail for sharing some of her great work. I am looking forward to next year’s conference already.

Valentino Movie DVD release

I guess someone over at the Valentino movie PR firm read my review of The Last Emperor. We received a note about the DVD’s release, so my wish to own it is about to come true.

The description of the little mini movies included with the DVD look interesting; I know I am looking forward to seeing the extra glimpse into the atelier. Regardless of what you think of Valentino the man, or his style, the movie is a wonderful poem about the creation of beuatiful clothes. I can’t wait to hit the slow-motion, and the pause button, to study up a bit on some couture techniques.

For those who might be driven to own a real Valentino dress, you can enter a contest to win a vintage Valentino gown from Decades in Los Angeles – all you have to do is send an email to enter. Who knows where that info may end up? I can imagine that your in-box might be filled with fashion and cinema related emails for the foreseeable future. Still, the gown is valued at $3200, and you get the DVD along with it. However, the drawing isn’t until January – I am not going to wait that long.

Victoria Jones Collection 001 plus Gathering Tutorial

I have been wanting to make up something from this indy pattern maker for a long time and decided to make up this pattern when my favorite summer lounging dress, a loose translation of KwikSew 2645 needed mending

I chose pattern #001 because it is being discontinued according to the Postscript at the the Victoria Jones Collection website.

I also wanted to learn:

…several pattern making secrets in this design which give you an hourglass shape. The waistline tucks are subtle, and there is still plenty of ease with 6″ of extra room in the waist.

from the pattern description

That cinched it. I must try this pattern! I found the instructions to be great for a beginner with more advanced dressmaking techniques well explained than is usually included in a pattern from the big pattern companies. Indeed the designer urges you to call her if you have any questions or need to size up or down beyond the pattern’s sizing.

The only anomaly I found in this pattern was that I saw no reason to line the lower band, not big deal in my book. You’ll be in good hands following this designer’s directions.

Click the images below for a readable version of the front and back of the pattern envelope. If you need an even bigger version, click on “all sizes” on the Flikr page and then choose the largest size.

I cut size 18 throughout this first version, using linens from my stash in-house store.
Bodice Close-up

This is a classic Victorian “Gibson Girl” shape with extended front yokes and very full sleeves with stiffened, interfaced sleeve heads. The yoke extends beyond the scye line, an example of which is shown below.

Illustration #63 from Coat & Skirt Making, by Samuel Heath, 1978, ISBN 0 258 96817 6.

I hard pressed the armscye seams in toward the sleeve as per pattern instructions and was able to turn the sleeves into more width than height. If this pressing had not been done the sleeves would be standing straight up off the shoulders (not a good look for a grown woman…)!

The tucks at the waistline in front and back are a fun way to shape the dress. The back tucks are further held in by the belt

The skirt is not excessively full

And the lower vee cut band and double flounces add some sewing interest to the project

I have written a review of this pattern at PatternReview.com, giving a few more details slanted towards the construction of this dress.

As I was gathering the yards of fabric needed for the sleeves and flounces I realized I had a few tips I could pass along.

Make long basting stitches at 1/2″ and just under 5/8″ per the pattern instructions and pull the bobbin threads at one end of your segment to be gathered. Wind them in a figure 8 around the pin holding the piece to be gathered to the straight piece

Couture Caveat: I am showing you gathers worked in linen but for tinier gathers in fabrics made of finer threads shorten the gathering stitches!

This will allow you to pull the bobbin threads at the other end of the segment taunt enough to fit the two pieces together

On longer segments pin the two ends in place and place a pin in the middle of the piece to be gathered

don’t gather where there are seams that need to be matched

Wind off both ends and at the pin in the center, gently lift up the two bobbin threads

pull the threads taunt

and after you have shortened the gathered segment, wind off the pulled threads on the center pin. Make the gathered segment a bit shorter than the straight segment. This will make spacing the gathers much easier and the wound off threads will “give” a little as you work the gathers into evenly spaced waves of beauty.

Give gentle tugs downward on the fabric as you work for equal spacing of the gathers along the threads.

The dynamic you want to maintain is the gathered fabric suspended on the basting threads, like sheets hung on the clothes line. Then pin in place as needed and hand baste before machine stitching.

The continued gentle downward tug of the fabric as you machine stitch will help keep the gathers from bunching under the machine foot.

Happy Sewing!

The Making of Chanel Couture

If you are interested to see how The House of Chanel made this gorgeous dress and fabric  you should watch this video, The Making of Chanel Couture  ( shared from NY video)

You will see Madame Jacqueline and Madame Céline at work,( draping the jacket and draping the dress from muslin fabric) plus the exquisite embroiders from Lesage. You probably remember them from watching the video Signé Chanel which I did a post about in 2006 House of Chanel

Enjoy.