Tuesday, 25 February 2014

Sixties Dress

I cut out the pattern pieces for the dress and the facings. The front dress piece and front neck facing has to be cut on the fold so it opens out.






Once I'd cut out the pieces for my dress I started to work on the daisies that were to be appliquéd on. I drew the shape on sheets of different coloured foam with pencil to make sure I got the right shape and then cut them out carefully. The white dots in the middle were stuck on with the glue gun. 

Then, I cut out the strips of felt and pinned them into place before sewing them on with the machine across the straight edge. The scalloped edges were sewn on using embroidery thread to make them stand out. The daisies were also sewn on with embroidery thread round the edge of the petals.











 

My inspiration

My 1960s dress is simple in silhouette, an A-line shift dress, but with lots of detail. My garment features scalloped edges, daisies and psychadelic colours- all iconic trends of the era. The psychadelic colours are a nod to the hippie trend whereas the daisies and scalloped edges are what mods would of worn in the mid-sixties. Clean lines were a key feature of mid-sixties fashion with simple shapes, eg. circles and daisies.


My dress would have been worn in the mid-sixties. I chose to base my dress mainly on mid-sixties fashion because I think the clothes of this part of the decade were very fun and youthful, more so than the early or late sixties. I think if I was around in this time, I would have dressed like a mod because I love how they just played around with fashion and were experimental with shapes and materials. Unconventional materials like PVC and plastic became popular in the sixties because it was new and exciting as it hadn't been available during the war. Paco Rabanne used metal discs in his iconic dress of 1967.

Daisies were a key feature in a lot of Mary Quant's dresses, even her logo was just a simple daisy. I decided to make the daisies the main aspect of my garment with the scalloped strips just to separate the top row of daisies from the bottom.

Psychadelia was a massive trend which stemmed from the use of hallucigenic drugs like LSD and acid. Psychadelic colours are an iconic part of 60s fashion. My garment features vivid colours that clash with each other- orange, pink, yellow and green.