THE STORY OF A GALA DRESS

I don't think I ever told the story about this particular Dress, that was made for a very special occasion years ago.

This dress was created during my formal years at The University of Fashion Design and Crafts in Odense, Denmark. Take a look at my Resume in the menu above.

 

Dress design and Lay-out, John F. Clément, Model, Trine Bolander

One day in 1998, a teacher, the late Bente Solander approached me, to ask if I would like to participate in the Danish Master ships competition for Tailor and design students in Copenhagen. I think it was well in advance, so of course I accepted the Challenge.

We were only two from the University that were asked to participate. I participated in the Gala Dress category and my friend Coco in the Tailor suit category with a pink pants suit.

I became quite busy, working on this dress next to all my studies.

Beside filling out the participation papers, I had to decide which design I wanted to present and what kind of material was best suited. So, I designed different suggestions, before I decided which one to use.

I ended up with this Corset dress design, that you see above. I choose a multi patterned viscose fabric and used a polyester organdy as underlining. I hand-basted all the layers together, before overlocking and sewing them together. To hold up the dress I attached a supporting inner corset with boning to the dress and hand-stiched the facing inside the corset. I also used a lot of hand-stiching to finish the wide train-hem.

From the beginning I knew I wanted to use my good friend Trine as a model. Luckily she said yes and I had a few fittings in Copenhagen, where she lived. 

She used to model, so she presented the dress very well on the runway in front of the audience and judges.

All in all, the event was a very nice experience although neither of us won anything. 

Later on, I decided to transform this dress into a short cocktail dress with a cowl neck, that eventually was sold. Additionally I made a Corset out of the leftovers, that is still available, should anyone be interested.