Many have been asking for more stories on my past creative technical solutions. When you are intensely creative then you also desire to create different ways to solve technical problems, while making the style even more beautiful in shape for the ultimate consumer. In my early collections in the late 1950s and early 1960s I did a lot of bias cuts, which I love. As I played with the bias I realzed that you could do some masterful tailoring by manipulating the bias in various ways.
Here, in this silk doupioni dress, the skirt section was bias cut, and I "stretched" the bias at the empire line seam, and the fall over the body and indenting at the waist was superbly feminine, with it's gentle waving at the hem. The top was a series of tiny box pleats, with the pleated frill a separately sewn piece. It was easy in the 50s and 60s for a young designer to get small lots of this pleating done. The model is Jo Summers, who today, owns the Copley Seven Model Agency, and owns some of my past styles. In fact, I sold this model quite well, directly to consumers from fashion shows.
If any of you want to know more about this creative technical bias cutting, please email me shirley@shirleywillett.com and I will do some diagrams to show you.
1 comment:
That is very beautiful, and the model is also quite beautiful. I'm curious about how you stretched the bias. I'm familiar with stretching bias before hemming so the hem will remain even. What you mention sounds different. Is it actually? If so, how? Are the skirt panels cut mirror image for symmetry?
Again, thank you for sharing!
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