Costume Carving

A friend of mine recently began a business with the aim to entertain children's parties with special guests: https://www.facebook.com/rosepalaceparties

However, to be a fairy one needs wings and a dress to match.

Overall, this whole project took a lot longer then I originally thought it to be. I both regret but also don't regret doing this, but in certainty I will not ever do this again. RIP...

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>THE DRESS<

With the help of my mum, and her experience of sewing, we made the dress together after I came up with the design.

1) Design and research - My key elements to meet were: cute, modest and Lolita style.

2) Base - My mum followed a pattern that resembled the idea so we had somewhere to build from.

3) Adjustments - Originally, my mum made a petticoat to give the dress a puff but I put this over the top instead and rolled the dress up to line / engulf it. This gave both the dress more of that fairy bell silhouette and the texture / colour of the petticoat's fabric itself resembles to me like the wind. I wanted to line the edges with this plastic vine cut off that I had scavenged but this would make the dress difficult to wash so instead my mum replicated the idea but using fabric. With the left over leaves I arranged them on the skirt to resemble falling leaves. This is why the brown leaves are nearer the bottom and are more curled up while the green ones are larger and rest on the waist. My mother sewed the waistband only around the front so that it wouldn't effect the point of the elasticated waist of the skirt.

4)COMPLETION

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>THE WINGS<

For the wings, I worked on my own.

1) Research and designing - There wasn't much out there on wing making, so for most of this it was improvisational. To design, I drew on a large piece of cardboard first the wire template and then the cellophane template on top. For inspiration I first drew from a photo of a butterfly and then gave it a more fantasy fairy vibe.

2) Wire work - All we had in the way of wire was copper wire. Working in 3D was a lot different then the 2D design so adjustments had to be made while visualising the full project.

With the extras I made mini sculpture people.

3) Cellophane - After a trial experiment I realised that the spray glue made a weird texture so I decided that I would spray the wire and use the iron at a high heat to laminate the cellophane together. A soldering iron burned too hot so I used a standard clothes iron which was an awkward shape but you work with what you have. With the melting I experimented a little so that the edges of the wings would be more melted.

4) Strengthening - This step took a while as again I could only use what we had.

5) Details - To make the wings more realistic I needed to make the transition between the wire frame and cellophane more seamless. At first I tried to draw in with permanent black markers but in the end I decided on copper tape as so to match the theme of the previous.

6) Polish - To make sure that everything was secure in place I tried various methods to try and get everything to stay.

7) Straps - Likewise to step 4 this involved a lot of trials. At one point I attached the wings to the back of a chair using a hanger and masking tape so I could plan straps using ribbons, red wool and then 2 flexible measuring tapes temporarily taped together for more length. In the end I just cut out strips of fabric and experimented. When happy with the length of fabric I painted a leaf vine pattern on.

After this was more sewing: anti-fraying of edges, hand sewing the straps to the wire frame base, edging the faux feather straps, attaching these together and lastly the Velcro.

Gallery for Wings creation:

Wing Template sketch

Wire Tracing

Completed copper wire frame

Cellophane melting to frame

Texture experimenting

Trim and shape

Base

Twerly

Strap planning

Strap designs

Painted straps

Sewing straps