The Spirit of Autumn Dress Project

Autumn Spirit dress

Well, that was something different. One week I have an idea, next week the outfit is ready…. absolutely loving the result of the friendly/professional cooperation on this project – it looks like the other seasons will be represented by organic, ephemeral dresses as well.

But – the Autumn. A detailed article on how to make the outfit will soon appear on the Foundations Revealed website, but in the meantime a few pictures and a bare bones here…

The original sketch

A week on, the leaves and other autumnal bits were gathered…

conkers!!

naughty Merlin kept dive bombing the leaf pile…

the dress base was made up of cotton and the fun begins…

The leaves are first stapled on ( only the first layer/ and then glued with copious amount of glue… a few hours later, having run out of glue and the leaves, the skirt already looked rather splendid

Second leaf gathering mission took place on the next day, and at last the skirt was finished. all together it took roughly 350-400 different kind of leaves ( maple, oak, birch, copper beech, chestnut, hawthorn etc) and 4 packets of glue sticks…

Leaves preservation – well, since waxing or treating each and single leaf with glycerin was beyond the time scale allocated for this project, I did not preserve the leaves at all – I simply made care I collected freshly fallen leaves – and keeping the thing outside seemed to do the trick admirably – and almost a week on, the dress is still ok, though a few leaves look a bit tired. the idea is to do the skirt cheaply and discard it later – however, for a lasting garments artificial leaves can be used.

And since the corset to go with the skirt was to be a lasting creation, that;s what got stitched on it – artificial leaves, vines and beads pretending to be berries:-) then only a few real leaves were added on the day of the shoot.

The wig and contact lenses turned up on time, and Lucas even managed to make up some autumnal jewelry too….

On the day of the shoot the usual team turned up just in time for a cuppa and a breakfast muffin – and got to work. Lucas and Paul drove to the location – we decided to shoot in the sample place that inspired me – Harrold Odell Park. And so the boys went over early to look for a fitting spot and set up the light etc.

Sarah unpacked her goodies and started working on the make up – a very different look for me, but went well with the wig and the contact lenses – my first time as far as the lenses are concerned, but really liked the effect and will invest with more funky ones in the future…

Then it was time to get the wig on and drive over to the location. The boys were ready with their gear and special effect ( the ‘mist generators’ ) so i just needed to change and Sarah styled the wig and the crown on …

all ready!

and the work started – most of it was getting the light – both artificial and the fleeting sunshine, and the smoke right. so lots of waiting for the sun to appear for a few seconds, upon which the special effect team would get the mist sorted and Paul was shooting. Lucas took a few photos as well – and the result of the work below….