Elizabeth submits this wicked collar as a challenge:
Any takers? I think the sewing of the thing is just as interesting. I’ve got an idea about the cuffs but the collar is so full I couldn’t guestimate without thinking about it for awhile as to whether the neckline is applied in the same fashion. Any guesses on allocation? That’d be like guessing how many jelly beans can fit in a five gallon jar.
The designer is Nikoline Liv Andersen, from Denmark. She doesn’t have a real website yet but you can see more samples of her work. She’s young and quite talented, even won some awards. Google search provides more links if you want to know more.
I’ve got some ideas.
It looks like many whole circles, self-faced, then folded and stacked on top of several jabots (time to get out the drapery books!)
This is cruel and unusual…I usually don’t participate in these, but at least spend some time trying to puzzle it out…but this takes the cake. I’m going to give up before I start.
Bloody hell!
Somebody please tell her production manager to run for the hills :-0
Seriously though…. it is refreshing to see something that obviously had to be draped :-)
Drape? I don’t see how you’d start there. You’d have to draft the ruffles first, cut a jizillion out, section them out and then drape. It looks like she’s got a couple layers of them, at least around the neck. And yeah, those do look like they’re fully faced. I don’t see a hem finish. Either that or they’re cut raw but then it’d have to be a lightweight lamb or ultrasuede to avoid ravelies…
One thing has me curious…you can see it at the waist but it looks as tho those were set via the same method cartridge pleating were set (traditionally). At this point, I’d give a prize to someone who could replicate a *cuff* :).
I believe they are lined 5-6″ circles, turned and finished, folded in half, then pinched into a small pleat, release tucked at the center of the folded edge. Then stacked and stitched onto a band/tape or single peter pan-ish/modified bishop type collar on the neckline.
The shoulders seem stacked like multiple layers of epaulets, almost like applying a stack of shoulder pads on the outside.
The cuffs appear to be 3-4″ circles folded in half with the fold edge out- again they would need to be stitched to a band or tape at wrist. The tack would be at the upper 1/4 on the fold edge. The circle edge may have been squared off where it is to be tacked.
The peplum is back to the larger circles- maybe even an inch larger than the neck ones.
I made a trial of a dozen 5″ circles in carriff ( light weight non woven I used for fiddlin’ around)and created a very similar effect.
I’m not sure I’m communicating this well- but this is where I would start and probably modify the size of the circlets and the number of them depending on fabric. I believe they may be 7 or 8 circles deep- that means a minimum of about 35-48 for the neckline- whew!
Kaaren
I was wrong about the cuffs- just tried them a little differently- the completed circles are folded in half and the circle would need to be stitched to the sleeve wrist or wrist band at center- the big difference is there is no pinch pleat at center.
Kaaren
Perhaps I didn’t explain myself very well earlier… What I meant to say is that it’s nice to see something that would have to be draped (after cutting and sewing your circles) because I am soooo tired of T-shirt vendors calling themselves designers….
When I see something like this that challenges the mind it just makes my day!
I agree with Kaaren in the sense that I don’t think the shoulders are sewn into the seams…. In regards to the fabric I’m leaning more towards a theory of laser cut single layer!?!?
Looks to me like circular flounces, could be self-faced or it could be some sort of suede. The back side of the flounces are a slightly different colour if you look closely. And I vote for cartridge pleating at the hem and the cuffs. Too hard to tell at the neck as you can’t actually see part all the fullness to where they are attached. The pleats look like about 1/8th of a circle per pleat – that means 4 ‘pleats’ per circle. No way I would drape this, you would want it to be mathematically precise.
I don’t have enough experience with cartridge pleating to tell, but it could be cartridge pleats at the neck and they are just falling toward the front because the model is leaning forward (same with the shoulder flounces).
At any rate that’s a LOT of circles. Double that if they’re self-faced!!!
My question is this a live model? Her hands look real, and if she is a live model what the heck does she have on her head?
Pam
I love it! That’s so cool.
Do you have a larger picture? That would help a lot, but here’s my two cents:
It look to me like the collar and epaulettes are made up of stacks of circles (either fully lined or faced) 6-8″ in diameter that have been folded in fourths– folded in half, and then again– and then stitched onto a base collar one by one at the corner, leaving the edges free. To me, it looks like the collar consists of four (assuming it continues in the same fashion on the back) sections– two in front and two in back. The epaulettes look like two stacks each– one on the front shoulder and one on the back.
This is perhaps similar to or the same as the answer provided by Kaaren.
As for the cuffs, I think it uses somewhat the same method as the collar. Cartridge pleating of some kind, but what I can’t tell from the picture is whether the edge of the cuff is curved. If so, I think the cuffs are cartridge pleated circular flounces, tacked onto a base, similar to a 15th C ruff Maybe? I don’t know. In any case, this is cool!
It looks to me like the flounces are a single piece of fabric folded back on itself, not stacks of separate circles. In other words, I think it is a spiral. Easy to make seamlessly by knit or crochet, not so much with woven fabric, which is what this looks like. I suggest she cut out multiple circles, sliced them on a radius, and joined those cut edges together to make a continuous spiral which could then be more easily faced with a second spiral than by facing and turning multiple circles. This presents a problem as you wouldn’t be able to add a seam allowance to the radius edge, resulting in slight irregularities, but maybe she did really small seam allowances.
My vote goes for spirals too, a la Vionnet waterfalls. Circles would take forty-five years (approximation) and be too bulky, what with all the seams to join ’em together.
I can’t speak for everyone else but when I mentioned circles and sewing them together, the implication is that, of course, a spiral is formed :). That’s what circles do when they’re joined together.
I don’t believe any other configuration is possible (one continuous spiral) because if cut continuously, as the radius increases, as does a commensurate decrease in fullness. To maintain the same degree of fullness in the outer edge, as compared to the inside edge, there’d have to be gathers and there aren’t any.
I also took it as a given that when you make a circular flounce you are sewing together multiple circles along their ‘radius’, unless it’s not a very full flounce, and these are very very full. I wouldn’t have thought to call that ‘spirals’ as I usually think of a spiral as implying an increasing/decresing radius as Kathleen mentioned (that these aren’t), whereas if these were laid ‘flat’ they would stack on top of each other in a spiral like a staircase (or a slinky?) that would look like the same circle as the pattern piece if viewed from above..
As far as the model’s head I’d say some sort of rubber/pvc hood, and if you blow up the picture you can see there’s actually a separate mask over the eyes – like a sleeping mask
I think the mask is a bondage mask as the separate eye and mouth pieces look like they are snapped on.
The jacket looks like it’s made of leather so, as others have noted, the edges could be left unfinished.
I’m not use spirals would work since the amount of flouce would not be consistant–less flouce as the spiral gets bigger. I agree with the person who said the shoulder pieces look like circles folded in fourths and sew to the shoulder at the center of the circle. The only thing is I see what looks like cut edges like the circle was cut into the radius. This makes me think that the piece might be only 3/4 of a circle.
The look was designed by Nikoline Liv Andersen. She designs out of Copenhagen and shows in Stockholm. I did find a close up photo of the collar, which i am mailing to kathleen.