The Gala Gown
Designing and creating a gown has been in my mind since high school. I made my senior prom dress, but it turned out to be a disaster. Since then, I’ve wanted to redeem myself from that horror. I was 18, and I had no experience under my belt and didn’t understand the fabric.
When I learned that my workplace would be attending a gala, I wanted to challenge myself by making a dress. I spent months looking for inspiration and could not come up with what I wanted. I started sketching and made progress. I decided on a fitted silhouette with a corset and a flowing skirt. I ordered 12 yards of charmeuse fabric. Charmeuse is a more sustainable fabric and is known to biodegrade. Once I had all the materials to start the dress, I came up with a plan of action on where to begin. I decided to do the dress in three parts.
The Skirt:
The first thing I did was cut two pieces of fabric and place them on my dress form. I am a massive fan of flowing skirts featuring trains. Once I decided on the length of the skirt, I moved forward with hemming the leg slit. I added another panel at the back of the dress to add more movement when I walked. After a few fittings, I noticed that two panels caused the skirt to be fitted rather than flowing.
The Corset:
Initially, I was nervous to start this piece of the dress. I’ve never had experience with creating a corset. I cannot tell you how many times I used my seam ripper to make the fabric strips for the boning. Stitching the base of the corset was the easy part. Once everything was pressed/steamed, I moved forward with inserting the boning into the dress. I cut six pieces of boning and used my ½” biased tape maker to create the fabric covers. Once I completed the corset, I had to decide what I would use to close the back of the dress. I originally was going to use an invisible zipper, but I did not like how it shaped the back of the gown. I seam ripped the zipper out and thought maybe I would do a tie-back. I ended up not liking that either. After I completed the top of the dress, I went back and decided to use a few hooks and eyes down the back of the gown to keep it together. Let me tell you; I was obsessed with how it looked.
The Top:
I had so many issues with the top portion of this gown, and it took me weeks to figure out what I wanted to do after I completed the skirt and corset. To this day, I am still not satisfied with the results. I wanted to create a seashell effect like Ariel’s shells from The Little Mermaid. I took the cups out of an old bra that I do not wear anymore, and I attached the panels that made the shell effect to the bra cups and then connected the cups to the corset. Things got complicated, and I panicked and worked on my dress at the last minute. I did criss-cross straps that made an x on my back to hold the cups up. My cups kept popping out, and I realized that the bra was probably too big for me. I decided to stop panicking and that I would just use a lot of double-sided tapes.
Despite the struggles of creating this gown, I am very proud that I made this gorgeous piece. I'm not super upset about the top portion, but I know I can do better with patience. If you have any questions about my gala gown or would like to learn more, let me know!
Sara
