This week we were asked to design a cocktail dress or evening gown to fit in with the new Project Runway collection at Lord + Taylor.
The dress had to be appropriate for the sophisticated Lord + Taylor customer, but also relatively easy to manufacture.
I started by picking out my fabric before designing my dress. I wanted something other than black, but nothing really spoke to me. I thought this textured, stretch black with shots of silver at least had a little something special to it. The fabric seemed to call out for a gown.
I tried to keep simplicity of design in mind for my dress. (Let’s face it Dimitri had a beautiful dress this week, but the amount of work it would take to manufacture it probably kept it out of the top.) So, I stuck to a rather simple shape, but added some ruching to the waist.
The ruching gives some definition at the waist and can also hide a little tummy that might keep someone from wearing this type of dress. I paired the dress with basic black peep-toes because no one is really going to see them. The evening bag calls back to the silver in the dress. I felt the amount of open neckline called for a statement necklace.
Since the judges were going ga-ga for a simple black dress with an asymmetrical hem on the show, I hope my ruching will throw them for a loop. Really, I thought the judging was quite uneven this week and the designs not that great. Maybe I’m just tired of the make a pretty dress challenges. Hopefully, we’ll get something a little more interesting soon.
© 2005 – 2012 Kathy Lewinski & Susan Cornish
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