An Evening Gown, Part 4: The draping

Today was my last day of school for the semester. I'm kinda sad. I love school. I love being graded and being the best in my class... that is a sincere attitude of mine, and I'm not ashamed of it. I honestly thrive on getting straight A's. Is that weird?

The bodice draping on my evening gown was a labor of love. I had to drape it twice to get what I wanted, but once I got the hang of it, it was a sea breeze. 

The first time I draped it on my own, outside of class, the draping was just too heavy and controlled. It looked like it was homemade and amateurish.I got to class that week and I was ready to give up on this dress and move on to a different project. I had looked through my Pinterest Inspire board trying to feel better about my gown design, and realized I had NO draped dresses AT ALL. I was shocked. It was like I had subconsciously ignored draped dresses, and for some reason I had thought to do it all of a sudden. 

Of course, I was being a drama queen. Eugene, my teacher for evening wear, talked me off the ledge of giving up and encouraged me to just re-drape with his help, and re-commit to the dress that he knew would be great. So I took another shot. Eugene said that my draping was "too perfect", and I needed to make it a bit more messy and less controlled. The second time around was ten times easier than trying to make perfect drapes like I had, and it took half the time.

I draped one side of the bodice at a time, using two different mannequins so that my draping would still be continuous.

Once everything was pinned, I pinned each fold like crazy so I could take the bodice pieces off the mannequin to hand baste the chiffon draping to the bodice. It was actually a really fun process. Once everything was basted, I sewed the bodice back together, and it looks like this:

Just messy enough to looks elegant, as I like to think. I'm glad I had a teacher who believed in me. 

part 1: the inspiration
part 2: the muslin
part 3: the silk