Daywear Dress: Modern Day Rococo

Anyone that goes through the Fashion Design or the Fashion Communication program at Ryerson knows that you have to go through First Year Fashion Design course part 1 and part 2. Part 1 is more dreaded, at least for me, having to construct the 'Big Shirt' and the 'skirt' coming off of little to know sewing experience. Once you get passed that, part 2 of the course consist of constructing your own dress from scratch with all of the elements you learned in part 1 of the course. This experience can be both stressful and exciting at the same time.

f/5.6, 1/15, ISO 400

I decided to complete this course in my second year and this is where me and my fellow classmates spent a lot of our days, weekends, and nights, creating this final piece. The requirements of this dress were that it had to consist of a waist seam, a collar, set in sleeves, open vertically all the way via buttons, consist of 3 manipulations, western or side seam pockets, and could not be shorter than a certain length depending on the size of your dress (petite 8, regular 10, or plus size 16).

f/5.6, 1/15, ISO 400

The theme and inspiration for my dress was my love for patterns and colors therefore looking at what I think was one of the 'cutest' era in art, the Rococo period. My take on a modern day twist was incorporating African prints and infusion both themes for this dress. The requirements for this dress got a lot of dresses looking like 1950s dresses which I did not mind at all since I love that period in fashion. I just reinforced that by keeping my design nice and simple with a peter pan collar, gathers at the sleeve and a yoke by the waistline.

f/5.6, 1/15, ISO 400

I'm happy with the way my dress turned out and just happy to be 'almost' complete with this course. Learned some valuable dressmaking skills that I can use for my personal use in the future.