Designing My First Dress

Few years back, when I attended a fashion designing course, I had to decide a theme for my mood board and make the dress accordingly. My Theme was ‘Cinderella‘. Yes, I have always loved living in Fiction :).

First of all, I had to create a mood board which was less time consuming as I had to paste pictures on a paper according to my theme. I selected and cut photos from a magazine and displayed them on the mood board.

Then I drew my designs of dresses, cut the borders carefully and pasted them on a beautiful background. I drew 4 dresses and painted them with water colors and poster paints. Background has castle because of theme (Cinderella). I remember that my teacher really admired my theme which I painted and said, ‘it looks like you cut it from a magazine’ :).

The Actual Dress

I decided to stitch the blue dress (3rd one);full length dress with few pallets to give it Cinderella dress look. I first prepared my pattern and then bought cloth, it was a Net textile and some cloth for lining too. I had never stitched anything before. It was my first attempt. I cut the cloth according to patterns. There were many panels to give flair to dress. To give dress a beautiful fall, panels are very important.

Finally, when cutting was done, I joined the patterned fabric with pins to make it easy to sew. I bought sewing machine from my savings and started sewing. I had to be very careful as I had to make it according to mannequin size. It took many days as I made few mistakes too and then unstitched the dress and stitched it again.

Covering the Mistakes

Before stitching I over locked the cloth from a shop and when it was all stitched I realized that over locked fabric(white color)  was visible and it was giving a very bad look. The instructor then told me that I was not supposed to over lock a net fabric. How stupid I was!!Then what? I unstitched the whole over lock fabric and it wasted a lot of time.

Another mistake: Hemming of dress was not giving a neat look so, I bought a silver shinning lace and  covered the bottom edge of dress and arms with that lace Finale shape was given in few days and I was so excited to see the dress as ‘ready to wear’.

Ready to Wear

My Cinderella themed dress was Ready to wear in 7-8 days and I showed it to my instructor along with other textile portfolios. And my dress was approved.

It was gladly of my size and I was waiting for any occasion to wear it. It was a family wedding and I finally wore it with silver heels and silver jewelry.

Let me tell you another thing, I also made bangles (handmade bangles) matching with the dress.

Now, it’s been 4 years and I am designing and stitching dresses. 🙂

Read Also: Abaya Shopping Day in Gold Souq

Find The best Deals & Discounts with Jamila Deals