Fashion Design
Fabric Flowers & Applied Surface Decoration
Every flower was made individually, one at a time, and a diamanté sewn into the centre of each.
Alongside the beadwork, I developed a second way of building decoration onto a garment — not by sewing beads into the fabric, but by making the ornament separately and then applying it to the surface.
Each flower was cut, shaped and assembled by hand from satin and other dress fabrics. The petals were formed one at a time and gathered at the centre, so that every flower held its own shape rather than lying flat against the cloth.
A diamanté was then sewn into the centre of each finished flower, catching the light and giving the eye a point to settle on.
The flowers were made in batches before any of them reached a garment — cut from offcuts of the same fabrics the tops were made from, so that the decoration and the cloth always belonged to one another.
Because each flower was made separately, no two are quite identical. That slight irregularity is what keeps the finished band looking like handwork rather than trim bought by the metre.
The flowers being made, and the finished range of tops.
The flowers were arranged across the neckline in a curved band, following the line of the body rather than sitting square to the cut of the fabric.
Larger flowers were placed where the eye lands first, with smaller ones filling and softening the edges, so the band reads as one continuous sweep instead of a row of separate pieces.
Because the flowers stand slightly off the surface, they cast their own shadows. The decoration changes as the wearer moves — something a printed or flat-applied pattern cannot do.
The technique was carried across a number of tops in different colourways — cream flowers on chocolate satin, red on black spotted satin, tonal grey on grey, cream on black, and pale blue on white.
Keeping the flowers in the same fabric family as the garment, or in deliberate contrast to it, changed the character of each piece entirely while the making stayed the same.
The hand-sewn beadwork used on the bridal gown and other garments is shown in Hand-Sewn Beadwork & Surface Decoration.
For enquiries, please contact lee.anchor@optusnet.com.au.