Dress for Kara Maria's Art Show

This latest VAGADU collection is way ahead of the game, thanks to lessons learned from Mazura last May and the Rex Flodstrom Show in Chicago. In neither of these previous collections would I have imagined having a prototype dress for the collection done this early in the process, but it's happening and it's exciting!

This dress to the left is called "Ducky". It was originally created for Kara Maria to wear at her art opening this past January 19th at the Catherine Clark Gallery. However, due to the pressures of the show she was too busy to have a fitting so I ended up wearing the dress to her event.

So far I have gotten a lot of positive feedback on "Ducky" and since it is a one-off I thought I would indulge our audiences with how this dress was conceived which will also give a good idea of similar concepts that will be going into other pieces of the collection.

First, one of the many themes Kara explores is the clash of Middle Eastern versus Western cultures. Therefore, like Kara, I would bring together symbolic design elements from both cultures to create a simple frock.

As I was researching Muslim clothing I was surprised to find that there was a whole exciting world of clothing bursting with festive colors and garnishes.

For instance, I was surprised to see the vibrancy of colors and embroidery in this Palestinian wedding garment (the red dress), and if I hadn't known it was middle-eastern I would have assumed it was Guatemalan. In the darker dress which is from Yemen, the intricacy of the embroidery is not just decorative but is used to tell a story, in this example depicting the tree of life.

As I was designing "Ducky" I knew it needed to embrace the sensibilities of Muslim simple structural design, together with the heavy textures, and ornate embellishments with a modern twist. In other words, a fusion of East meets West meets Kara Maria...and you get a dress!

The general shape of "Ducky" had to be very simple. I chose a trapeze style mini dress because of its straightforward, elementary form. Next, I chose to highlight the typical Muslim neckline ornamentation (as seen in the red garment), but I would alter the shape of it to link it to Kara. I chose to outline a falling duck because Kara's work often explores flight, either by birds or planes. In some of her works the bird no longer can fly and is falling. Like in the painting here, where the duck looks like it has been shot down.

The colors, fabrics and textures of the dress were all inspired by Kara's painting called "The Babylon Lottery" (as seen below). I loved working with this artwork because of its multi-textural exploration. The combinations of a of watery paint foundation, topped with bits of realism images, folded in with streaks and drips of thick paint, frosted with crisp tile shapes allows for endless possibilities for clothing construction.

"Babylon" is thematically purple and grey, so after choosing the initial colors I decided to work first with the Muslim inspired tiles to start the decorative process. Influenced by the shapes I made an abstract version of it that works its way around the collar of the dress. Then I used a decorative stitch around each of the "tiles" and collar to infuse the "traditional/ethnic" feel to the garment.

Lastly, for the side panels I tried to emulate the painting streaks that roughly work themselves throughout "Babylon". Using fabric paints and water, I streaked the different colors throughout the fabric. When dry, I flipped it to the wrong side and noticed that the way the paint had dried underneath was much more expressive and ended up useing the reversed side for the final product! Unintentional genius is always welcome....

I wore it to Kara's opening reception at the Catherine Clark Gallery last Saturday. It was a wonderful show with fun and interesting people. The space was beautiful and seeing lots of Kara nicely hung in one room was a real treat. It was the first time for her to see one of the clothing pieces and she loved it. The response from the other gallery goers was also very positive.

If you get a chance, check out her show which will be hanging until March 1, 2008.