Barbie got a new dress

Some months ago a friend told me about a design competition held by the Groninger Museum for which you had to design a dress for Barbie inspired by fashion designers Azzedine Alaia or Iris van Herpen, whos collections are exhibited at the museum at the moment. Being a fan of fashion design and loving detailed work, this competition was perfect for me and I decided to submit. As you could read in previous posts (here and here), I went to the museum to see the exhibition and to get inspired. I chose Iris van Herpen as my inspiration. Her designs combine traditional craftmanship and unconventional materials, resulting in beautiful pieces.

For my dress I decided to use a traditional craft that I recently learned, bobbin lace making!

My initial idea was to make lace with metal wire but after trying it, it didn't work out the way I wanted. The metal was too stiff so bending the wires was hard and made the structure too open.

I decided to use normal offwhite thread and combined it with metal wires. I drew an outline of the pattern of the dress and used it as the base of my bobbin lace. In order to create the lace structure that I wanted I had to use 60 bobbins! The most I ever used for one piece. You can imagine that winding and hanging the bobbins was a lot of work.

I used different patters creating closed and open structures and incorporated pieces of wire.

Next I sewed the piece together on the back and shaped the dress around the Barbie. Finally I used a lot of hairspray to fix the threads and hold the dress in place. 

Et voila! see here the final result :)

Iris van Herpen @ Groninger Museum

Besides visiting Azzedin Alaia's exhibition at the Groninger Museum, the exhibiton of Iris van Herpen could of course not be missed. Since I already dedicated a blogpost to this amazing designer, it is no surprise that I love her work and this exhibition was no exception. I love how she uses unconventional materials and the perfection she creates in every little detail.
That I love looking at details was probably no surprise to the other museum visitors since the average distance between my face and the pieces was probably around 20 centimeter ;)

Azzedine Alaïa

Last week I visited the exhibition of fashion designer Azzedine Alaia in the Groninger Museum. Alaia is a true couturier using the finest techniques and an eye for detail. I hadn't seen work from him before but I fell in love with his beautiful form fitting dresses, extraordinary use of materials, and craftmanship in every little detail. Here some of the pictures I took of this amazing exhibition.

A day at the museum

Tuesday my friend and I visited the museum  MMKA in Arnhem. Mainly to see the the exhibition 'Six Yards Guaranteed Dutch Design' (which you can see in this blogpost) but we also looked at other exhibitions and and made some fun random pictures that I'd like to show you.

 I know, I need to go to the hairdresser..

     

capturing movement, just like on the photograph

freakishly real looking mannequin

        

thinking it was an interactive light  pole, it was not.. 

Prints, prints, prints

Yesterday I visited the exhibition 'Six Yards Guaranteed Dutch Design' at the MMKA in Arnhem. This exhibition is a tribute to the Dutch Wax textiles from the company Vlisco, based in Helmond. Since 1846 Vlisco sold their textiles to West African markets and became part of the African culture. The prints are known worldwide and were featured in fashion shows in Paris and galleries in London. Not many people know that these beautiful 'African' prints are actually produced and designed in this little Dutch city called Helmond.