Jewelry loves

I never used to wear much jewelry but I really start to appreciate the way it can upgrade a simple outfit.
Here my recent favorites.

1. bracelet - h&m
2. watch - LIV
3. necklace - h&m

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.