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 :)

Bobbin lace making #2 // project

Finally, as promised, an update on my bobbin lace project!
As you could read in my previous project post, I started bobbin lace making.
Since then I have had more lessons and finished my first pieces!
So see here some of my results and the start of some new pieces.

 The snake!

Lace design

Lace, not only applicable to fashion but also an inspiration for many designers (including myself ;) ).

Sugar carpet - Alphons ter Avest

Lace fence -  Joep Verhoeven (demakersvan)

Lace paving slabs - Jethro Macey

Shovel - Cal Lane

Crochet Chair - Marcel Wanders

Pedestrian crossings - Studio Oooms 

Bobbin lace making // project

The last couple of days I have been very busy with my final bachelor project so I thought it might be fun showing you what I have been doing.
Let's me start by telling you a bit about this project. My project is part of the 'Wearable senses' theme which focusses on smart textiles; textiles combined with electronics. The aim of my project basically is to look at old soft crafts such as weaving, knitting, dyeing, crochet, etc., pick one craft, learn it from a craftsman, and use the traditional craft and its values to create a new and innovative smart textiles concept.
The carft that I chose is bobbin lace making. Ever since I saw two old ladies doing it at a museum in Sydney I am intrigued by this complex and detailed craft.

So yesterday the day had finally come, I got my first bobbin lace making lesson!
After learning how to put thread on a bobbin it was time to pin the pattern on the lace pillow and set up the structure. The bobbins were put into place and the lace making could begin. 18 bobbins were hanging on the structure and by replacing the bobbins in a certain way, the threads created a net work. I must tell you, it is a lot of work but once I got the hang of it, the repeating movement of the bobbins I had to make worked kind of relaxing.
Here some of yesterdays work, I'll keep you updated on my progress.

making a snake!

I still have a lot to learn though...