Eye candy

Well, it's been awhile - suffice to say I am in the midst of a creative block. So I've been trolling the web for inspiring images. I've included a few things I store on my external drive when I'm looking for visual stimulation...

On the left, a staff member from Kensington Palace readying a Vivienne Westwood ballgown for the Enchanted Palace overlay, which is still going on. May I say that the grand staircase to the State Apartments is spectacular on its own, so it takes a gown of grand scale to make an impression in this space. I did get to see this last September, it's a rather Disneyesque exhibition within the palace. The other garments making an impression on me were a two-piece lace evening dress worn by the late Princess Diana, which I'd never seen in any photographs before, along with a 1950's Christian Dior wool day suit once owned by Princess Margaret. They also strung up the Poltimore Tiara with translucent line over the Dior.

In the center is a Susan Rios painting from the 80's, The Dance. At the time I liked it because I'd worked for Laura Ashley and this was one of the old wedding dresses from the line, made in Wales. The model's hair also matched my highlights at the time. Shallow, I know. Now I like the juxtaposition of all the blues and whites on the canvas. BTW, she worked in acrylic, so I wonder what sort of luminosity this could have had if she'd done it in oils...

On the right is a corset designed by Monique Prudhomme and worn in the film The Imagniarium of Doctor Parnasus. Her costumes won the Oscar in 2010. The image was taken at last years FIDM Movie Costume exhibition. Film stock and photographs don't do this piece justice. There are multiple layers of fabric in the corset itself and portions have been aged to give it a well worn appearance. It's also been slightly painted, and carefully trimmed with ribbons and flowers that give it such an exuberant, feminine feeling. The chemise undergarment is a few layers of silk voile trimmed in silk ribbon. I did get to attend a panel discussion with Ms. Prudhomme as well as Ellen Mirojnick (Wall Street 2, Unfaithful, Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella), Ruth Carter (Malcom X, Sister Act, Amistad), and Kristin Burke (Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, The Cooler, The Grudge 2). Since the costume sewing that I have done has all been for stage or local vintage costume events, it was fascinating to hear about the sorts of considerations that come with the difference between film camera lenses and digital camera lenses. The sorts of problem solving that has to come into play for depicting black or certain reds and blues on the screen. I've always pretty much been handed a bundle of fabric and sewn what I've been told to sew. My own problem solving has had to do with how to flatter a real body or deal with fabric that has a mind of it's own. Having the opportunity to hear about the problem solving that the big kids have to do was illuminating to say the least.

Well, having gone through my folders, I'm seeing that my inspirational images all seem to have common threads of being feminine, old fashioned, and multi-layered. I suppose that should tell me about what I need to be doing to budge myself in my own crafting...

Let's see if I can actually produce something in the next 24 hours...