A month in Paris: the couture dress!

Today marks exactly two months since I arrived in Paris and one month since I departed.  I guess it's about time I wrote about the dress!

The primary objective of this couture techniques workshop was to sew a custom-fit dress in the style of Madame Grès.  Our dresses were based on one of her designs from the 60s, with some slight variation (the original had an exposed zipper in the front--eek!).  Madame Grès is best known for her finely pleated creations, so our version is a "starter" Grès, with a mere 20 pleats!

The fabrication for our dresses was supposed to be viscose jersey, but I made a poor choice and brought modal jersey.  It was a bit too stretchy and much more annoying than the viscose, and mine happened to stain with water, so it was all around a royal pain.  The dress started with 7 yards of fabric, cut into 4 equal lengths and we draped the garments such that the straight grain was along the center front and back.  The only critical measurement was the waist and that was defined by the "bolduc" (twill tape).  Nearly all markings were done with hand-stitching, so we "passed a thread" to mark the edges of our dress, shoulder points, and eventually all the pleating.  Here's my work after a few days, on the dress form, with the pleats placed and marked with thread.

After defining the pleat positions on the front and back sides, the markings were then transferred via pins, then chalk, and finally thread to the second half of the dress. Pleats were then repositioned, sewn with tiny stitches, and eventually attached to grosgrain ribbon on the inside.

First the pleats are secured (this is the inside of the dress, below):

And then sewn to the grosgrain by sewing over the pleat stitches.

The front and back necklines (and shoulder seams) are strengthened by strips of silk organza, attached with tiny stitches along the neckline edges. You can see a bit of that in the image below, with the silk organza in cream.  The second picture shows the nearly invisible stitches along the neckline edge.

A separate underlap was sewn in (by hand, of course) for snaps and some critical hook and eyes to keep the whole thing closed.  

The upper line of tiny stitches along the waistline is secured with satin ribbon in the same was as the grosgrain.

The neckline edges were overcast by hand (no sergers here!). We did use the straight stitch machine for doing the final line of stitching at the center front/ back, side seams, and shoulder seams but only after "passing the thread" on both sides and basting with contrasting thread!

Here's the dress before cutting for the hem. I kind of loved the pooling effect, but it was certainly not practical (whatever that means when you're making a couture dress). 

We had an initial fitting with the instructor--the shoulders had to be adjusted and the waist is quite loose.  I had lost some weight over the month, so the waistline *should* have been adjusted by about 1.5" but I chose to leave it;  I couldn't face whatever ridiculous alterations were necessary with only a few days left!  At the second fitting, we determined the hem length. There was considerable discussion among the instructors about how high the side hem should go and here I am in the "model" dress to check the side length.  The instructors wanted it this high!

I went with something a bit more conservative (whatever that means when your dress has this deep of a vee in the front, back, and sides!).  In the image below, the front hem hasn't been trimmed yet, but the sides are cut.

Once cut, I spent over 6 hours hand-rolling the hem!

In all, I spent about 50 hours on this dress.  It's not perfect (the side seams roll like the devil and the waist is still too big!), but I'm proud and pleased with this dress!  

Here are some lovely photos of some of my colleagues and I in our final product.  This style was universally flattering and all of the dresses turned out stunning.

Here are a few more professional photos (the first three pictures in the post were also taken by the pro):

Finally, I was lucky enough to be able to try on (and fit!) a real Madame Grès dress that I had been oogling the entire month.  Here I am in that dress (made of the finest silk jersey) with my amazing instructor Madame Martine.   

Seriously, look at the pleating of a true Grès dress!

Truly words cannot adequately describe my experience in Paris. It was hard work and not always fun (I cried in class one day!), but I was humbled by the immense knowledge of all of my instructors and to say I learned a lot would be a tragic understatement.  Ah, Paris.  

A month in Paris: Behind the scenes at Paris Fashion Week

As many of you know, I traveled to Paris for the month of July to participate in a Couture Techniques Workshop through the Paris American Academy.  Clearly, I didn't blog about it while I was there and now it feels almost impossible to sum up what a amazing experience it was!  So I'm going to take a few posts to hit some of the highlights of my trip: Paris Fashion Week, hat making, shibori dying and felting, and finally, the culmination of the trip, my couture gown.

During our first few days in Paris, before I even was acclimated to the 9 hour time difference, we were thrown into working behind the scenes at Paris Fashion Week.  Our group of students worked as "dressers", dressing the models in haute couture gowns and garments, for 5 different shows:  Galia Lahav, Georges Hobeika, Tony Ward, Alexandre Vauthier, and Zaid Nakad.  

Dressing a model seems like a simple task, but it's actually not that easy!  First, you must not put any garments over the head--after hours in hair and make-up, that's rule #1.  Therefore, the [couture, handmade, crazy expensive with hundreds of hours of work] dresses have to be put on the ground and manipulated to create a "hole" so that the model can just step into them.  Likely, they are wearing heels, so it's critical that they don't catch their Louboutins on the fragile fabric.  Then, zip corsets, latch hook and eyes, button buttons, buckle belts, etc. etc., all in the smallest span of time imaginable. While everyone is sweaty and stressed out.

Above are some photos from behind the scenes at Galia Lahav, our first show.   For this show, I only had to dress two models before the show, so there were no quick changes.   In the photo below, I dressed the model in the mini-dress, as well as another not in the shot.

However, for the second show (Georges Hobeika), I had one model with two looks.  How it works is this: after the model walks the runway in the first look, we have to change out her gown, buckled high heels and 6 pieces of jewelry in the span of 2 minutes for her next walk.  It's nuts!  In the end, it was more like a wheel-change at a car race--we all descended on any model that walked back, stripped her down and suited up, ready to walk out again.  My model was the gorgeous Mili from Serbia:

And miniature me next to her!  Notice she was kind enough to scooch down to minimize the height difference :)

This purple gown, below, was Mili's first look.  Each garment was meticulously hand-beaded and just flat out gorgeous.  Georges Hobeika's work was amazing.

And the pile of shoes after the show.

The third show was Tony Ward and we had the opportunity to watch the walk-through before the show at the L'Oratoire de Louvre.  Initially, the models walk the runway in just their heels (and whatever they walked in wearing), but we saw the wedding dress finale in full effect to check the lighting.

Gathering of models after the show, with some of us students (dressed in black) looking on:

Photo with one of the principal sewists--in my opinion, the stars of the show since they actually do all the fabulous work!

 My model in her second look.

Georges Hobeika and Tony Ward were the same day, and at about 4-5 hours each, it was a long day!

Alexandre Vauthier was our 4th show and I didn't take any photos of the garments (here is the Swarovski-encrusted garment I put on my model, though.) The picture, above, is inside the Grand Palais with a glimpse of the partial "Eiffel Tower" that Chanel used for their show. In some cases, designers don't permit photos behind the scenes until after the show, but in this case, I didn't take photos because it was outrageously hot in the Grand Palais and I was hungry and thirsty and on my feet for 5 hours.  I wasn't happy enough to document the event!

Zaid Nakad was our last show and I had three garment changes for one model.  It was all kinds of crazy.  The backstage area was tiny and the gowns were enormous, so it was a true task to get all the garments on and off 30 models in a timely manner.  The first gown for my model must have weighed 40 pounds between the crinoline and the beaded dress--I could barely lift it!  Here I am trying to hold up the crinoline (which was about 20 lbs by itself!):

And next to the model wearing the black beaded gown with crinoline underneath:

Here's a photo of my model in her final look.  She is tall, of course, but wearing 6" platform heels makes her look positively enormous next to me (at a mere 5'1").

 Here the models are surrounding the designer, Zaid Nakad, below.  His work was also brilliant and gorgeous.

Below is a photo of another model, doing what the models do quite a bit; taking a selfie.  However, what is even more interesting in this picture is the pile of haute couture dresses on the left; after a dress comes off a model, there isn't time to hang it up until after the show, so we just throw all the amazing, handmade, outrageously expensive dresses in a heap.  That's the final wedding dress on top. It's staggering.

In the course of putting the gowns back on hangers and into garment bags, I got to hold up the wedding dress (which pretty much stood on its own, with all the structure and horsehair underneath). It's just like trying it on, right?! 

Finally, a few of the designers served champagne backstage after the show, so here's my friend Irina and I toasting being done with Paris Fashion Week!

At the start of the Week, I felt completely inept.  I had never worked any role in any sort of fashion show ever and it was scary, considering how much money is on the line for these designers. But by the end, though, I felt like a complete pro and was a little disappointed that we were finished with that chapter of the adventure, especially considering I will never again have such an opportunity. But, I have good memories and even better stories forever....