At one of our WI
meeting we had a talk about a ‘Little Black Dress’ from the ladies at Aspull
and Haigh WI.
The Little Black Dress was designed and created for a competition
run by the NFWI about 5 years ago.
Aspull and Haigh decided to enter and the talk was how the dress came
about. The criteria for the design was that it had be made from sustainable /
recycled materials. The WI wanted to
design a classy dress and they agreed that the ultimate LBD was Audrey Hepburn’s
in ‘Breakfast at Tiffanys‘, but
unfortunately that dress would not suit the figures of most of the members so
they decided to design their own- but where to start. They held many
discussions and said they would take everyone’s ideas into consideration, not
just the best ones, everyone. That meant that the dress should be short, mid
length, long with long sleeves, short sleeves, no sleeves. So what did they do-
they did them all with the clever use of zips. It took many months of design
and making and they had to overcome so many problems incorporating all the
ideas but the end result was inspiring.
This idea was so clever and meant that you would only ever
need 1 dress in your wardrobe and it would suit every occasion.
Would you believe they only came second in the competition
to a dress made of old tights.. I think it was because during the fashion show
they might not have been able to demonstrate the flexibility of the dress for different
occasions.
The talk was very entertaining and fascinating how they
overcame the problems. I did ask at the end how much they would charge to make
another dress like this but they said they would never do it again because of
the blood, sweat and tears that went into making this one.
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