I have recently been exhibiting my fabrics and products at Decorex in London – a trade fair for the interiors market.  One of the fabric designs I was showing was inspired by the grids of Bauhaus artist Mondrian.

The wool fabric was screen printed first with a ‘cross-hatch’ design and then embellished with tufted lines in a grid formation.  The fabric gained a lot of attention at the show and I decided to incorporate the design into my shift dress.  I was reminded of Yves Saint Laurent famous Mondrian Collection from 1966 and started to look at these dress designs.

After rustling up a few sketches I had decided to go ahead and change my original idea of tufting the whole dress to pairing the design down to printed panels and some tufted grid lines in graduating grey threads.   So the next step was to actually get on with making the dress!

Cut, print, tuft and sew!

 

There is something of an armour feel about the final dress,  albeit an incredibly soft and furry armour which I hadn’t anticipated.  Someone at home mentioned something about slaying a dragon while wearing it..!

Here’s the final dress being photographed ready for marketing our shows.