For every project, every time, I do endless sketches and without exception my first sketch is always the one I come back to, or the one the client choses. That isn’t to say that I could just do one sketch and stick with that. I have to go through the process.

So I’m not sure what went wrong with my shift dress, but for some reason I didn’t go with my initial drawing using the orange edge lit material I had planned to use right from the very beginning of the project. No. I got scared and stopped listening to myself. I diluted it with a contrasting turquoise fabric.

There were elements that worked, but as a dress it didn’t. Although I work in 3-D, I usually design flat, in 2-D. A dress was a whole different three dimensional living thing. And I didn’t like it!

It didn’t help that I had scheduled in 3 days to make the dress in the few days between showing at Decorex  and then Handmade at Kew. I thought that all the research, the drawing and the sampling I had done were enough. They weren’t.

So I spent a bit of time thinking about improving it…

…and then while flicking back through my sketchbook I came across my original sketch.

Between taking down shiftWorks in Yeovil and setting up a few days later at the SIT Select Showcase at Cheltenham Town Hall I remade the dress.

Finally I had made the shift dress I was proud of!

Which dress do you prefer? Have I made the right choice?

Anna Glasbrook