Sewing: Kimono Tops based on Paul Poiret dress

                                            This is a top I made last year based on the Paul Poiret dress shown below. I adapted the pattern from a store bought dress that was similar.
The paisley fabric is from a pair of palazzo pants I sewed 15 years ago. (The legs were so wide and flowy that my foot would catch in them going up and down stairs; rather than break my neck, I quit wearing them.) To make the side panels I split the legs along the inseam and used the outer seams for the side-seams of the top.  The fabric in the center panel is a scrap I've had in my sewing basket for 10-plus years.

I'm in the process of making another top out of rayon challis, refining my original pattern, and using an old sheet for the muslin.

                         For the neckband I'm using a remnant from one of my sister's sewing projects. I would like to have made it a little wider, but it was a very small scrap.

For a long time I've had an idea about "The Dress"-- one pattern that's extremely comfortable, pretty, fun and easy to make. This might be it.  I'd like to continue to experiment with different combinations of prints, colors, and textures, as well as subtle alterations in gathering, and maybe some trimmed pockets?

"You can take a picture of me, but you can't take a picture of my brain."- Madeleine Vionnet

Madeleine Vionnet. Brilliant artist and dress designer, 

not to mention one of the first business owners 

to provide on-site healthcare and daycare for her employees

 -- and that in the 1930's. You can find out more about her here.

Vionnet designing clothes on her mannequin.

She never sketched her designs, believing that working in 3D was 

the only way  to explore how fabric drapes on a woman's body.

I'm very interested in the idea of taking a picture of one's brain, not in the sense of a PET scan image, but something more personally expressive that reveals the simultaneous realities we are creating and experiencing at any given moment. 


With respect to the photo above-- Vionnet and her mannequin-- I like to think about how each of her designs was influenced not only by her knowledge of tailoring, fabrics, and history of dress design, but also by the weather that day, if she'd passed a bakery and smelled fresh-baked bread on the way to work (or conversely an open sewer),  what sounds she could hear in her studio while she was working, or what she had dreamed the night before. 


I'm thinking of a fingerprint of the brain-- a fluid, multi-dimensional and constantly evolving imprint or map that describes the ongoing morphosis of  individual identity.

Image credit: Futurity

My fingerprints