A Botanical Gala Gown – Part 1: Flower Studies and Construction…

As some of you may know, I became a volunteer for the Fremont Arts Council in May of last year, and more recently took on the lead volunteer position as manager of the Powerhouse, where much of the art is made for our annual events.

One of those annual events is our fundraising gala in March. This year’s theme is “Botanical Bacchanal: A Garden of Mirthly Delights.” If you buy a ticket, you will enter a hall through a gigantic beehive and enter a series of gardens both majestic and mystical, and enjoy drinks, dinner and an auction. But you’ll have to buy a ticket to see these marvels…

I was enlisted to make one of the fashion pieces to be modeled at this show. In keeping with the chosen color palette of vibrant jewel tones and the theme of oversized flowers, I designed a Victorian-inspired ensemble using pieces from my personal collection and overlaying them with flowers and bugs of a poisonous variety. I am calling the ensemble “A Dangerous Beauty.”

My first step was to make a survey of poisonous flowers that might have been found in a Victorian specimen garden, and then narrowing the field to those I thought I could replicate easily from textiles. I settled on Bleeding Hearts, Nightshades, a Poinsettia, and Water Hemlock. I also discovered that Monarch Butterflies are on the poisonous insect list, as are Blister Beetles, whose secretions had been used from the 18th century as an aphrodisiac but which could also be lethal. I also added Amanita muscaria for the bustle after materials arrived at the Powerhouse that were too hard to resist…

I crafted Bleeding Hearts from red brocade scraps with bead and lace accents. After making a single leaf from a fused brocade, I opted to use commercial silk foliage to save time. The ferns are silk fronds, stripped from their central wires and stitched to the overskirt.

Nightshades were unexpectedly complex and took me a couple of tries. The top row of photos (below) are the real models for the textile versions shown in the second row. I cut the petals from a woven shawl that I fused to a wool backing to give it enough tensile strength to support a center wire. For the stamens, I sewed two pieces of lace together, stuffed them with Q-Tips and painted them with latex paint before setting them into a circle of fake pearls. I found berries at the Powerhouse that were the right shape and size, which I wrapped with red silk to preserve the look of everything being made from textile. I trimmed the silk ivy leaves into a more appropriate shape for a nightshade.

Both the bleeding hearts and the nightshades were wired into sprays and covered with florist tape, to make it faster to attach them to the overskirt.

For the jacket, I found a single velvety Poinsettia blossom that I tore apart and mounted the petals onto the last of my red brocades. Wild poinsettias have smooth edges rather than the notched ones of our domestic varieties. I ran a braid down the center of each petal for texture and to hide the stitch line, and a bit of red lace to the tip just for fun. I replaced the ghastly plastic center with a cluster of yellow glass beads.

The last flower I constructed for the jacket was a Water Hemlock. Again, I found small white wildflowers at the Powerhouse that I stripped from their plastic stems, and mounted onto wires with bead centers. After a coffee bath failed to mute the stark white, I took a green sharpie and ran a line down the center of each petal to try to tone them down. It wasn’t quite as tedious as it sounds…

I was fortunate to have friends who donated Monarch Butterflies made from feathers. I will cover the construction of the Amanita Muscaria in the blog devoted to the making of the skirts and the bustle.