Title: My Mexican Dress
Image by Erin from Derbyshire | in fashion, design & create, drawings/design
I first looked on Google Images to find out what Mexican dresses looked like. I instantly fell in love with the festival dresses so I began to look at individual festivals like The Blessing of the Sea and Guelaguetza. Looking at the dancers' dresses, I decided to use some of their main features, such as the full skirts and the shawls. I also looked on Matthew Williamson's website, and in the Autumn/Winter collection 2007, I saw that on two of his dresses, he used a contrasting band at the hem which reminded me of the pleated hem frills on some of the Mexican dresses so I decided to use this idea on my design. Some of my first ideas were closer to the traditional dresses and were floor length. One of my favourites was a black spaghetti strap dress with an embroidered belt and a bolero jacket but it was more Latino than Mexican. I finally decided on this dress as it combines both Matthew Williamson's style and that of the Mexican festival dresses. It could be worn not only for a theme party but for any slightly formal occasion. For materials, I think that a silk satin would look beautiful for the bodice with a silk taffeta for the skirt, because a crisp fabric is needed for the skirt to hang well and flare out and for the pleats at the bottom, you would need a finer material like raw silk. I would use wool challis for the shawl as the matt fabric would contrast well with the shinier silks. On the shawl are appliqud images of Mexican Hat Flowers and embroidered swirls as I saw Matthew Williamson tended to use a lot of pattern in his designs. The binding and appliqu would be silk. When I chose the colours, I decided to mainly use the Mexican flag colours so it would be faithful to the traditional dresses but for the bodice I chose a bright yellow as it fits in with the colour scheme and reminds me of Mexico's climate.
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