Last April I created my second design for KMAC Couture, an annual fashion show and fundraiser for the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. I created a dress made entirely of fabric flowers that grow locally and are known for attracting pollinators. While researching, I flirted with the idea of flower vs weed and thoroughly enjoyed stretching the parameters. I hoped my fabric flowers would blend accurate and identifiable while still exploring the materials and exercising creative license.
In my personal mission to avoid waste, all the fabric came from a Goodwill. I went to the XL dress section at several stores to look for solid colors with lots of material (Six dresses at seven bucks each? Total steal!) The chiffon on one dress alone was enough for my entire dress (about three-four yards) whereas a single yard of chiffon is currently $10.99. I’m also quite pleased I can keep things out of the landfill. It’s far too easy to throw things away1.
Thrifting set a kind of a limit, a parameter; it can be overwhelming to create one thing out of one million options, but you get mighty creative when you only have 6 pieces of fabric to work with. So, while I didn't get the exact palette I sketched the design in, I found some gorgeous colors and fabrics. Some I chose for the flowers I had planned, but I also I chose some of the flowers depending on the colors I found.
Now back to the idea of letting the material speak (as explored in this post).
In this case, I used heat to shape almost every single piece on this dress—and we're not talking ironing. I tired heat guns, hairdryers, curling irons. I even tried a soldering iron to simultaneously cut and fuse the edges of synthetic fabrics. I didn’t get the hang of it quickly enough so I relied almost entirely on my trusty candle2.
Holding synethic fabric over the candle catches and cups the heat, making the fabric pucker into surprisingly organic shapes. I also used this heat to fuse the thin, raw edges of each piece or petal, so I didn’t have to worry about things unravelling. In the end, it turned out I made almost all of the flowers by hand and flame.
4,463 petals
337 beads
897 flowers and leaves
The extra labor of being deliberate, conscientious, may be a little bit controlling, a little overkill, but taking full responsibility also means that every gesture and every individual piece is an act of love; every moment, brief and glancing, that I take to observe and reflect is a moment of joy and appreciation for the privilege of having practiced and improved these techniques over years and years. And then I get to share it all, release it to the world. Wondrous!
Listening to what the material has to say is a way of both bypassing yet also working through figuring out what I have to say3. Perhaps not only is the material speaking to me, it's speaking for me.
I am very pleasantly surprised that I have become so infatuated with flowers. I saw them. I thought they were beautiful. Yet I also never wanted to receive a bouquet. Sad things they seem to be. And I never particularly wanted a garden. The few house plants I have are simple, green things that can stand low light and forgetfulness.
My dad, however, has always been infatuated with horticulture and botany, so he did instill some love and information on our regular walks. I distinctly remember him teaching me about cypress trees, which he liked as a way to divide one yard from another instead of a fence. And I remember our hippy neighbors had a front yard garden decades before it was cool. We’d occasionally eat a tomato or two as we passed by, as straightforward as eating an apple. Warm fruit in the hand, head tipped forward so the juice didn’t spatter our duds.
But it’s my maternal grandpa who really kickstarted my attention and curiosity. My absolute favorite quote from him:
Flowers are all about sex.
I was deliciously scandalized! He ain’t wrong. There’s the purpose of the thing, but there’s also the enjoyment of it…
Sex is a flirtation. It is a dance. It is choreography. It is nonverbal. It is lustful. It is chemical. It is arousing, visual, tactile, scented, and tasty. It uses all the senses, including ones we haven’t yet named.
Flowers want to make more flowers; they want to blossom4. They are all about sex. They evolved to be stunning, to attract exactly the attention that they need. And they’ve been around for 146 million years. Heck, maybe they invented sex. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve perfected it, too.
Getting close to a flower almost feels intrusive, even inappropriate. We watch their sex organs spreading open to drink in the sun and rain, to invite a look, a smell, a nod, a visit, a gift to take along on your travels.
So there I was, trying to (re)create flowers, wondering how such perfection came into being. Such lusciousness, symmetry, and efficiency. I couldn't possibly do them justice. It feels hubristic to even try. The best I can do is create something beautiful in its own way, reminiscent and respectful. Meanwhile, the more I get into making flowers, the more research I do, which makes me want to make more flowers, and here we are, 4,463 handmade petals later, creating a dress meant to evoke the blossoming of spring, the sex of flowers.
As for the name of this design, much like you'd have a murder of crows or a skulk of foxes, I think of this as A Seduction of Flowers5.
Look up waste collection in Taiwan. It’s an incredible system in which neighborhoods bring their garbage TO the truck—taking ownership of the waste they produce (but also creating a social event!) Taipei even taxed its people on how much garbage they produced. Amazing.
A beautiful gift from a friend’s wedding. (Love you, Stephanie and Eryk!)
What if I don’t have anything to say? Is that possible? Is that okay?
Except the closed bottle gentian (Gentiana andrewsii), a flower that never opens; its petals are fused shut. Only certain bees are strong enough to pry them open at the top to access both the nectar and the pollen. The Haudenosaunee (shout out to the Onondaga Nation!) used bottle gentian roots for a variety of medicinal applications.
I promise to post again with more photos!
The photos don't do the dress justice. Watching this thing move was an absolute delight as every petal vibrated with every step on the runway.