GEORGE WU gallery

Chambord Shine Award - Lace Bolero

2010-09-24T00:20:00.000+10:00

It's been a long while since my last entry into the blog site, thought I'd better show what's been keeping me away from writing. Just a couple of months ago, amongst the busy schedule of Mercedez Brisbane Fashion Festival I have entered Chambord Shine Award and have got selected as the state finalist to compete in the national at Sydney. By the way, Chambord liqueur is so amazing and thought I would get a free bottle.

The brief of the final garment for the national competition was "Racing Carnival" and we had to submit our design prior the making of the outfit. Well, I won't go into too much details, just wanting to share how a bolero was made for my entry. I wanted to make a lace bolero to cover the shoulders and wanted texture so I thought it would be nice to stitch lace on top of another mesh lace........

Cutting each lace motif out by hand.

Hand stitch the centre to ruffle it.......

Stitched onto lace by hand..... individually!! OMG, time......

I am happy with results, making random pattern is not easy as it seems.....
Later on, there will also be a Swarovski crystal is the center of each flower.

Here is the results on the night, the photo really didn't show much of bolero. You really got to see it in real, the texture and crystal really worked well together.

Wish I had more photos, because the bolero had a really amazing random pattern at the back. I will also talk about the drape on front bodice of the dress later on, the gathering is all done by hand!! It certainly wasn't an easy task after I have done it, thought it'll be easy before I started.......

Valentino Retrospective

2010-08-17T11:21:00.000+10:00

Last week was the opening party of the Valentino retrospective exhibition at GoMA, got my invite and attended that evening wearing just about all black with my red coral pendant. I really thought a dash of red among the black was a very good look, sometimes you only need a glimpse of bright hue to lift the dark colour.

Anyway, the opening party was so busy and a big event for who's who in Brisbane. Afterall, this is the first time these Valentino pieces has left Paris. I have to say the display was very well placed and lots of amazing iconic pieces from Valentino's work. I can't help leaning over closer to see the dresses in details.

The stitching on these couture pieces are very fine, I was thinking to myself how long it would take to become a great couturier to have skills of stitches so evenly. In saying these 100 dresses are made by hand stitching, I can still tell some parts are machine stitched but still primarily by hand. The machine stitching part would be the part of the dress where it needed strength and mostly finishings and details are hand work because you can't achieve it without stitching show outside.

What I have realized after a while is that the art of couture sewing is really not to show any stitching on the outside unless is decorative. I always believe stitchings not shown outside gives a garment a better look, also for the fact it's harder to manage not to have any stitching shown.

I need to go back to the exhibition again, it took me quite a long time to really deconstruct just one garment in my head and there are 100 dresses!!

will share my thought on how I think the dresses are made soon, I was told I can bring notebook along if I want to draw and write anything down. No cameras!!

Would love to see the inside of the garments, I know it's more interesting than just seeing "pretty" dresses. I believe the inner beauty is more important than exterior aesthetics. don't you think?

Fragile Organics

2010-07-01T17:36:00.001+10:00

One evening during the Autumn, all I have in mind was flowers which was strange because flowers are not typically an Autumn thing. What I wanted to do was to create a silk flower and blend the look of crisp white into the whole piece including leaf and stem.

I started out with starching the silk taffeta and cut out the flower petal and leafs without patterns (free hand). The reason for this is so every petal and leafs are slightly different in sizing and shapes. Since every petals are different shapes and sizes, hence the name Fragile Organics. Kinda abstract for some to understand my point of view, but this is something very personal to me.

The flower than was hand sewn to a silver comb to wear as head piece, the wire in the stem provided that strength to hold the flower and leafs up-right.

Hand craft that cannot be replaced

2010-05-15T23:44:00.004+10:00

Thought I'd start to blog again on my journey of hand craft practices. Brought back a Japanese book from my overseas trip earlier on about silk flower making. I was so facinated with hand work involved in the process, it's amazing how the fabric strips can be manipulated into flowers that looks so organic.

I did browse websites and ebay to find silk flowers, rose like these are hard to find as the ones on the net all look the same. I discovered fabric flower factory overseas use heat stamping method to mass produce the petals and then glued together by line workers. Since stamping method makes every petal the same therefore it's hard to get that organic look. (and a lot of flowers on net are not even made of silk and they do call themselves silk flowers - what a con!)

Real flowers in the wild are all different and irregularity is what beauty is about. I really believe nature do create something that human cannot re-create. Hence the reason why I insist on hand crafted silk flowers. Despite my best effort, I still cannot make these flowers looking exactly the same.

Sunset nostalgia

2009-06-22T23:41:00.002+10:00

Just quickly flicking through my small photo archive and was somehow drawn to this photo. Behind the scene photo always looked better in someway.... don't you think? I love the real-ness mood of it.

The inner beauty of linning

2009-06-12T13:47:00.002+10:00

I have a strong belief that a well made design consists of the phrase "inner beauty". Thought I'd share a trick on what linning can be used for in a dress. I have used the linning to pull in the front shell fabric back towards insde so the outside looked like it's a rolled edge. I know the pic is confusing, but it's a really good pattern-maker trick. Hope you all worked it out.

Pivoting dart on menswear

2009-06-12T13:33:00.002+10:00

With darts that's design to fit the curved shoulder blade on men's back, it often gets in the way of re-shaping armhole. So I have pivoted the dart to the neckline to do some work on the armhole shaping. I am so obssessed with armhole and sleeve placements on clothes.

Fine line on Armholes of shirt blocks

2009-05-26T15:23:00.000+10:00

I've started to develop my pattern on men's shirt, since men's shirt are limited to designs and folds I thought I would really concentrate on the cut.

What's important in men's shirt cutting? Well, to me it's all in the shoulders and armholes. I can't stand armholes that look slouchy on top of the arm unless they're cut deliberately like raglan sleeves. What makes a good cut on the men's shirt to me is when your arm looked longer visually.

I have experimented through pattern making to bring in the shoulder line closer to the neckline to create that illusion. But you can't bring in too much because you are going to have folds and darts to fit properly on the sleeve-head. When you have to put in darts and folds on sleeve-head, it looks more like womenswear.

Would love some comments if anyone have something to share on this matter. The red line on the toile is the finished armhole.

First time blogging about my working progress

2009-05-04T17:36:00.001+10:00

Hi everyone,

Just thought I'd start a blog to share my thoughts about designs and origins of inspirations.

My goal is to keep this space quite inspirational and visual. Afterall, no one is into reading paragarphs of words, I believe a picture says a thousand words. What I will be doing is posting my work progress about how my design came to life. It's merely a visual diary for myself and watch myself grow in terms of innovations and detailings.

Will start this project very soon!!

xx