Le Chimere XD

So, it is completely insane. Freaking insane. Mental in fact but doable 🙂 Scale by scale. Feather by feather. I mean the original is all hand made right? By an army but still….

(from 2.10 on)

For those who are still lost I have been a huge fan of Thierry Mugler’s work for years. Totally jealous A. has a piece of his work!!! OMG!!! Also at least one more of my favourite pieces is in this collection and yet another is in the season before. So 97 was the year baby!

And I didn’t realise it but I have also been a fan of Mr Pearl’s work for years as well. The corsetry under this gown to hold the weight is insane I would so love to track down exactly what it is as I have only so far found a photo of the headpiece alone, I haven’t even seen how the thing fastens. There are so many scales that any kind of fastening is going to be invisible. It has to go up the back though as the collar is high.

I’ve currently got The Corset by Valerie Steele out of the library to oggle his work some more. BTW Valerie Steele is The Go To on corsetry. Especially 19thC when there are so many social layers to peel back to figure out why a garment because so reviled in the 20thC when it was a functional piece for most women of the time.

Finding enough feathers to be able to dye and shape was stage one. I need to get the very largest shading to indigo I think. But I should have enough for both sides (I had to hunt out any that matched- left to right, can’t have them all curve in the same direction.

No idea when this will be done, but I will definitely be needing a train/tail minder! it’s all horse hair! I suspect I may be getting bulk wefts instead…. But it is the main focus for a while aside from my in progress pieces. I am getting rid of even more fabrics. I’ll get piccies soon.

I did hunt out my selection of beads: iris green and iris blue are the biggies. Then a series of golds and greens and even red. And I have decided on the method for the main scales/torso: fibreglass. Gosh how suprising! but I think the torso was vacformed and the scales stamped metal with enamel. The scales over the hips are far too thin to be anything else. The only flaw in this theory is the lack of clunking and the lack of broken enamel. Metal flexes and enamel doesn’t (this is why enamel paint on anything that is supposed to flex is a bad idea- not all methods are equal! Or at least appropriate for all results.)

But with tissue glass I can get that same effect of thinness. And I can mix pigments in to the resin and coat the scales with that and then another layer of uncoloured resin. The tones are gold enough that the colour of the resin won’t be an issue. But I’ll be able to sand them all smooth if need be and also not worry about layers of paint and gloss de-laminating. Because yes that is an issue. And then drill tiny tiny holes and hand sew beads and sequins through….

 

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