anxiety? Gone. Dress 1? Done!

The anxiety I had about my dress was quickly turned into productivity last night (or shall I say early this morning? lol) My hubby made me a yummy pastrami sandwich, I watched "the real housewives of Orange County", had a chat with my mom then went straight back into my office to finish up this dress. The food must had been what did the trick because all day I was shaky and unproductive. I wasn't even able to relax at my bi weekly Mani Pedi appointment :(.

I took the whole entire dress apart to shorten lengths and turn up the volume on the fullness of the skirt along with the shoulder.



I kept playing with the style and layout of the shoulder and waist line.  At first I thought it would be OK to not wear anything but the more I looked at it the more I wanted an accessory there. I tried out the black at first while playing with the shoulder strap but I just didn't like the cross body drape.

I finally decided to take some of the left over remnants of the skirt I removed yesterday to make that waist ribbon. After spending so much time with this dress I realized that the shine didn't bother me so much but, my editor had mentioned she didn't like the shine. So maybe I am more sensitive to "creative criticism" than I thought! lol....I mean I am an artist....Words effect me greatly and that was a big source of my stress during the day.

 

the picture above on the right is the 95% finished dress with petty coat underneath. I might wear it without the petty coat on the day of the event. Ill see how I feel about it.

Close up of the shoulder

after I was winding down and getting ready to go to bed I read the weather report and saw that it was going to be cold with a chance of rain the day of the fashion show :( so I got my trench ready to go just incase. I really hope its sunny so I dont have to cover all the work I put into it.

Ill be organizing my office and picking up all the mess I made last night today. Hopefully I get to work on the second dress today or tonight.

an uninspired and stressfull night in the joana k offices

Having too many things on my mind while trying to solve a million problems at the same time can really wear someone down.....

I have to figure out a way to take this shine off my dang dress!! I took the pink top layer off since it was the source of 80% of my headache and then gave myself a whole new headache when I discovered the black fabric underneath had the same problem with the shine!!!!!!!

I was so dissapointed that I decided to start over fresh and started makin a back up dress....

sorry for the sideways Image Im sleepy cant cant figure out how to fix it....ill figure it out tomorow.

hopefully I can get some rest tonight now that I have a back up plan.

Most recent activity in the Joanak. studio

You can find sneak peaks of my collection at www.joanak.com .

Like most fashion designers I feel my best work has always come organically.  I feel that writing about my dress making progress will be the most natural way to get you  familiar with me and what I do best.

The first thing that came about was an invitation from my Editor to join her at the Sue Wong Fashion Show in LA on March 16th.  If I was an ordinary girl this would mean a week long trip to the stores to shop for  the right dress, but I'm no ordinary girl.  This invite is a great opportunity for me to get into my office and let my mind run ramped. I do have to admit that the original invitation got me gitty and right away I felt like the shorter, tanner, more Hispanic version of Carrie Bradshaw from sex in the city.

Any well trained designer will tell you that every design starts with an Idea, inspiration, and sketch. This is true with my process.

The Idea?= Make a splash onto the fashion scene with an awesome dress that is representative of the work I'm currently doing in my own clothing line and also fits and reflects the event itself.

-Inspiration?=In honor of fashion week I am taking my own clothing line inspiration. Which is a mix between your average modern housewife and the 1930s-1950s film noir actresses that portrayed wives. Mixing my inspiration with fun and spunky designers like Betsey Johnson looks seems like the right way to go about when making a dress to wear to an event such as this.

-The textures and fabric?= because my current collection is still under way I have some lightweight synthetic fabrics that seem to be falling on my bodice quite well.

-The Cut. A classic style that Ive come to call the typical "housewife" cut. Reason I call it that is because the sinched waist and dramatically full skirt create the look of almost every film noir actress Ive seen and it seems to be the "go to" look for all women today

I have a couple of things I'm working on at the moment.

Ill try to update my blog as much as possible as I make progress.