Neptune's Bride

After being involved in TRAIL for the last 2 years, with recycled knitted bags made from carrier bags and the Recycowl last year, we have all really enjoyed planning our creation for The Catwalk Trail 2009 - Wearable Art.
All the clients at Teignmouth Day Centre and staff find the Trail project very interesting, thought provoking, therapeutic and enables all to feel a positive part of the Community. Some of the 'gang' at the Day Centre are well into their 90's and are all local people. The dressmaking enables them to use skills that would challenge people half their age!
This year we decided to design and make an exclusive recycled wedding dress.

Some views on why we are making a wedding dress!
A wedding is a very important occasion and everyone has memories of their own or a relatives wedding. The Wedding dress is an integral part, and everyone dreams of a fairytale dress or something very dramatic. We wanted to design a dress inspired by mermaids as we live by the sea. Something floaty, beautiful, original and all made from fabric that would otherwise have been thrown away. Also salvaged antique lace, expertly pieced together by our team at the Day Centre of embroiderers to be made into our own beautiful wedding dress called 'Neptune's Bride'.

Neptune's Bride/Beauty and the Beast

The beast being all the fabric that could have been thrown away into landfill! The challenge was to make a dress from many different scraps of material, some vintage lace, old curtains, and bedspreads. Scraps from the dress makers floor, old netting, old beads that needed restoring and anything cream or white that we could lay our hands on. The team of clients at the Day Centre have pooled their ideas together and have come up with designs. Together with measuring out the squares for the patchwork, stitching and making the flowers, which is a technique in itself. One client has been busy making the cape out of weaving scraps of fabric together. The dress has also encouraged a lot of reminiscence about the clients own wedding dresses and usually being a happy occasion has been a very fun and cheerful project to do. Many clients really look forward to coming in to the Centre to see what progress is being made. The initial project started off with a lot of brainstorming regarding the design of it back in February and everyone agreed to one particular design.

The Dress

The main structure of the dress is made from patch-worked panels. The bodice of the dress being quite plain with a wrap over design and large 3D flower in the centre. The fabric is cotton from a fine lawn cotton sheet, edged in satin the front panel is made from small patches sewn together and embellished with shells, pearls, lace and embroidery. The back of the dress has a full length train sweeping onto the ground. Also made from patches of silk, satin, lace and net. The main feature being the mussel shells and pearls under a piece of netting and fine organza. There is a net bow that sits at the centre of the train which has been made from some netting from an old hat.

Headdress

The circle for the headdress is made from an old wedding headdress and has been embellished with net, ribbon and shells.

The bouquet

This has been constructed to resemble a Sea Cucumber with pearls embroidered around the centre. Silk and satin flowers form the bouquet each with a shell in the centre of the flower.

We hope everyone enjoys seeing the dress. We feel this demonstrates really well how you can make something beautiful from scraps.

Wearable Art page