The Little Black Dress - Inspired by Butterflies!

19th September 2011 - Butterfly World

I decided to travel to Butterfly World which is located in Stockton-on-tees to gather more knowledge and ideas for my butterfly inspired theme.

At Butterfly World you can enter a tropical rainforest where there were hundreds of different species of butterflies.

I was able to photograph lots of butterflies as well as cocoons, below I have added some of my favourite photographs which I had taken that day.

This cheeky butterfly situated itself on my top throughout my whole visit at butterfly world!

Metamorphosis 
There are four stages in the butterfly cycle:

Stage 1- Butterfly Egg
Stage 2 - Caterpillar
Stage 3 - Cocoon
Stage 4 - Butterfly


I am going to explore each stage of the butterfly cycle:

Stage 1 - Butterfly Egg
Butterfly eggs look as though they almost have pleated layers which i could possibly re-create when designing my Little Black Dress.

Photograph of Butterfly Eggs from google

My pencil drawing - photocopied and duplicated

While researching my project further I came across this book in the library called 'Pattern magic 2 - by Tomko Nakamichi'. I noticed the book because on the front cover is a really unusual structured shoulder piece which is very similar to the structure of a butterflies egg.

Scanned in book - 'Pattern Magic 2'

Here I have scanned in another page that displays how you make the shoulder structured shape.

Stage 2 - Caterpillar 

Due to the time of year, there wasn't any caterpillars that which I could photograph to collect primary research so I had to research online.
Looking at the structure of a caterpillar, it looks almost quilted with lots of layers which inspired me to create a tight quilted body con dress displayed in the photograph below.

I decided to look at a designer who created quilted designs and came across 'Just Cavalli'.

Just Cavalli created designs that have similar characteristics to caterpillars for instance the quilted leather which I then experimented with myself.

Just Cavalli

Below is an example of quilted leather which I have created:

Looking closely at caterpillars they are covered in fur and have tiny little spikes on their body - therefore relating to the fetish theme.
I am also thinking about studding my final design so I am going to add a sample of studs to my sketchbook:

I have added photographs of my Fetish Theme boards below:

Fetish Theme

Fetish Theme

I then moved onto the Third Stage of metamorphosis which is the Pupae (cocoon). 

Research in Sketchbook...

Photograph which I have taken at Butterfly World

I really love the silhouette of the Cocoon which is definitely an element I am going to use within my designs. Another characteristic of the cocoon which i discovered was the fact that some contained spikes - relating to the fetish theme. 

Pencil Drawing of a cocoon I created by observing a photograph

A few thumbnail sketches inspired by cocoons!

Chalk drawing of a cocoon

I then moved onto looking at stage 4 which is of course the transformation of a cocoon to a butterfly!

I found that my primary research which I had collected at Butterfly World really helped inspired me as it gave me lots of ideas to explore. 

This photograph below shows a butterfly unclose - I love the see-through almost plastic looking wings it has showing off the beautiful shapes that its wings contain. 

This is one of my favourite photographs which I had taken at Butterfly World!

The first idea that I came across was the idea of a harness (relating to the current fetish theme) or possibly creating a cut out garment. 

This is an actually carcase of a butterfly which I found at butterfly world - this is primary research that inspired me to possibly design harnesses or cut out designs

Concentrating on the cut out design idea - I came across the Burberry Collection 2011

I decided to include this collection due to the fact it relates to my butterfly photograph which I had taken.

This collection really inspired me in terms of fabric - I loved the plastic/PVC look and thought about creating a cut out design in shape of a  butterflies wing and then layering this fabric behind it.

Photograph of a metallic looking butterfly taken at Butterfly World! 

Another photograph which I had taken which really inspired me during this project - I love the jewel tone colours which the camera has captured.
I research the current Jewel Trends and also set out to find fabric which related to this butterfly - I was informed about a fabric called iridescence ( basically what oil looks like on water).
I am definitely going to use this fabric for my final little black dress.


Looking for more ideas to research - I suddenly remembered what it was like to stand in a room full of thousands of butterflies intricately flying past me ever so delicately.
I noticed that the movement in the butterflies wings looked almost like sun-ray pleats - I even managed to capture this on camera shown below:

Chalk drawing of a butterfly in motion!

Researching in the library I came across the designer Versus which displayed a collection including pleats. I included this designer in my sketchbook as the collection was very much how I initially thought my final LBD would look like.

I have included many photographs of Versus collection below as it is probably one of the best collections I have seen and loved! 

Upclose shot of Versus Collection

I decided to create a sample of a sun-ray pleat to see whether my idea would work in the fabric I am hoping to use. I also added boning to the back of the pleat as I was some sort of structure so the pleats fan out from the dress...

The sun-ray pleats didn't create the effect I wanted for my Little Black dress so I decided to design ideas which would work. I decided to change the shape of the piece into a butterfly wing in which I added boning to the back of the fabric to create firm structure.

Final sample of skirt wing

I was very pleased with my first sample of the wing which was going to create the full skirt of my LBD shown in the design development below:

Design Development

ADD A3 DESIGN DEVELOPMENT BOARDS ETC....

Final Illustration 

SWOT Analysis 
Strengths
I definitely have an advantage in terms of research - I managed to gather primary and secondary research which allowed me to design an unique collection. 


Threats
Time management during this project was difficult simply because I did put a lot of time and effort into gathering extensive research for this project. 
This then resulted in my final fashion illustrations being quite weak and something which ill have to improve. 


Opportunities 
I will have the opportunity to spend more time on these illustrations therefore improving them a lot as I am going to re do them. The sketchbook for this project will also remind me of how much inspiration I get from thoroughly researching a subject.