The designing of a dress.

This designing of this dress started a long long time ago when I was hunting for waffle knit fabrics. Due to my obsession with my Supreme waffle knit that I had fallen in love with on a university tour of Dover Street Market as part of my MFA and subsequently bought myself as a major splurge for 3x the price 2 months later on Stock X. It arrived on my last day in NYC before I was forced home due to covid, I wore it on the plane. Waffle knit fabrics were unusually hard to find on my usual dead stock fabric circuits and further research proved similarly fruitless.

I was on Facebook marketplace as a last attempt and came across someone selling a few hundred metres of a white waffle fabric somewhere in Manly. Turned out she was a middle aged woman who had given up her successful career as an interior architect after the birth of her first child. Thinking about it now it’s funny that it’s taken me this long to use the fabric; it was waiting for the right collection and now it is obvious to me that this collection is exactly the one it was for. She bought the fabric for wallpaper walls in some kind of experimental project and then got pregnant. She told me it was the last thing she had bought for her design practice before giving it up fully and completely for 18 years. Her 18 year old son (the reason for her retirement and the never used fabric) helped me load the 3 giant rolls into the back of my ute and I paid her the $450 cash. Somehow by the end of the transaction we felt like old friends; or at least the mother of an old friend in that way specific to north shore bohemian stay at home mothers. I parked in the loading zone opposite the capitol theatre right outside the barbecue duck & rice restaurant and hauled the fabric into my then George St studio, where it remained for 4 years while I thought about it. The thing is; it was beautiful fabric (too beautiful to be used on any quick project or to really do too much testing with) but also kind of not exactly the waffle I had been hunting: I was looking more for a thermal waffle jersey, this was a woven very thick weave cotton; somewhat like towelling. I tried to design it into collections a few times but it never quite fit and I couldn’t think of the silhouette for it.

On a melancholy morning that I believe was earlier this year I went to my friend Denis studio apartment in Elisabeth Bay to hand deliver to him my wedding invitation, he invited me in and the combination of Apollo knitting calmly on the couch, the ambient music and the cup of tea I was given lulled me into the corner chair. I was in the process of embroidering my wedding dress at the time and I brought it everywhere with me. Or actually maybe I was still in the process of folding the invitations and writing guests’ names on them in script and bringing them everywhere with me. Either way I took out my craft and we began chatting, about life and fashion and his trip to Tokyo and organising and eventually I was offered another cup of tea and eventually a delicious almond biscuit Apollo’s grandma had made. Somehow conversation turned to the waffle fabric and we began brainstorming some cool pieces that could be made with it. One idea was a maxi length version of the box pleat wrap skirt that would have been pretty great but unfortunately would have used too much fabric to be viable. I believe Apollo floated the idea of a shift dress and somehow this was the first idea since I got the fabric that made any real sense to me. I had bought a vintage Laura Ashley shift dress at Vinnies not long before (she used to make really great minimalist beautiful quality clothes before she went full floral) and was feeling very chic in it so this shape was on my mind. So I tucked the thought into my pocket and kept thinking about it. 

When daydreaming early on for this collection I began sketching “the waffle shift dress”, it was becoming clearer in my mind. I wanted to screenprint it. This had always been the plan ever since my Supreme waffle top. I considered some possibilities.

On Wednesday the moment finally came to address the waffle fabric. I told Mia my plans for a simple princess line shift dress. I was really obsessed with the idea of a princess line dress, I cannot remember where I first heard of this term but I remember that I had become instantly obsessed with the idea and shape when I had; probably when I was 15 or so. For those who don’t know a princess line is where the dresses shaping darts come from the centrefront line of the dress; creating this t shape with the seams. Anyway I just checked: it’s not even called a princess line, it’s called a centre front dart. Princess line must be something I learnt around the same time while I was doing a community college patternmaking course. So Mia and I sketched up and talked out the shape and she went about patternmaking it. The next day I cut it out in voile and sewed it up (just roughly: I didn’t hem it or finish it, just to get an idea of the shape. The next day Mia tried it on for us to take notes and assess the effect.

We loved the simple elegance of the silhouette and the white colour. We felt the line should be higher up to cross through the bust and give some shape to the bust. We loved the length (once hemmed) and the plainness of the dress when styled with the collection’s knee high socks. We adjusted the line of the dress and tried to smooth out the shape.

Mia patterned a second iteration based on the notes. We cut it out and sewed it up, this time in the waffle knit. It was now we discovered that some of the outer layers had become slightly mouldy from storage in a damp basement. The time to bring this fabric to life was now. Mia tried it on again, now in the waffle and we just loved it, the shape and fit was lovely, the waffle fabric elevated the entire thing. I mentioned a cotton voile lining could be nice. I realised we could make a double layered cotton voile version in this apple green cotton voile I had fallen in love with. I realised the cotton voile lining could be pink or yellow and that better yet the dress could be reversible. Even better, you could do the screen print on the inside of the waffle so it only peeked through the voile lining in a subtle ghost like way. We thought about adding a zipper as the shape was quite fitted, I realised we could use a reversible one so the dress would be truly reversible. I had made the sweetest little bio acetate charms for the bikinis, I realised one of these little apples as a zipper pull at centreback would be the sweetest way to finish the dress. It was all coming together. I had been struggling for weeks and weeks to develop a screenprint for the waffle. Suddenly it was obvious that an unused screen I had made for the Pre Spring velour which had the apple and leaf motifs on it was perfect.

Sunday I went to the Antique Motor Cycles America Australian chapter annual meet up in Bulli with Maxi. I was wearing my Supreme waffle again. Then we had fish & chips cooked in beef fat for lunch in Coledale.

I bought some inks for screenprinting the dress, this felt momentous: after years and years I was inking the fabric. I chose a tomato red, a deep jade, a white and a glowing violet. I tested the inks on some scraps from our sample and then I began to print the dress; intuitively placing the print on the inside of the waffle dress in a random pattern. I loved how it looked. It wasn’t 100% right or perfect yet but the energy was good. I let it dry in the sun. I inspected the results. The ink printed on the waffle beautifully but unfortunately and unexpectedly the print bled through despite the thickness of the fabric; you could see the ink on both sides defeating the “reversible ghost print” concept.

The dress isn’t finished yet. I need to resolve how the print will sit on the fabric and whether it is worth pursuing the reversibility idea. We need to test the finish, find a reversible zipper and choose the voile lining colour. Some things you can design and make instantly, other dresses take 4 years.