Three years later, the babydoll is arriving this month.
The making of the babydoll dress started in 2023, almost exactly three years ago. On a trip to my deadstock fabric supplier (a showroom that no longer exists), with a friend (a friendship that also no longer exists), I fell in love with a deadstock cupro in the deepest, darkest blood colour, originally from Rag & Bone. It was so unlike me. I'd just released SS23, You Are Glamour!, and was at the very beginning of the next collection. This dark, spooky fabric ended up becoming the whole centre of it.
I had just found out I was pregnant and decided to terminate. I wasn't ready to be a mother, but it also felt impossible; a sad, dark time spent turning over what motherhood means, and how deciding it isn't the right time is its own kind of experience of it. I became obsessed with a fantasy of motherhood; baby clothes, my own complicated desire to mother. I got Nina to dye my hair cherry cola red and I couldn't stop wearing my ex's grandmother's garnet ring, given to me when the relationship ended. This fabric held exactly how I was feeling.
The first thing I draped from those sparks was the babydoll. I wanted the perfect fit-flexible one; a dress that could grow and shrink on different wearers, or through different moments in life; I was thinking a lot about pregnant women.
1. The initial shape I toiled was too voluminous in the bust and with only one waist tie felt quite grecian.
2. Adding the second waist tie allowed the shape to be cinched more elegantly.
2.1 A puff sleeve was needed.
3. Fitting the dress on myself to see how it translated on a size 2XL (not well), but the lower waist tie allowed for the correct fitted underbust shape.
4. Notes on changes.
5. A sleeve was added and again the shape was tested.
6 & 7. The basic final design was resolved, the fit checked on Mia and Ella; we later added a neck-adjusting mechanism to further improve the fit flexibility.
8. Again I checked the fit on myself and was happy with the babydoll shape; I wanted to lower the neckline (hence the drawcord we later added).
The final pattern was made and the first sample sewn by the Sydney factory who made all my pieces until they recently retired. It happens rarely, but the dress was essentially perfect from that first sample, alive in the blood cupro.
Rachel Rutt walking the babydoll. If the video doesn't load, watch it here.
Around then I met Rachel Rutt; strange to meet someone whose magazine covers you collected as a teenager. She was a stepmother, and she talked to me about the complicated love in that. I asked her to walk in the show.
At first I was disappointed by the reaction to the babydoll, it wasn't the runway favourite, but slowly it became the bestseller of the collection. It looked good on everyone and could be worn very fancy or not at all. It sold out again and again and we kept remaking it, until one day we ran out of the fabric.
While moving studio I tried the babydoll in beautiful silk chiffons, shot on Milla in the mess before we left Haymarket. But the fabric and construction were so expensive, and it needed so much, that I lost money on every one. I made about eight. A beautiful failure.
I couldn't stop t hinking about the original. I remade it in the leftover fabric from the shop curtains; nylon tricot, cheap and a little nasty, what nightgowns were made of in the '50s, with a perfectly cloudy sheerness. The dress was perfect in it. One day a newly divorced artist wandered in and bought one to wear in bed with her lover. She'd seen it in the window and fallen for it; heartbroken and glamorous. Her daughter thought it was too young for her. She was exactly the customer I'd hoped for and never got in the old hidden shop.
The next version was in a black flocked polka dot challis, also a deadstock fabric. I sold one on resale world this week. This one was for SS25, which was never officially shown but was called my childhood crush is my accountant now. I took photos of it on Mandy in the studio courtyard.
Then time moved on. I got married, another year passed. Exactly a year ago I started thinking about SS26, and the babydoll again. The collection kept changing names; Asadoritas, then El Casado Casa Quiere. It was about domestic-bliss fantasy, turning thirty, the unrealistic dream of a house, the way marriage doesn't follow the old lines. I got obsessed with white satin and black lace, maybe because I've never liked black and white; something dated and off about it. And a ribbon red, the satiny party-dress red you'd wear as a kid on a special occasion. I wanted both in the babydoll, and I knew I needed a black one too.
We tried the final sample on Clare and it had that perfect birthday-party feeling. On the runway Mandy wore it again in the white, and Derell wore the black with jeans; I love how it looks on boys.
Whilst in Paris selling the collection I learnt that Marland was an internationally renowned model. We were sharing the showroom and all the buyers knew her. She modelled the babydoll dress for some Japanese buyers and they ordered it.
The last problem was making it. It had grown too expensive to produce in Australia; the price climbing each time with the complexity, and each dress needing around five metres of costly fabric. After a lot of emails I found a factory in China run by Keith, who usually answers WhatsApp with one of three gifs of a chuckling baby.
That made more sense when I met him this year in Hong Kong; we went out for oysters and beer and had a huge night with his friends. He's the kind of person who knows everyone, and if he doesn't yet, he soon will. I told him I'd just sent the red and white babydoll samples to Olivia Rodrigo's stylist for her album launch. True, though nothing came of it; she may have pulled every babydoll in the world that week.
We went through multiple samples and measured and remeasured till everything was perfect. The frills were doubled in length to be more dramatically ruffled, and we decided to add a second size; a fit 2, so it could be more voluminous on sizes 14–20 AUS femme. Somehow in the meantime the reserved fabric was sold, and in the end only a limited amount of the ribbon red satin and white cotton satin were left. I ordered all that was left and shipped it to Zhuhai, China (a city about an hour's drive from Hong Kong, which I was able to visit by ferry whilst I was there).
Jess Tangri styled by Cecile Hyun in the babydoll dress in tooth.
So she comes home for SS26 in three: Tooth, Ribbon Red and Black. Made in tiny numbers, because that's all the fabric there is.
If you've read this far, you already understand the dress. I'd love for you to be first.
You'll get first entry when preorders open, and a little something for being early. They won't last long.
