My email flashed with a notification from this very portfolio site; it was my first contact from the space and, needless to say, I was intrigued. Joyce, once of the young adults I had served with at Camp Yukon, was curious about my dress process and if it would be possible to do it long distance.
We started with a catch-up and design meeting, the internet spanning the distance between Calgary and Whitehorse. From there, the process involved sending mock dresses made from bed sheets up to the Great White North. We had to rope in another friend to help with the early fitting as the Covid-19 Pandemic kept me from travelling North myself.
Joyce came to my studio for a final fitting on a flight layover, on her way to Winnipeg where she would be married that very weekend. Initially, I reckoned it would be a quick 2-3 hour final fitting session. That quickly became an irrelevant guess. There were a lot of adjustments to the shape: sleeves were discarded (because no bride wants full, non-lace, sleeves during June in muggy Manitoba), and new pieces had to be cut and added so that the accidental "70's cone bust crisis" could be averted. The dress making process became an epic; the fittings and design changes that are usually done during the early stages all came into play in this final time together. The two bust darts became a princess seam, the sleeve holes had to be finished without sleeves, and at one point the invisible zipper betrayed me and had to be rethreaded onto the teeth...
I did the final press at 4am and slipped the dress into a long plastic bag for Joyce's 7am flight.
Let's not do that again...
(the time pressure/distance challenge. Working with Joyce was an absolute pleasure)
Simple, fitted, daring, flowing, elegant.
Joyce.
-xo Kathleen