A closer look at "Make Me Tailor"
The Concept
“Make me Tailor” is a collection that expresses my transition, my change into a matured and a complete designer and human being.
In order to convey this idea of transition and adaptability, I created the pieces by giving them the freedom to be what they wanted to become. I folded the materials over the body, I let the fabric fall where it wanted to go. I respect its shape and tailored it to fit!
I connected the pieces of patterns and different textures, fragments of fabric or embroidery... One by one, piece by piece they became a whole, however always missing something. Therefore each garment overlapped, layered, attached or released itself, became wanted or simply renounced by one another. Exactly like my own experimentations of life and feelings where I held what made sense at that moment in time and to let go of what did not belong to me anymore.
These pieces are adaptable, versatile, detachable. You can tie it up, release, reverse, combine, layer, add or remove.
Embroidery & Textiles
To reinforce the contrasting sentiment of this collection, I combined elements of tailoring and nature symbolising old and new, human and the natural course of nature that births and dies represented by delicate roses and the sense of beauty and freedom that comes from death.
My drawings of chalks, scissors, cuffs and collars, measuring tapes, threads and bobbins, buttons were placed on top of a background designed with dry and fresh roses. Together, they became embroidery.
Accessories
To come full circle, I developed all accessories (chokers & bracelets) for Make Me Tailor mixing tea dyed wood and grosgrain ribbon. The wood pieces were immersed into black tea for a couple of hours and oven-baked to retain the colour. As if you absorbed your experiences and values and made them stick.
Resistance and durability opposed to the soft ribbon: The human essence that remains while everything around transforms.
Materials & Colour Palette
Wool, Cotton, Silk Organza and horsehair canvas are the materials chosen to bring this collection to life.
The colour palette was extracted from the old tailoring books that travelled through the times and aged with it.
Garment Construction
Six months fulfilled with a lot of drafting, cutting, hand stitching, sewing and ironing...
Fittings
As this collection is completely artisanal and bespoke, throughout this process, each model was brought in for a total of 3 fittings. In the images below you can see the first fitting in sample material and the last one prior to finishing and lining all the pieces.
Alex D'Paula offers bespoke services, development of collections and consultancy. Interested in working together? Drop me a line here.
