Incroyables by Melissa May: Spotlight on a Dress #1

In this feature I will be telling the background story on a piece from my current collection. Designers very rarely get to tell the story of their thoughts and inspirations behind a specific piece. Usually you have to lump everything together to tell the general story behind an entire collection. I often watch fashion shows and wonder what made the designer think of that piece or why they think that a certain piece fits into the collection.

This dress was the starting point for my entire Spring 2011 Collection.

This piece was originally made for a psychedelic fashion show for the Denver Art Museum. The thought was that I wanted to create my own textile that would play tricks on the eyes. Originally the one strap had a puff sleeve because I wanted a very modern silhouette to offset the retro fabrics. After time I decided to remove the sleeve (I thought it was overkill and took away from the textile) and found myself inspired to create more pieces off of the theme of creating my own textile. But instead of making them psychedelic in nature, I wanted a more retro feel. This is one of the only pieces in the collection that is blue and white, most pieces are red and white. I love the way that parts of the dress are mirror images of each other, but then other parts have no pattern with how the stripes are placed. I love pairing this dress with a red or yellow knit bow headband from my accessories collection.

Psychedelic Inspiration Pictures

For the fashion show I decided to show the dress on Caitlyn, one of my model muses at the moment. It was my finale piece and I wanted a model I had used often to close the show. Since this dress was made before the collection was conceived it was also used for a guerilla fashion show, a photo shoot with Taryn Andreatta, and a Parisian style show for a local charity. Below are other images of the dress in action.

On Annabelle (another favorite model of mine) at the guerilla fashion event.