My creative work - Queen of Hearts dress

After posting about the creative works of my clients for the first project, I guess it's fitting that I post some of my own creative work.  I made this dress in my Year 12 textiles class, and it is definitely one of my creative achievements which I am most proud of.  The brief was to create a costume for a character in a film/TV show/stage production, and I chose to design a dress for the Queen of Hearts in the play 'Alice in Wonderland'.  This was a task which proved difficult, as the Queen of Hearts is such an iconic character and some the costumes she wears in various iterations of 'Alice in Wonderland' have become just as famous (e.g the 1951 Disney animation and the 2010 Tim Burton film).  In creating this dress, I wanted to avoid clichés, and hence break away from the aforementioned depictions of her character and create something new.  To do this, I had to find a new cultural reference point to base my costume on, which I found in gothic architecture.

Although the connection between the Queen of Hearts and gothic architecture may not be obvious, I found some parallels between these two seemingly unrelated concepts.  I first become interested in gothic architecture when I visited Europe in 2011 and saw many gothic churches.  While I marvelled at the size, scale and splendour of these churches, I noticed they weren't particularly inviting or friendly looking.  I thought about why this was and realised just how powerful architecture can be in conveying a message.  Gothic churches are not designed to invite people in, but rather to display the power of the church and hence keep the faithful obedient.  Similarly, the Queen of Hearts wishes to appear intimidating and powerful and dominate over the other inhabitants of Wonderland.

The dress was created from a moderfied dress pattern.  The gothic details of this dress include the pointed arch neckline, the ogee (I think that's what it's called) motif on the bodice and the pleats which point to the pointed arch panels.  The ogee and pointed arch panels were inspired by gothic windows, and the motifs inside were also inspired by gothic tracery.  

In the end, I achieved a good result for this project, but ultimately it taught me that what creativity is: the ability to take unrelated concepts and use them in a new way.