Once the paint work on the bodice was dry, I was able to attach the "straps" - I decided to use blue ribbons, since blue is a healing colour for me, and also because bows suggest something which should be untied. I bought a variety of ribbons in different shades of blue and different widths - the ribbons are much thicker than thread which will make it easier for them to be cut and the dress to be dis-assembled for a performance.
I decided, due to the sheer quantity of fabric which needs to be assembled that the dress would look more impressive with a hoop skirt underneath it - to make the dress seem more imposing but also to make more of the text visible.
I decided to lay all the pieces of fabric out on my lawn to get some perspective on the task in hand and to help me think through how I was going to approach assembling the dress.
The next step was to sew the arm cuffs in place.
And then to start attaching the longer strips of fabric to the bodice to form the body of the dress. I decided the bottom layer should be the narcissistic abuse because these attacks felt "closer" and more personal than stuff written by randoms on the internet. Because these pieces form the structure of the dress, which the rest of the fabric wil be attached to, I decided to sew these together with thread, which would be stronger than the ribbons - as I don't want the dress to fall apart prematurely!
I want the dress to appear cumbersome and messy - the strips of fabric are so long that they will make it difficult for me to walk. I deliberately left the threads on the bottom layer visible, firstly because it makes the dress uglier and to appear more haphazard / thoughtless, but also practically, so that the fabric can be more easily detached for the performance. On top of the first layer, I added the "HOW CAN SOMEONE BE SO CRUEL?" question - which was posed to me by a friend who had been experiencing narcissistic abuse in an intimate relationship. I want this question to be unveiled towards the end of the performance, and laid out on the floor, after reading out the troll comments from the strips.
I then attached the other strips of fabric in layers, I used a small craft knife to cut slits into the material and tied them in place with thin blue ribbons. Again this will make it easier to disassemble the dress during a performance. The dress is so heavy with all this fabric hanging from it that the poppers on the bodice won't hold - so, I'm going to remove them and tie the back of the dress together with ribbons as well - I think someone is going to have to help me get into it!
Boudicca is, of course, thrilled whenever I make anything that involves ribbons...
I continued adding the layers of fabric, fastening them in place (to the waist line) with increasingly wider ribbons before then stitching them together along the long edge with more ribbons. Again the work was done in quite a haphazard way - I want it to appear messy, confrontational, imposing and ugly.
When the dress was complete I took it outside in the sunshine to get some photos of it... I love how it has the kind of shape of regal, Elizabethan dress - it makes it seem more empowering.
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