When I was initially asked about making an outfit in vinyl for a Lady Gaga concert, it felt like all my Project Runway and Drag Race fantasies had come at once! This was going to be a look flown from Australia to LA for the show just as the world was reopening post Covid.
Working with an amazing client, we decided on pink glittery vinyl, with an emphasis on playing with the sporty armour and pink clash. The vinyl turned out to be quite a challenage as most suppliers sensibly cut down the vinyl for postage. The amazing Jo-Anne from Online Bag Supplies not only ordered in the vinyl, she somehow managed to squish meterage into a post tube! Using a hair dryer worked wonders on getting any fold lines out of the vinyl.
The first step was fitting the shoulder detail base to perfection. I used a mens shirt block and fit the calico toile with very little ease, making sure it fit really well across the shoulders. Once it was fitted the fun started, and we drew the seam leans and cut lines directly onto the calico toile. I then needed to add the shoulder detail – the biggest challenge is that with the slope of the shoulder the length of the seams of the spikes do change.
The first fitting was using a blue vinyl sourced from Reverse Garbage that was originally large scale signage. It was not as flexible as the glitter vinyl, but would let me know if the shape would work. And it did!!! From there I went straight to the glitter vinyl. It was a lot of tricky corners and a heat gun set to 70 degrees Celsius. My cylinder arm machine really helped getting into the tight curves for topstitching the spikes as it has quite a small arm.
The skirt is a circle skirt, with lacing at the back, the hardest part was getting the circle perfect. The great thing about vinyl is that it doesn’t have a bias so you don’t need to worry about the hem dropping like you would with a traditional fabric. Once it was cut it was good to go.
There is a belt to give a corset look, as well as provide a bit more support for the skirt, We added press snaps at the side waist so the skirt attached to the belt.
The final step was a bag, a cargo pocket bag. It has a cross body strap, however can also be attached to the skirt with snaps so it’s pocket. It was designed to snugly fit a phone, passport and possibly a card or two and little more – who needs to be weighed down with stuff when you’re rocking a glitter vinyl outfit.