Friday Eye Candy: Eiko Ishioka

A few months ago I was saddened to hear that the incredibly talented and inspirational designer Eiko Ishioka had passed away.  She is mostly known for her work designing the costumes for Cirque du Soleil and Bram Stoker's Dracula for which she won an Academy Award.  I am a big fan of all her work but I'm only going to show you my most favourite of her designs,  Mina Murray/Harker's red bustle gown.

Eiko's original concept sketch.

Front view

View of the back.

The beautiful, elaborate bustle.

The last film Eiko worked on before her death was Mirror Mirror, a charming retelling of Snow White, which has just been released in the cinemas.

The Gold Mary Boleyn dress in more detail.

I have been looking closely at the embellishment down the front of the dress. The intricate design looks as though it may have been appliqued on and then stitched around with gold thread. Then there are the sequins which are mostly a deep, blackish gold or mother of pearl worked over the design with the same gold thread. What's bugging me is that there also appear to be the occasional red, blue or green coloured sequins and i'm wondering if thats just because the camera flash is causing the mother of pearl to catch the light and throw out a vibrant colour.

After much deliberation I decided to have a go recreating the design using reverse applique. I sketched out the central motif and used tracing paper to ensure symmetry. My version is not identical but it's close enough so that i'm happy with it.




Luckily I had some gold fabric to hand which should suffice for the purpose of testing this out. I layered up my fabrics; gold fabric on top, my darker colour fabric underneath plus a layer of scrap cotton on the back for extra stability. Then I pinned a photocopy of the design to the front and its ready to sew.



I managed to stitch about half the design today and I will have another crack at it tomorrow.