Let Them Eat Cake: A Paper Doll Creation That was Easier and More Fun Than I Expected!

I was actally considering not participating in this assignment at first. After all, what is the chance that I would ever again be asked to make a dress out of newspaper? But after finding two messages in my inbox immediately after the show saying, "I can't wait to see what you so with this week's challenge!!" I changed my mind, and I sure am glad I did!

So this is obviously is a Maire Antionette-ish dress. It is inspired children's paper dolls and by those old TV-movies that don't really try too hard to make the costumes historically accurate as long as they look pretty. I wanted to create a wearable art peice that would utilize the nature of paper, which is to be stiff and creasable, rather than fight it and try to force it to act like fabric.

I decided to go with panniers (the strange hip sticky-outy things) because they are hard to make... with fabric. But with stiff paper that stays where you fold it, creating this usually difficult to sustain look was easy! Also creating rows of pleats with newspaper was easier than fabric as well since I could put 5-7 layers of paper and pleat them all at the same time AND they would stay folded without needing to use an iron.

So I love this little paper doll number. Yes, it's "costumey" (eeeee!), but the assigment was to create any type of garment we wanted as long at it was made from paper, and I wanted to make an awesome paper costume!