I was beyond excited when my professor mentioned this outside-of-school opportunity for us fashion majors. I enjoyed creating this amazing piece for an amazing event for women. The BCRC fashion show, which happens around early June in Austin Tx, this year on June 7, is an event which artists and designers create very artistic wearable bras and showcase them by BCRC models down a runway and throughout the whole event. Tickets for this event can cost up to $200.00 but every penny goes to the Breast Cancer Resource Center who help clients of Central Texas who are fighting or were affected by breast cancer.
To make my piece I had to brainstorm hard. It had to be something that is fun, stylish, out-of-the-box, and creative. I first googled some images to get ideas. My first ideas were The Little Mermaid, a 70s disco theme, candy land, peacock feathers ( like a peacock bird) and rock n roll glam. I had to narrow it down by thinking of which ones were more interesting. I ended up with rock n roll glam after seeing an image on google of an intense bra with studs. I later then grasped some inspiration and imagination and sketched out an idea. I showed my professor and was excited to see the process and so was I. This was my sketch of my idea which few descriptions and materials listed.
The materials I used for this projected were feathers, studs ( in packages of 100 ct. ), spikes with screws ( in packages of 20 ct.), sequins in black ( both sizes small and large ), a really elegant looking appliqué for the middle of the bra, black and grey metal chains which they were originally for necklaces, 15. in of leather notation and 15 in. of elastic, net tulle only one yard, 1.5 yards of pleather and last but not least a black 34C bra.
here are some links to some materials I used on this project
So started of by cutting some of the pleather fabric about 5 inches and used fabri-tac glue, which in my opinion its a really great glue for fabrics, metals, lace etc and applied it to the edge of the bottom of the bra. After that I then applied the studs, the studs I bought had prongs and i tried to put them through the pleather but it did not secure them tightly. Soooooo instead of that I bended the prongs and them glued them onto the piece of pleather. I also added feathers, used the spikes around the bra and added the most important touch to the bra, the nice appliqué in the middle.
more pictures of the process.
I need showed my professor and had her to help me to create the peplum look which we learned during our apparel 1 class this semester. Its very easy you simply cut a circle of any fabric you want (even pleather as in my case) and then fold the circle four times till it looks like a triangle or cone shape. Then cut an arch as big as you want just make sure you cut it upwards! and whalaaahhh you created a flounce which you can use to make peplum tops, dresses, or skirts. I then sewed the flounce to the 1/4 of an inch I left from the studded piece. I also used fabri-tac glue to glue on the necklaces (chains) to give it this look on the picture below and glued small black sequins on the sides of the bra to give it a glamorous look.
One change on this picture below was that I purchased about two more packs of spikes then placed them all over onto the bra. Since they came in 20 i could not buy that many. I recommend purchasing some online like Ebay, where they have more variety but considering there wasn't much time left because of the shipping, I bought the ones at Hobby Lobby for 1.99.
click here for the spikes I used.
SHORTS:
For this show we had to create a bottom piece with our bra if we want to have a better chance for our piece to be on the runway. For my bottom piece I decided to do cute little pleather shorts then adding details on them. I had my design professor help me with this, and now thinking about it, it was really easy to make these! We first used blocks, did no hems since they are just shorts for a project, and just sewed the pieces all together. Literally it was a piece of cake that I am considering making my own! Since we were not too such for a size we went with a medium size block, added elastic on the black and some pleather notation on the front. My professor thought it was cute to fold them so I folded the shorts a bit.
ACCESSORIES:
I had tonsssss of pleather left so created cuffs using left over scraps and the screws that I did not use but ended up using them for these cuffs. I also made a choker using left over studs and sequins.
I then finally added more details such as sequins studs and chains. I also added tulle net to make the bottom piece of the bra flow.
final bra look.
I added more chains and even a smaller chain with a stone to give it a glam look.
After adding details with simply glue and some sewing this was the final look for the bottom piece.
