Between The Wars 1

I promised you this. The time is now.

The Between The Wars project has been so inspiring, and now to show you how.

I will be looking at the things which have most inspired me. To the point lark.

I started to look at the obvious 1920s styled garment because I really liked the thought of taking something classic and modernising it. This was the drop waist. I actually don't like a drop waist, I think it's unflattering for a woman but this only made me more interested, as it became a challenge in my head to find ways of making a drop waist elegant and womanly. I created a design after looking at contemporary and 1920s drop waist garment, in which the top had a corset encrusted with beads under a loose shear top to below the waist. I also was interested in the skirt becoming a corset, creating a structure. I needed more inspiration, so I moved on for now...

1920s saw a surge in the love of embellishment. From fringing to beading to sequins to embroidery; and so I started to explore this, linking it into my RAF Cosford and 1920s research. I explored scale of techniques such as flowers, big and small and what would happen if I increased the number of sequins with beads. I'm really pleased with how they came out, but I had to keep in mind the amount of time I had. So for this section I kept in my mind but moved onto other areas.

An example of embellishments using beads and sequins.