Comments on the Project's LBDs

People on whose entries we may comment publicly -- i.e. in the Project Dollway chat; nonetheless, I will place those comments here. I doubt that I will publish comments on people's work not on this list, though I may comment on it privately:

Andrea

Karen

Brandon

Mario and Gianni

Leigh

Kimberly

Debbie

Judith

(Christopher)

(Safina)

That said, I doubt that I will make any negative comments at all, based on what I said on the Yahoo chat board for this project about evaluations as a tool for growth. It is possible that if I have come up with "negative" evaluations (i.e. found reasons for eliminating entries from being the one I cast a popular vote for) for any that won, I might publish those. I certainly will not "pile on" to anyone who already has had a disappointment.

By way of introduction, I give a quick look-see for first impressions, then check through all of them, the rubric, or list of requirements fixed in mind as a basis for evaluation of one to choose as my people's vote.

My off the top of my head comments as I worked through the pictures then are:

Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 2:23 PM
Subject: Andrea

Thoughts as I go through these; the mail screen works as great notepaper.

On first glance, none of them really provides a startling contrast between the black and the accent color. On closer examination of the group as a whole, I am drawn to Andrea's and Safina's

Individually, though Andrea's seems not to fit the modern requirement because of the hemline; on closer look, the dress is awesome, as it has a modern fly-away pointed bodice that gives the appearance of the wearer's shoulders and arms being a part of a 1940s two-tone women's suit jacket. It then fits modern in a most innovative way as well as having gorgeous accent details applied. Further, it has attention to detail in having made the hat and the shoes, as per specs. Hat follows theme of early 1940s in a postmodern design; almost Blade-Runner. Workmanship appears to be impeccable.

Since Andrea's is last, I return to the front of the list and begin there. These notes are not for publication -- I will only publish those that wind up being the top three, and have decided that those will be posted to my blog.

1. Love the red pleated inset, answering the challenge of an accent color in another innovative way, echoed beautifully in the clutch purse, a deco feel.
(Kimberly's)


4. Karen's grabs me right away, with the addition of metallics to the LBD; metals can or cannot be considered colors. Here, since gold is the accent and also shows up as/reads as an accent color rather than a light element, with the silver of the dress reading as a light element, is an elegant solution to the challenge that also incorporates fine workmanship, as does Andrea's, down to the seam in the nylons. That hemline might knock Andrea's out. . . . my first choice for a front-runner.


8. I find out that the other ensemble that initially attracted me is Safina's. I like hot pink with black; it's another foolproof choice. I like the concept of the dress, with the translucent midriff and the loosely-pleated bust and the design of the bodice and neckline. The workmanship is disappointing. It is another garment too bulky for the doll, and could be an excellent design reworked with the knowledge gained in making this one. Also, the pink and black with a blonde is a good choice. Don't know which blonde Silkstone this is, but she looks awfully tired.

11. I'm back to Andrea. I love it. I love the 1940s look to it and the cut of the bodice that brings it to modern, a post-modern fashion statement that does all the things the challenge suggested be done.

--Alison

13 November 2007:

I didn't want to be piling on to Safina: her workmanship is better than this. However, since her dress was one of the two which originally grabbed me for being a good response to the challenge of providing a contrast to the LBD, and then had many good elements in its concept, on which I had commented, I decided I should publish these comments. Also, because I think that with more time, she would probably have reworked this dress to her satisfaction: things happen, and when you take risks, they happen more often, and that is the value of risk-taking: you make mistakes and then you have a roadmap of how to get there better the next time.

One thing I noticed and wondered about in looking at the group of these LBDs was longer hemlines, and I wondered if that were a current or currently hatching trend reflected in the doll dress designs. I have my Art, Fashion, and Town-and-Country mags sitting unopened since August.

On the socio-cultural-political relationship of clothing to current events, shorter hemlines reflect times of an economic upturn, and lower hemlines reflect a time of more privation, more conservative or cautious times. The classic examples of this are the "roaring 20s" and the market boom and the 1960s and economic security, both sandwiching the shorter hemlines of the WWII and post-war years. 1929 saw the stock-market crash and hemlines fall; the 1970s brought in the midi -- though those may have been times of socio-political-economic freedoms. Was there at that time the beginning of a loss of intellectual freedom, a time of intellectual privation? I'll need to give more thought to that and to the years involved. The 1980s brought in a very different style of dressing -- and there were those wonderful legwarmers, which of course require a large open space between the knee and the hip. The 80s was sportswear, shorts and legwarmers, tights. . . and the 90s were rather unremarkable; perhaps they are still too close in time.

Just wondering if lower hemlines are on the horizon. Most probably we will be heading into a time of economic privation in response to the excesses of the last eight years; it has already started.

Have our fashions been relatively paralyzed since 11 September 2001, as we all have been in one way or another?