A Rundown on the Runway

We have had several days of ups and downs here at the Griffith abode, and I have been pondering how to relate the events in this forum. I still don't have an answer, but I need to move on it or forget about it. I still don't have photos, but I will soon.

The last time I posted was last Tuesday in the wee hours of the morning. J and I had worked all day Monday, and it felt like we were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And then I wrote about finishing and switching gears and how good it all felt, and fate stepped up to my challenge and said, "Take this!". Tuesday I went in to data.world, kicked ass on doc, and everything was great. Jessie had rehearsal again until 8:00 that night, and came home to say the white dress was too big and needed to be taken in. Ugh. As it was lined, it meant taking in both the dress and the lining.

And thus began the descent into madness as from there on I lost track of time. Couture problems gleefully manifested daily as the rest of the week passed in a haze of late nights, too-full days, and unending sewing.

To finish the story of the white dress: Jessie pinned the dress on the model to mark where it needed to be taken in. The pins started to come out and were replaced by someone else with safety pins but on the other side of the dress. No, I have no idea how something could be both replaced and on the other side. By the time J got home, the safety pins (which didn't close properly) had started to come out. J had a pretty good idea (vague recollection) how much the dress should be taken in. I was dubious as taking in a form-fitting dress without exact requirements just sounded hazardous to me. But we had to do it because there weren't enough rehearsals left before the judging to refit. So we took it in, and this time we also hemmed it up. The next day when the model tried it on it was too tight. So it had to be let out, but we had cut the extra fabric out after taking it in as it would have been too bunchy under the dress if left in. The next step was to rip the sides out up to just above the waist, add in triangular panels to the dress and the lining, and hem it up again. And then there was still the ruffle to finish and the issue of making it fit better into the line (no blue, you see).

And then there was the blue ballgown. We turned it inside out and Jessie serged the entire hem together except for one small area to pull it back through right-side out again. Then we went to bed. J headed off to school the next morning, and when I got up I went to turn the dress right-side out so I could bring it to her rehearsal at the end of the school day.

Good thing I didn't wait till I was ready to leave as the physics of inside out does not work that way. In my defense, this is not a rare dressmaker error, and I still don't know why exactly, but for some reason if a lined dress is sewn together at the neckline and then down the back around the zipper you can't turn it inside out to hem. I have pictures, though they mostly look like a big wad of blue and god satin so it's hard to see that what I ended up with after pulling the dress right-side out again was a moebius strip. As I had gotten Jessie into the mess by telling her how to do the hem that way, I figured I should fix it. So I spent over half the day redoing it. I cut off the serged hem with a rotary cutter, turned the dress back right-side out, and went to the mass mind for a way to hem it inside out. Turns out you need to start with the dress right-side out, pin the hem that way (wrong sides together), then cut a slit in the lining and pull only the bottom of the dress through it. At this point the bottom is inside out and the top... isn't. Then you repin the hem in exactly the same place but with the right sides together. THEN you can serge it all the way around, pull it back through the slit in the lining, sew up the slit in the lining, and Bob's your uncle.

Fast forward to Friday, the day of dress rehearsal and judging. J was still sewing right up to a half hour after we were supposed to leave the house to get to the performing arts center (and then more in the car on the way). We got to dress rehearsal late, but Jessie and Isabelle's line was next to last so it all worked out. She finally finished at 9:30, and when I picked her up she was jubilant: The judges had told her everything was perfect, she couldn't have done better, and they asked her what she wanted to do in the fashion industry... The only cloud was that they didn't gush as much over Isabelle's part of the line--though they did say how well the two blended and you couldn't tell it was two designers.

And then it was Saturday. The clothes had been left at the performing arts center Friday night after judging in preparation for the show. No last-night/last-minute sewing, everything was done. The show began and the clothes were edgy, and the models (all McCallum students who had auditioned to participate) were as bored and aloof as any professional runway model could ever hope to be. The show was two hours long and featured the work of twelve student designers (and one design team--Jessie and Isabelle) shown by 29 or so models. Jessie and Isabelle's line was next to last, and it looked good. Neither of J's dresses were as wow-factor from far away as they had been up close, but they were clearly well-made (and the judges had examined all of the lines up close for quality of workmanship). Jessie is a demon for top-stitching and precision seams.

At the end of show the awards--1st to 3rd places--were announced. J did not place. I recognized the designer of one of the winning lines as she was towards the end too, but I'm still not sure who the others were.

As a parent, my heart ached for my child who didn't understand why she hadn't even placed. Why, she wanted to know, had the faculty advisor in charge of the show told her that they were being judged on the both the quality of the work and the design, when workmanship didn't seem to matter at all? Some of the pieces weren't even hemmed, they were just cut off. Nothing was lined, seams were crooked all over the place, why didn't this matter? Why had the judges said everything was perfect and couldn't have been done better if they weren't even going to place her? Other designers had said how harsh the judges had been about crooked and poorly done seams, and she wasn't given a single criticism, why?

As an adult and an artist who has spent the past 20 years in the creative world, I could see why the judges might not have picked her. Jessie is too grounded in the effort it she puts in to doing something--a combination of passion and keeping going until it finally matches the vision of her internal eye--to understand that it doesn't matter what it took to beat the materials into submission to achieve the goal. What matters isn't what the artist sees--it's what the audience sees. If the piece--be it clothes or a painting--makes the viewer think the maker was an artist and the work was inspired by a vision, that's what counts. The blood the artist may have poured into it doesn't. It often isn't the work that counts, it's the facade of its artisticness. The life and work of Vincent van Gogh provides a perfect example.

Not that I want Jessie to end up like Van Gogh. What mattered last night, today, and going forward is how she feels about her art and her craftsmanship. The only person she needs to please is herself. She has a right to be annoyed that the criteria she was given for success in this show were misrepresented, and that the judges weren't more helpful in their critique of her work. But she shouldn't be discouraged because her work wasn't acknowledged as she thought it should have been. The only validation that matters, the only criticism that matters is her own. She needs to keep listening to and following her own inner voice. And I hope she participates again next year.