sewing things I can’t afford: MET GALA (yes the painted one)

You guys think I could make this? This is from   the Fashion is Art Met Gala. This is  painted. I feel like I could sew it. I'm thinking I could chop up secondhand clothing  to recreate this. Like a phoenix rising out of   recycled fabric. This dress is custom Mugler  painted by artist Anna Deller-Yee. The chest. Wow,   that is so cool. And then once it gets to  the skirt, it looks like it's airbrushed,   but then I found these photos that clearly  indicate that it's hand-painted somehow.    Found an interview that said it was inspired  by Van Gogh, Munch, and previous Mugler work   like this butterfly dress. Saving all this for  my editor. How many days is this going to take? I'm thinking of copying a bodysuit that  I made last year, but I'm going to skip a   couple of details. Who remembers this  one? This was part of a video series   last year where I attempted a beginner,  intermediate, and advanced sewing pattern   to just see like where my skills lie in that  spectrum. This was beginner, and there were   a lot of salty comments about whether this  constitutes as a beginner. Skip the cutout,   add a turtleneck. Sleeves need to be modified a  bit, but I won't be needing these thumb holes. Oh gosh. Feels totally fine. Yeah. Okay. This is how much I have left to work  with for making the turtleneck. Pretty   sure that's going to be okay. Yeah. One and a  half centimetres. Okay, let's go. Oh, gloves. We're going to rob this place. Okay, we thought  we'd try our luck at the nearest thrift by the   pound because we wanted lightweight clothing at  the lowest price possible. But I didn't really   anticipate how this place would make me feel.   You can see here bin after bin of discarded   clothing. No sorting for size, style, season,  just very, very loosely categorized. We had our   reference images. We were hunting by colour,  which did make digging a little bit easier,   though we were both still really tired  afterwards. This was very physical,   and emotionally, it was tough to see all this  discarded clothing. Like 99% of what we were   looking at was fast fashion. Couldn't help but  feel like it's just designed and disposed of   with as little thought as possible. I wasn't  quite sure how much we needed, but if you feel   like you have a sense for these things, you can  guess how many pounds we bought in the comments. Everybody is washed, dried. I have  it all pinned up. It is super smooth,   super sleek. Really hope that this is going to  work out with a zipper. But we're keeping it   open so that it'll be easier to sew all of the  details on. Today's goal: cut everything open   along the seam so we can work with flat material.   I'm calling this filleting the clothes. And then   we're going to start cutting smaller pieces so we  can layer them like some kind of painted mosaic. My plan is to start with this  darker yellow. The first of many. All right, let me make a couple more of these.   We've decided to go with using the rotary blade.    They just come out a lot faster and easier.   And here's how we're looking at the moment. I just got to cut another color. We just  got to start layering. See what we get. I think it's getting better. It's  getting better. Have some movement here. Bring   it on down. Cover up the patchy spots. Long was  cutting these satin pieces got me so excited. Okay, this is definitely testing my "trust the  process" instincts, but now that I'm on a third   layer of yellow, I'm feeling better about it.   Do a little bit more here. Okay, guys. I think   it's coming together. The scary thing today is  I need to baste all of this so that this crazy   multitude of pins can be removed and I can sew it  all down on the sewing machine. Always easier said   than done. And long is helping with spiralling  around and around, when you sew it out. Ruffles

At this point in basting, you are  definitely feeling it in your body.    Lots of gentle swimming of the needle to try  to catch all the fabric layers, but not the   dress form underneath. I eventually figured  out if you baste from the bottom to the top,   you get caught on less pins. But honestly, this  is one of those things where there's no hacks.    It's just hard. I feel like I'm looking  up at a giant. But it's because I had it set   at the right height to make it comfortable  for me. I'm scared. I know it's going to   contract a little when I take it off, and I'm  just scared at how much it's going to shift. Oh dear. I was trying really hard obviously to  not catch the dress form, but there are some   spots. I'm hoping not too many, but I might  have to snip it a little. Found one more pin. Oh my goodness. This footage is me not actually  knowing what I'm doing, but I stuck with the   lightning-shaped stretch stitch and eventually  I got in the flow of freehanding the lines. It   didn't exactly line up with any particular piece  of fabric, but they just added to this feeling of   direction on the phoenix's head. I'm just trying  it on to see if all the sewing is like going in   the right direction or if I've accidentally made  it way too small for me to wear. It still fits.    Yeah. Okay, let's chat. I was so nervous about  this project. I feel like I was singularly focused   on getting it to a point where like I could  experience hope again. And I'm experiencing it,   hope! Going to add some more yellow to get  farther across the chest. Once I'm done all   the yellow stitches, I got to switch to the minty  colour to get all of this done down here. It's   very jumbled when it's in the machine. Like the  basting stitches aren't able to hold it perfectly   in the right spot. And so I find I really am  just trusting that it's all going to turn out.    Keeping things moving. While I was sewing,  you'll see Long in the background cutting out   skirt panels. When we realized how much we needed  for the skirt and how heavy this was going to be,   I was back at the fabric store looking for the  lightest and most structurally reliable material   that could support, did you guess it, 10 lb of  thrifted clothes. They recommended this woven   illusion fabric. It was more teal than I would  like. And they didn't have a matching nude tone.    So, I made the rush decision of buying two fabrics  I'm going to potentially regret. Love that for me.    I also picked up more denim because we're still  working on my first digital sewing pattern. And   as requested, we are testing an adult version  of the kids' jacket. Yay! Guys, there's so much   fun and interesting denim here. Iridescent denim,  brushed roar shack camo, paisley print. Oh, this   is kind of fun. And this one has a pink thread  undertone pre-distressed in this dotted pattern. Hello. I finished. Now I just got to remove  all these basting threads. The whole   thing is quite delicate and I don't want to  accidentally snip any of this power mesh.    It's done. Obliterated every last red. Oh, I  just found one more. Wow. Up until this point,   it would make things harder  if we attached the zipper,   but now I think we're at the part where it  makes things easier. For something so delicate,   I like to start off with a longer stitch just to  get the zipper in the right place. The seam landed   a little bit higher on this side, but thanks  to the long stitch, I can fix it pretty easily. Oh boy, I'm alive. Okay. All right. Wow. If you  guys look at the original dress, the skirt joins   the body at an angle, unlike how I currently look.   It's looking questionable. Long suggested we add   one more tier of illusion to help blend this nude  tone into the dark teal. And we also decided we   needed horsehair to strengthen the skirt edge.   Can't say I was feeling confident at this point,   but we did our best to sketch an angle to cut  and join everything. I uploaded a fresh batch   of footage. See you on day five. Hello. Hope was  restored. Fear came on back. Honestly, I don't

want to admit this out loud, but I'm scared  we don't have enough material to cover this. I am now pondering if I can get three machines  to sew the same garment at the same time. Can   it be done? So, there's one more step left to  finish attaching the horsehair. But before that,   I need to close the back of the dress. And before  that, we need to attach the skirt to the rest   of the body. So, we safety-pinned the two parts  together so I could take it to the machine safely. The horsehair after this first  initial stitch. Now it's flipping   it to hide underneath the  dress. And slow that down. All the spiraling is hitting the dress  now. Okay. Oh my. Okay. Your spirals look   so good. I think you guys can tell  my feeling of hope was rising. So,   I posted this moment to Instagram and  immediately got this reply. And with   that positive response, we move on  to day six, where we are once again- I've never had to back the camera away this  much to see the whole thing. All we ask for is   that every time we touch it, it gets prettier. We  were cutting it close with the amount of spirals   we had. Long had to leave for the afternoon. So,  I did carry on by myself, safety-pinning spirals   to the dress in the patchy spots. There were a  lot of patchy spots. And the whole time I was   just crossing my fingers cuz I didn't want to go  back to the thrift store. I don't I don't want   to go back there. Woo. I think I'm also ready  to seal the back completely. And then that way   the rest of these spirals can just dance right  across that seam. Yay. It's getting heavier. My body is aching. I've got the picture of it  right here for me to look at every so often.    And I think the reality is, whenever I look up,  I'm like that's obviously the more expensive   version of this dress. You know what? I'm not  even mad about how this is going. I used to   work on my YouTube channel 7 days a week. After  getting married, I tried to make the weekends   a bit more sacred. And then after having kids,  I don't even have the energy for any of this   in the evening. But something good happened in  all of that. I feel like I no longer burn out   to the degree I used to. I'm forced into a work  rhythm that is way healthier for me. And it's all   because I have to be a parent at the end of the  day. There was a loss in how much time I could   spend working on sewing, but there was a gain  in me feeling like it's nice to work at a pace   where I'm not hurting myself, uh, like hurting  my battery so badly anymore. Surprised by this   positive outcome. I'm going to finish my break  for my shoulders. and see if I can keep going. I made a mistake. This one I just  got carried away and I think I wanted   it to go below these. Does anyone  even care? I care. Why do I care? Are you okay? Okay. Dan's also fixing a   toilet right now. I guess we're all  working on the derrière. Okay. Bye. We're getting to the end. Long is coming over this  morning. I'm feeling good cuz I think we're going   to make it. I have a few spirals to attach and  I'm going to have Long working on the strings.    I've been scared to do this step. I  got these long fringe curtain things. I wanted   so badly to source the secondhand, but I just  kept feeling like I could not figure out the   right solution. Here's Long attaching them  to the sleeves with a combination of sewing   machine and then hand sewing. It's because we  were studying this shot and it looks like a   layer of fringe is completely sewn to the  rim and then there's these sparser ones,   slightly denser at the base fading away at the  wrist. I was about to spray paint, but I just   realized there's a few more touches of teals, dark  colours. So, I'm back to the cutting board. Gonna

make a couple of pieces. Am I just procrastinating  on spray painting? Yeah, probably. But I have to   do it today. I can only procrastinate so much.   Thankfully, this is a really easy part of the   outfit to access. Oh, I don't want to paint.   Oh, I really, really do not want to paint today. Added some teal here. Now I'm trying to get this  little like eyebrow detail. All right. Okay.    Hoping this is paint ready. Oh, you want to go?   You want to go outside? Okay. That patio is not hosting friendly. It is  disgusting. I need some kind of like large paper. Okay, I changed my mind. I need my old dress form. I'm so scared. Sorry guys, I know  I'm complaining a lot, but deep down,   I was also really looking forward to this  step because I was counting on it to blend   my fabric colours and better mimic the  original dress. Tip for you before you   go spray painting your clothes. My research  told me that regular spray paint can crack   with the movement and stretching of clothing.   So, I did go out of my way to get fabric spray   paint. The original dress apparently took 40  hours to paint, 30 base colours, and 4 days   to dry. And these are my colour options. I was  disappointed that there wasn't a brown spray,   but there was a brown paint. So, here's hoping  my hand-painting skills meet my own standards. Okay. Sleeves. Oh, no. Please no. No, I love this balloon. Yesterday I accidentally got  it on the dress form backwards just like Oh no.    Little drag of trying to reorient  it in the correct direction. Oh,   wait. Wow. This is the first time  I looked up. Oh my gosh. Okay. Wow. Rhia is here. Okay. I told Long that my goal was to slay.   And then Oscar was coming up the stairs to   come see us and he was giggling and  smiling. And then when he saw me,   he got so scared he started crying  and he was going, "Mama, mama,   mama! " So I slayed. So sad. At what  cost? At what cost? Traumatized my son.

I need some kind of wide-tooth comb to  detangle all these strings. There's a   link in the description if you want to see a  director's commentary version of this. It's   got all the photos from Alice, my commentary on  the process of making this dress, original photos   of everything we thrifted, things like which  of the sewing techniques were brand new to me,   and we did a lot of things that I've never  done before. If you guys didn't notice,   this video was sponsored by Dropbox, which has  made me so happy. I looked back and my account   is over 15 years old. Every single project I  work on with my editors starts with Dropbox. So,   when they asked if I wanted to work together on  a project, I was just so happy cuz I was like,   we already work together on all my  projects. My team and I, we upload,   we share, we leave comments, we use the Replay  tool for feedback on video drafts. I've never   really shown you guys how we do this behind  the scenes, but it all happens on Dropbox.    Thank you guys so much for being here at the end  of the video. See you in the next one. Bye-bye.