the Vampuker design

In the spring of 2008 I was in Fashion Show that was set up to support a local charity 'Friends of Carolina Hospice'. During the course of this whole thing I was to design an outfit that suited my style and best described me and my abilities and create this outfit out of recyled clothing from a specified thrift shop and eventually model it in the fashion show to be judged. In the left top corner of the picture is my sketch of what I was going to create. I went to the specified thrift shop and bought numerous random clothing item I thought might be of use to me when I actually began creating. A long, plain black blazer; straight leg, black dress pants; a red cottom t-shirt, three purses with chain handles; a wide white snap belt with with embellishments; a hematite heart necklace; a red formal gown; a fleece hoodie; a knitted bag; a black floral church outfit and matching pencil skirt; a multicolor skirt; and platform boots were bought for my design. Slowly I began piecing things together and slowly I began to see my design coming to life. I took the black blazer and cut a good bit of the bottom off in two triangular shapes to create a tailscoat and used the lining of the red formal gown as the red lining for the coat. I used the floral church suit to add the "V" on the back of the coat and the insets in the sleeves. I used the red zipper from the formal gown to create the red "V" on the front of the jacket. Deciding the t-shirt needed more flavor I cut the crew neck out made it a square-neck, cut the sleeves to a "v" shape and took in the slack of the neck to create a shrug look, and make the shirt fit better. I also took in the seams of the t-shirt to make a more fitted look. The white belt I took and painted the while embellishment red. The plain black dress pants just weren't enough for me so I cut them in two different places to create the whole and used the red formal to create the tubed links in the different sections of the pants. I also let out the seam in the bottom-outside of the pants and used the multicolored skirt as the insets for the pants. I took two purses that had similar chain handles and cut the chain to add the embellishments at the bottom of the pants. I then took the last purse and used the chain from that to put on the platform boots. In the bottom-left corner of the picture is my finished design on the dress-maker and on the right is me modeling my outfit in the fashion show just weeks later.