Project That Excites Me: The Living Dress
The Living Dress is a dress inspired by designer Hussein Chalayan, and built by Vinilla Burnhamfor. Lady Gaga wore the dress and showcased it to the public on February 24, 2010 during the “So Happy I Could Die” performance for The Monster Ball Tour. It uses materials such as stainless steel, various forms of nylon fabrics, sheet and rods, different weights of plastic sheeting and coutil for the corset. I find this dress very interesting for various reasons.
- The dress is actually very heavy, and the only way that they could have made this dress wearable is by assigning and distributing the weight accordingly in an ergonomic manner so that it could be wearable. However, a down-side was that Lady Gaga wasn’t able to do any dance moves while wearing it.
- The dress moves to give it an effect of a “living dress.” The headdress opens and closes, and body of the dress opens and closes, revealing her legs, and the train of the dress moves up and down. It looks just like a dragonfly coming out of its shell and I think it’s beautiful.
- The way it functions is also fascinating. The headdress, dress movements and face fans are all connected to motors and remote-controlled from offstage. An elaborate system of motors and pulleys to pull the skirts up and back, and to enable the wings to spring up make this beautiful effect.
- It is quite impressive to see how the an anatomic designer called Adam Wright was involved in the making of the dress, since the risk of the dress getting caught up with the materials and motors is high. Wright stipulated weight and any potential obstructions with the materials so that his mechanics could run smoothly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKPMMrM1Zdo