A few weeks ago I went on an adventure to find the fabric that would make a costume for Jem and Sweet Bee. After trawling fabric shops, fancy dress shops and markets in Camden and Soho, I stumbled upon a fabric shop on Berwick Street which was like an Aladdin's Cave of colours and textures. After scrutinizing lots of shades of pink for Jem, a roll seemed to appear from another world, glowing from it's place on the rack on the back wall. It was perfect and exactly what I'd imagined. The shop keeper then took us up to another floor when I told him what I was looking for to create Sweet Bee. On entering the room it was like another private realm of rolls and reams, that's where I found the fabric that would construct the otherworldly Bee warrior's canary yellow outfit.
Back in my east London studio (aka my house), I managed to take over the kitchen and successfully made a huge pink mess (much to the joy of my housemates, I'm sure).
As a lover of all things 80s I had lots of fun putting this costume together especially with the help of an awesome playlist with the top hits, movie and TV soundtracks from the 80's to put me in the mood. We had a little party in there that night with all manner of tunes from Prince and Bowie and of course the soundtracks from Dirty Dancing, Back to the Future Ghostbusters and way more!
At first there was a shaky moment where the dress resembled a very OTT Dame Edna-esque dressing gown but after more sewing it shaped nicely into a very sassy and truly outrageous wrap dress - one that I definitely would/will wear in a night out!
For the belt I used silver leatherette as the base and covered it with a more shimmering silver to make it stand out while the tassels were formed straight from the leatherette. This part was way more time consuming than I'd anticipated! The blue detail on the belt was added in the same stretchy fabric as the dress itself which in hindsight I would have hand stitched to help it keep its shape though I was still pretty pleased with the outcome.
Maybe with the remaining fabric there might be some Jem/80s themed skinny bow ties... Watch this space!
For the belt I used silver leatherette as the base and covered it with a more shimmering silver to make it stand out while the tassels were formed straight from the leatherette. This part was way more time consuming than I'd anticipated! The blue detail on the belt was added in the same stretchy fabric as the dress itself which in hindsight I would have hand stitched to help it keep its shape though I was still pretty pleased with the outcome.
Maybe with the remaining fabric there might be some Jem/80s themed skinny bow ties... Watch this space!
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