FROM CURTAINS TO GOWN - SHADOW BLOSSOM

The fabric for this dress wasn't bought anywhere. It was sitting in the pattern cutting room at fashion school and I asked if anyone was using it. Nobody was.

It was a heavy cream damask — embossed floral and scroll pattern, the kind of fabric that looks like it should be on a window rather than a body. Which was exactly the point.

THE PLAN

I'd been wanting to make a ballgown-style draped dress and had originally planned to make it in denim. When I brought the curtain fabric to my teacher and showed her the idea, she told me to make it in that instead. She was right. The weight and formality of the damask suited the draping in a way denim never would have — it falls completely differently, holds shape without needing structure, and has a presence that lighter fabric can't replicate.

THE ROSETTES

The rosettes are what took the most time. Each one was sewn by hand individually, then applied to the dress by hand. There's no shortcut with that kind of detail — you just sit and make them, one at a time, until there are enough. It's the same slow, deliberate work as the kimono hand stitching or the couture jacket — the kind of process that's either meditative or maddening depending on the day.

THE PHOTOSHOOT

The school organised a photoshoot and asked me to be part of it. They wanted one or two looks — I brought two dresses and two swimwear pieces. Shadow Blossom was one of them.

It was my first proper fashion shoot, though I'd had garments on a runway at Miami Swim Week before this, so I wasn't entirely new to seeing something I'd made in a professional setting. But there's something different about a photoshoot — slower, more deliberate, and you see the garment in a completely different way when it's being photographed properly.

The full detail of the dress — the construction, the silhouette, the complete look — is on the Shadow Blossom page in the Bloom collection. This is just the story of where the fabric came from.