Pages

Monday 5 December 2011

The Magic Dress WTF?

The Magic Dress is a name given by my new stockists, Young British Designers, to a style of dress, which has now been developed through 4 seasons. You may think that "magic" is a hell of a claim to make about any piece of clothing consider the following.



What do we want when we put a dress on? It must fit beautifully. It must make us feel great. It must make us look great. I reckon thats a good start.

Okay, so if you have a supermodel figure, you can pretty much get away with anything. For everyone else, there is a thing called bodycon. Personally I think that word has a couple of meanings, one of them not quite so positive but then again sometimes the truth hurts?

So bodycon is all about making you look slimmer or more shapely in a good way. Currently you can achieve it in 3 ways. Firstly there is the compression garments such as the bandage dresses. These are constructed from stretch materials are supposed to squeeze you into a more desirable shape. The truth? Lumps and bumps have to go somewhere. If you squeeze it in..........okay, Newton's second law. Do bandage dresses look better on Elle or Christina. The prosecution rests.

Secondly there are dresses that are supposed to confuse the eye of the beholder in thinking that the wearer is slimmer. Optical illusion? So you can either wear a dress with a contrasting silhouette with our eyes being drawn to the lighter coloured section and make you think that, that is the actual outline of the wearer. Alternatively you could confuse your audience with very clever scientifically tested patterns which make you look thinner. The truth? If you are curvaceous, these dresses can make you look like a poor imitation of Jessica Rabbit and lets face it, apart from Cameron Diaz in The Mask has there ever been a good imitation? I don't think so.

Thirdly there is the control underwear. It does a job but in order to do a good job it needs to have a body coverage in excess of what might be technically called sexy. For women who have separate compartments for there underwear, are the sexy pants in the same draw as the control pants? The Truth? Whats the point in wearing a sexy dress if when you get your object of lust to your boudoir, you've got big control pants on? Okay, take them off first but don't they leave a mark? I guess that's why the phrase' "I'll step into something more comfortable" was invented. Having said that, they should perhaps add...."for the next 30 minutes whilst my squeeze marks go. Alternatively they could of course be creative with the amount of openings......

So when I came to design the "Magic Dress" I did so on the basis of the above truths. It will make you look thinner. It will hide bumps. You can wear your sexiest pants. You don't have to be a size 8. They work on larger sizes. You will look amazing and its a win, win, win.

How do I do this? Ask me nicely....................

Oh and by the way, those very nice people at Young British Designers are giving a "Magic Dress" away as part of Vogue's online fashion week.....and the best part? We are going to make that dress especially for the winner.
Yan To - somethings