A commission goes to the Summer Ball

At the ball
(4m hand painted silk chiffon made up into a 1930s style, bias-cut, full-length evening dress)

Working to a tight brief can be a rewarding experience. I think the key to success is to help the client crystallize their ideas as early in the design process as possible. It may be they just have a particular colour palette in my mind and the rest is down to me or they may have a very clear idea of the finished piece.

In the past I have asked people to send me a mini mood board. That is simply a postcard with scraps of magazines, fabrics, dried petals or even feathers stuck to it, indicating the overall feel they want their silk to have.

More often though nowadays putting together a selection of pictures on Pinterest can work equally as well as a starting point. (I keep and add to several boards almost on a daily basis for visual inspiration). Online photos grouped together can certainly indicate a general, wished-for ‘look’, but care has to be taken if true colour matching is required as screen colours and printed colours rarely accurately reflect ‘real life’ fabric colours. And, in some cases the colours are so wildly inaccurate a blue could be called green! In reality this dress is a paler softer peach colour with pale pink highlights that shimmer as the chiffon glides over the pink silk lining – an effect not captured in a still photograph.