Designs featured in film project

The wonderfully talented Tom McIntire @onehundredfiftydegrees Invited me to showcase one of my pieces in his short film 703 https://www.facebook.com/703shortfilm/ a dark comedy about jealousy, mistakes and consequences. And pizza. Short, gay and delicious.

Before embarking on a new design Tom looked through the Earth Line http://staci39.wixsite.com/spellcasteraggiev/the-collection to see if any of my current pieces might work. He liked this one.

I visited the charming actress, Kate Witt to try things on. We decided a new piece would work better. She described her character as edgy, a singer with a day job at a pizza place. She also had concerns that a wool sweater might be too hot under the video lights. I went home and looked through my stores of garments ready for repurpose and chose several options and sketched my ideas for Tom. I sent sketches along with pictures of the fabrics they would be made from.

My favorite was the grey plaid with the backpack neckline, and I may have to make that one for myself. Tom’s favorite was the blue sweater with the angled belt. His second choice was the green and brown and third was stenciled pull over.

I set to work on the blue sweater. There wasn’t enough fabric to cross over as dramatically as I would have liked so the belt ran more vertically. I used an awl to make new holes on the shadow side of the belt studs so that I could hand sew it to the neckline. I didn’t have enough fabric for all the pieces, so I used the back of a leather jacket with a yoke in the back, which also gave the side seam lines support for a flattering line. I couldn’t match the studs on the belt so simplified letting go of the hem and cuff trims and left the sleeves full length.

I wanted Tom to have an alternative option in case there were issues with the garment on set. His second choice was a bit more complex than I had time for so I snagged the green pull over from it and added Banksy inspired toy soldier lace to the collar and cuffs. As it turned out, Tom chose to use both pieces, putting Kate in the stenciled pull over and using the blue sweater for a different character. Here are some behind the scenes snaps of David Hsieh playing Wade in 703.

I love these behind the scenes photos and can’t wait to see how things look in the context of the film. Meanwhile I paired both shirts with a faux leather skirt so I could showcase the color and details of both pieces. Thanks to Astika for modeling.