Phillip's Galleries
Dallas Pride 2003
When I heard about stretch silk, I couldn’t wait to try making something out of it. All I needed was an excuse...I mean, an event. With Dallas Pride just around the corner, I was inspired. Some experimenting and I had a workable pattern. Some funky tie-dye and I had pants!
I pestered the crap out of my friends that weekend, because I was really unsure of whether to wear the pants. I *wanted* to, but I didn’t want to look like a doofus, or even worse, *too gay*. My buddy Cameron finally smacked me around and said, "Baby, it’s *pride*...you’re supposed to look *too gay*."
It’s a recurring theme; I’ll make something flashy, and then have to work up the nerve to wear it. Should realize by now that flashy is normal.
So I wore them in the parade and had a great time. The pants felt amazing. They’re so thin I felt naked (a good thing), but really strong so I wasn’t worried about them falling apart (iridescent pants, different story, embarrassing).
The irony is that people often don’t believe I made these myself. I’ll take that as a compliment...I think. :-)
Black and Blue I
I liked the first tie-dyed pair so much I immediately made these. The design is more aggressive, because I hand-stitched the silk to control the dye flow. My aim was to create fire shooting up the sides.
These look fantastic in black light. The light blue is a little too pastel for daytime, so this pair is just for shows.
Every creation is a lesson for me. Here I learned how easily dye flows through just four layers of 10 mumme silk, and that guys should usually wear darker colors for pants (ok, except at White Party). I also learned that my dyes don’t bond at all to the thread--it’s completely white.
It was exciting to see how well these last sets turned out and how well they’ve been received. I’ve got lots of ideas for new sets, and can’t way to get started. That’s a good thing, because many of my friends want pants like these.
My first pair of pants...to make, I mean.
On to the earlier stuff...
I’d been on stage in skimpy stuff, but I wanted more coverage for shows, so I started looking for cool pants. I found this material cheap and thought I’d try making something fun. Finding out that the material was UV reflective was a very nice surprise.
Not knowing much about clothing construction, I sewed loose-fitting, hoop-legged pajama bottoms. Not particularly sexy. So I kept taking them in until I had the fit I wanted. On a whim I left the bottoms flared, and it seemed to work in a funky sort of way.
In Denver a friend and I did a show at a theatre with amazing, industrial-strength black lights. Our flags looked great but we were invisible. I put on these pants, and we covered ourselves with black light body paint. The girls in the next dressing room enjoyed that part, and wanted to help.
I had *almost* enough material to make another pair for my partner. The pants came out about two inches too short...ouch. We solved the problem with blue fringe, and it actually looked good. No, really!
Iridescent Red
Looking for more tiger print stretch material, I discovered iridescent fabric.
Ok, I *had* to try it, even though the material felt more like plastic than cloth. The fabric didn’t stretch at all so I needed a new pattern, and couldn’t custom fit it like with the first ones.
I used a pair of club pants to create a pattern and sewed these. They look and feel great, and shift colors from red to black. You don’t notice the color-shift except on stage under spotlights, so these aren’t the best choice for flagging under blacklight. Great club wear though!
I was quite proud of the detail I put into these pants. Zipper, full pockets, and trimmed with UV reflective thread. I put in so much effort because it was my first real pair and I wanted them as professional as possible.
Iridescent Blue
After I saw that the red-black iridescents were too dark, I created these out of blue-silver-brown material. I made them much quicker than the others, learning lots of tricks and shortcuts in the process.
One of the shortcuts was leaving off the back pockets. Who needs them for a show?
Curiouser and Curiouser...
I had some confidence now, so made pants out of whatever stretchy or fun material I could find. It was a game, find something wild, and then figure out how they’ll work with the next event. Sometimes I really had to struggle!
There was the "Yellow Brick Road" pants, made for a "Wizard of Oz" party. Yikes...what was I thinking?
On the other hand, the backside doesn’t look bad. Reminds me of a guy in Chicago who glued pieces from a mirrorball all over his head, for a very unusual look.
And Curiouser...
Then there was the zebra pair. The fabric looked like it would glow great in UV.
It did, but I used these for an outdoors costume party, so never came near a blacklight. It was a fun costume though!
The rest of the costume was a zebra headpiece with a large mane extending a foot above my head and all the way down my back. Oh yeah, and a tail. My friend Carlos painted my face with striped motif, rendering me unrecognizable.
Dallas Pride 2002
I wanted to try making clothing out of tie-dyed fabric. I figured I’d use my non-stretch pattern with silk. I estimated how the cloth would be cut into the pieces for the pants, and dyed it accordingly. Then I bonded it to another material for added strength, and sewed the pants.
I was so happy with how the pants looked that I stayed up and dyed a matching pair of flags.
The combination looked great. The pants lasted fine, and except for some puckering due to the sandwiched interfacing, they wore perfectly.
Camo Shorts
Cammo Shorts
So, before I started making and dancing in pants, I was wearing much skimpier stuff. Here’s the first pair of shorts I ever made. It’s also the longest amount of time I ever spent making a pair.
I didn’t know anything about making clothing. I didn’t even have that much experience sewing. So, I made a pattern using a cute pair of shorts, and made these out some cammoflague material.
I was most proud of the pockets--it took a while to figure out to sew them so the edges would be finished correctly.
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