Concrete? Your kidding!

So, I'm throwing it back a little here to my Year 12 VCE. High school was really, when I fell in love with fashion. I spent countless hours in the textile room in the art department, drawing, sewing, designing and quite often eating. When Year 12 finally came around and I had the opportunity to create whatever I wanted my mind went at a million miles an hour. My dad has built his own concrete manufacturing business, which is about as old as me, so my connection to this material made the decision of a concrete garment an easy one. The logistics, however - not so easy.

Finally, I came up with a design which my dad said we may actually be able to pull off. The garment consisted of two parts; the first a semi-fitted lace bodice and the second a “ruffled skirt”. The idea was to make concrete look like fabric, to amaze people with the fact of its true material. So, we set to work.

The first stage of the process was creating a CAD drawing of the pieces we needed made in concrete for the ruffles. I acquired help from our IT department in creating half domes that would fit inside one another and away from the body. This drawing was then 3D printed in plastic. We now had plastic ‘plugs’ we could use to create the moulds from the concrete. Using rubber and wood we created lots and lots of little moulds and then began to pour a special concrete mixture.

Once these were all made they could be glued into the skirt I had created out of upholstery fabric. This was then held up on the hips using seatbelt straps that were secured over the shoulders.

The bodice was made by painting a high-bonding concrete mix onto the lace after the top had been put together.

Sleep was a sacrifice. But I was stoked with what I was able to create with help from family and friends. I can’t wait to continue working with this practical and versatile medium!