Experiments with Ciment pleated paper – Design 1

I found rolls of pleated paper from Ciment, waiting to be recycled and didn’t want to see this turned to waste! Instead I cut strips of this off and worked with it directly on a stand to produce two designs. This was a great way to see what I could create by suppressing and releasing pleated panels, without spending hours at the ironing board pleating up metres of fabric!

For this first experiment I started from the back waist and wrapped a 25cm wide strip of paper up and around the body, fanning the pleating out at the neck (crossing the pleating at the front). The pleats were suppressed around the bust, and curving down to the centre back waist, to draw the shape in close to the body. The two pleated skirt layers were pleated straight in place, allowing the pleats to fall naturally.

I really liked the top half of this design. The unusual, high collar and the way that the pleating flowed and twisted around the top of this dress made this an interesting and beautiful silhouette. To work this further, it would have been more interesting to continue this flowing spiral further down in to the skirt of the dress.