Awesome Evening Gown by Eshi Made With Old Shirt, 300 Garbage Bags & Blow Torch - Get a Virtual Copy!

This gorgeous evening gown was made by renowned virtual fashion designer Irena "Eshi Otawara" Morris, and to create it, she used an old shirt, three hundred garbage bags, and, of course, a blowtorch. She made it for RedLine, a fashion design competition in the Midwest, and while that contest played out on a real runway (see pic below), Irena got accepted into it through her Second Life-based design portfolio. The goal of the contest was to create something beautiful from post-consumer, non-recyclable materials, and garbage bags definitely count as that. "We were able to use old clothes, plastic items, old computer parts," Irene tells me. "Whatever we had that was on its way to a dumpster, or anything that we could purchase that usually ends up in a dumpster after single use."

Here's how she did it:

"I was in the process of creating a vinyl dress out of shower curtains when it dawned on me that I really could do a better job with garbage bags. I felt inspired to scratch the old concept and start anew, a mere 3 weeks before deadline." She found an old shirt with holes in her closet, "and I figured I could add layers to it without any sewing by cutting garbage bags into strips and doing a weaving technique I picked up in first grade by spying on a group of girls from class who did not let me into their tapestry club because I was not a clique type kid." she laughs. "I digress... Making this was much like building with prims.

She spent about 200 hours constructing it, and here's why it took so long: "The skirt is made of extra sleeves from the shirt, as well as four long strips of my old bed sheet, which I've poked holes through in order to be able to attach the plastic bags." Then out came the blow torch, and here it is on the catwalk, dubbed the Black Dahlia Dress, her tribute to Georgia O'Keeffe:

Winner is announced at the end of September, so cross your glamorous, glamorous fingers. "Who knows," Eshi muses, "maybe this will be the first step on a path to learning how to sew a button finally!" Meantime, speaking of recycled fashion, you can also get a virtual copy of the Black Dahlia in Second Life, here's how:

"I am setting it as a subscriber gift as well as VIP group gift. People can subscribe at this SLURL by clicking on SUBSCRIBE board." [Click here to subscribe.] You can also get it by joining Eshi's group and getting it from the group-only vendor at the same SLurl.

Photos courtesy Eshi, featuring RL model Laurel Dzneladze.

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Comments

[Ajax Manatiso]

Would you dance, in SL, with someone wearing that thing?

[Arcadia Codesmith]

It's Second Life. I'll dance with anything that's not trying to drink my blood, and that's... negotiable.

[Jo yardley]

Evening gowns should not be that revealing.
It is a fun dress for nightclubs or discos, but not to somewhere where evening wear is required.

[foneco zuzu]

Still is a lovely one, be on Rl or Sl!
And I love Arcadia's comment:)

[Hyacinth Cortes]

This is very cool. Good luck. Next stop Project Runway?

[Harper Beresford]

Proof positive Eshi can translate her SL vision to SL. (And you would not dance with the woman in that dress?!) Congrats, sweetie, on completing this and on getting the studio!

[Harper Beresford]

Her SL vision to RL. *sigh*