Cocktail Dress

Carrie Adams

Interview by L. Valena

March 19, 2022

Can you start by describing the prompt that you responded to?

I received a cocktail. It was delicious -- it was a cobbler. I knew it was a cobbler because I saw the ingredients. So it was on crushed ice, and in a silver cup with berries on top. It was a little bit viscous, and also nutty because of the sherry in it.

What was your first reaction to that?

My first impressions were that it reminded me of the 1920's. Which isn't historically accurate. I have some previous knowledge of cocktails, so I knew what style of cocktail it was. I think because of the prohibition era, a lot of these older cocktails get associated with that time period, so that was the first thing I thought of. The texture of drinks is something that I also really hold on to, and I often associate them with fabric. When I talk about wine or other drinks, I often think, "If this texture were fabric, what would it be?"

In this case, I immediately thought of neoprene, which is weird. It's thicker, but not fuzzy. That sort of viscosity that happens when there's something that's sweeter in a drink often reminds me of that texture. So, 1920's and neoprene were the things that were happening for me while I was drinking this cocktail.

I wanted to do something with fabric, and then I was also thinking about how with cocktails, when people go to a bar they imagine that the person making their drink is making something up from scratch. But really, it's a formula -- almost always you're basing it on prior knowledge. This is true for anything creative that we do. When we look at it from the outside, we think that someone came up with a crazy idea, and it's all new, but in reality it's usually based on something that we already know. So I wanted to use a pattern, because this cocktail was made from some sort of formula in the same way. And I like to sew with patterns. So then I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what fabric I was going to use. Could I make some sort of neoprene dress? But I felt pretty attached to it being functional in my life, outside of this project.

I spent so much time trying to think about colors of the fruit, and the fabric, and the texture. And then I realized that I felt like I had to do something more in order for making a dress to be a creative project. That was a real aha moment for me, because I realized that it's because I don't... I'm a pretty good sewer, and I don't value that as a creative outlet. I think of it way more functionally, I don't see making a dress from a pattern as doing something creative. So then I realized, fuck it, that's what I'm going to do. It's a creative force in my life, and it is a craft. It's something that's super valuable. Jenna and I were talking about how we just don't value our clothes in our culture, and that's really wild to me. It takes so much time to make things, and we're just not willing to pay for that skill.

I used fabric that was from my sister, and from Jenna's grandmother, which is really cool. They are silk, so they have this heavier weight but very smooth. They're two different color pinks, which to me is very reminiscent of the berries that were on top of the cocktail. And then I came to another aha moment, which was that I had to take photographs. First I was like, "I have to finish it. And I have to take pictures, so I have to clean out my entire studio space." But that's not reality.

I think a lot of people imagine studio spaces to be clean, because that's what we see on Instagram, but... absolutely not. I still have fabric all over the place from the previous project. I don't ever sweep up any of the threads, and all of my spools of thread are everywhere, even though I have a thing on the wall to put them on. That's what it is, and that's okay. I start something, and don't ever finish it until three hours before I intend to wear it, which is what's going to happen with this dress. I'm going to wear it to my mother in law's wedding in June. So this is the state is going to be in until three hours before I get on a plane. And that's okay.

I love that so much. I love that you found an occasion to wear this dress. I also make my own clothes, and I don't really think about it as a creative exercise at all. And, if I do want to make something that's creative and weird, I feel like I have to have an event lined up to wear it to. If I made it just for the sake of making it, then it would feel like a pure art thing, but for some reason there's a disconnect there.

Yeah, there's a weird push and pull there.

And thank you for sharing images of your studio as it is. As someone whose studio is always a disaster, I really appreciate that.

I think it does take some of the magic away for other people maybe. It's not this perfect setup, and everything always looks beautiful. But that's just the reality of what it looks like all the time.

There are some other things about the pattern that I chose. I wanted it to have some elements of the 1920's, because that was what I thought of, so it has a dropped waist in the back. But the other thing is that the cobbler is actually from the 1820's, so I wanted something to be reminiscent of that era, so there's the sleeves. That's why I ended up choosing that pattern. Additionally, I wanted it to be a cocktail dress, because it's a dress inspired by a cocktail. The pattern is from a company called Hubba Ding. I highly recommend them to anyone interested in sewing dresses, because the instructions are good, and the patterns are interesting for the level of skill required to execute them well.

While I was making it, I was thinking about how, even with a pattern, there are so many choices you can make once you're at a certain level of sewing. You can choose your own steps that work better for you. Do you like to set sleeves when they're flat or not? And all of those things actually impact how the garment falls. Choosing to topstitch or not impacts how it lies. Does it have the right amount of structure? Or do you want to do a French seam, which has more structure? I was trying to process feeling as though using a pattern isn't a creative outlet, when in reality you still have to make all of these choices, and they directly impact the way it looks.

Yeah, sewing always reminds me of baking in that way. There's so much technical knowledge involved, and once you know it, you can mess with it and find your own way. And similarly, cooking, writ large, is considered more of a creative outlet than baking, since baking really depends on formulas.

Absolutely. And that's also true of cocktails right? You can follow a recipe, but there's still a certain amount of skill involved to do it well. When you're shaking the drink, you should be able to feel when the liquid inside is a certain texture. Or the way it sounds changes when it becomes aerated or has foam on top. And those are all things that can make it incredibly delicious.

Can we talk about this color? It is gorgeous. Do you sew with pink often?

I don't sew with pink a lot -- it's actually two different color pinks. The one that's most of the dress is very very bright, and I definitely don't sew a lot of pink things. I am attracted to a lot of reds, but there was something about the drink -- maybe it was because of the berries, but there was something about it that made me want to use that specific fabric. It's from my wife's grandmother, and it's kind of a wild color, it's very neon in person. The more bubblegummy pink is from my little sister, who is kind of a fabric hoarder. I went to her basement to grab some additional silk that she just had lying around, like you do.

Are you excited to wear this dress?

Yes I am! The color makes it a little unique for the things I normally wear, so I'm excited about that. And the shape to some degree, since I chose the pattern based on what I was getting from the drink, rather than something I would normally make for myself. I didn't particularly love working with this fabric, so I used a serger more than I would have otherwise. But with that said, I'm glad this project pushed me to use it, because otherwise I probably would have deserted it much sooner.

You've now done this project twice. Do you have any advice for another artist approaching this project for the first time?

Whatever you want to do, is enough. It doesn't have to be more 'creative' or 'artistic' than the skillset that you already have. That's my biggest takeaway from this. That we should value the skills that we have, and that they are creative.

Call Number: Y76FD | Y78FA.adaCo

An avid crafter, Carrie lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with her wife and feline familiar. You are likely to catch her reading on the beach, rearranging the furniture, or drinking anything bubbly.