Wearable Art: A Dress made of Spoons

Close to this time last year, a crazy idea got stuck in my head. Then, an art madness – which is the best I can do to describe it – came over me, and I was suddenly sending out people to find plastic spoons and commanding anyone in sight to drill, cut, or hot glue spoons! Unfortunately, that also made everyone run as far away from me as possible during the 96 hours I and my gracious assistant Courtney worked on this. Still, in the end, a magnificent thing began to appear: A dress made of spoons!

I began the dress with an under-layer of curtain lining fabric and corset boning, to give support and structure, as well as something to attached the spoons to. Even though I drilled holes to be able to sew each spoon individually to the dress, I quickly came to realize that sewing on the spoons would take way too much time and put me past a deadline I was aiming to use this piece for. Instead, I glued, each and every single spoon, to the underdress with a hot glue gun.

Four days later, with a few meltdowns in between – no pun necessary where that hot glue gun is concerned! – the dress was fully constructed. Though not yet finished! There was more to be done, but all the hard work was completed:

Back view of the spoon dress (Click to Enlarge)

Front view of the spoon dress (Click to enlarge)

Side view of the spoon dress (Click to enlarge)

In total, this dress probably weighs somewhere around 20 to 30 pounds altogether. I couldn’t say exactly because I didn’t have a scale nearby to weigh myself on, but suffice it to say, it was heavy to lug around on it’s own, and I had to hold up the dress almost the entire time I was wearing it to keep it from sliding off my body, despite having the correct fit.

How many spoons did I use, do you ask? Oh, no. Please don’t ask! My sanity could not handle a number, so I didn’t count, sorry. (Ah! That would have been great to tell you though!)

The hard work out of the way, I moved onto the easiest part of the project: spray painting the dress. (Scroll to the bottom of the post to view the video if you would like to see more of this part of the process.)

Next came the fun(?) part: The photoshoot! I took this chance to try some funky makeup tricks I’ve been wanting to try out and spray-dyed part of my hair gold. Oh, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to do a little more body paint! (I can’t tell you what products I used because I basically picked out the cheapest items I could find at the local beauty store or grabbed some things from my personal makeup bag.)

Basically, this photoshoot, which I insisted on for the sole reason of having this piece in my art portfolio, was quite a challenge! With the dress weighing so much and having no flexibility, it was really almost impossible to move in. So, I waddled like a duck around the yard for the various shots. (I never want to be a model again! Respect.)

And so, without further adieu…

THE PHOTOSHOOT

THE SPOON DRESS: DRAGON LADY

Click any of the following pictures to enlarge for a better view.

The photographer on this shoot was Courtney Lotz, and a few other shots were snapped by my mom.

Lastly, I had to compile a video of the process and the madness. I hope you enjoy!

(If you liked watching the video, please to thumbs up the video and subscribe to my YouTube channel – it needs a little more love.)

Will I have more wearable art projects like this in the future? I hope so! In fact, I have a few more planned. More so, (I’m going to whisper a secret to you), I have the supplies ready for the next project. (Oh boy.)

Stay tuned for more! (You can get email updates of new posts on this blog by using the sign up button at the top of the far right column.)

Blessings to you all,
Stephanie Oplinger

www.stephanieoplingerarts.com