I've Only Got Eyes For You!: DIY Painted Dress

We wore our Eyeball dresses with our Triskaidekaphobia scribble necklaces. Photo by Idee Geniale

I know that we haven't posted a DIY in a long time (shame on us), but we've been so busy working on our jewelry line that we haven't had much spare time to make outfits, even though we've had plenty of ideas floating around in our heads. Still, we decided to make a dress for the Chictopia party we did for Fashion Week, which basically consists of a bunch of super realistic looking creepy eyeballs peering out of the dress fabric. Christina's been wanting to make this one for a while, so she took the lead. The best part is that we managed to use fabrics and supplies that both of us had lying around the house, and didn't spend a penny making this outfit. Here's how we did it.

1. We started by painting the eyeballs onto panels of nude jersey, which took a really long time, since it was a multi-step process that required the paint to dry in between. Christina looked up images of irises online, and then we started by painting a white base with a dark gray iris in the center, covered with lightly brushed on white lines radiating outward.

2. After that dried, we went over the eyeball white with a gray wash, and painted more lines on the iris in dark gray at the center. Then we used black paint to highlight the edge of the iris and paint in the pupil. We finished by adding in some highlights with white paint on the iris and the eye white.

3. Christina then cut out the pattern for the dress, which was basically a giant square with one of the corners snipped out to become a one-shouldered asymmetrical dress with a long flowing sleeve on one side.

4. After deciding where the eyeballs would be placed, Christina cut holes in the fabric and sewed in the painted panels.

Here's a close up of me wearing the end result! Photo by Yvan Rodic.

-Tiffany