ICE

This design was made entirely with hot glue, using exactly 544 sticks. I used 4 large silicone sheets that do not stick to the glue once dried because of its slippery material. I freehanded organic designs and shapes on the silicone sheets with the glue, once it dried, it didn’t stick to the silicone because of its slippery material. The texture that was created looked so much like ice sickles against a window and had this webbed-like effect.

After repeating this process and having about 10 sheets at hand, I was ready to drape. I noticed how the sheets bent and held the positions they were manipulated at, so I took each one, bending, twisting and layering them on top of one another as I began to create structure. I reinforced all of these pieces with more hot glue.

This process was not only tedious, but very trying as the hot glue kept burning my fingers when I’d reposition and reinforce the pieces together. I cascaded the sheets along the front of the dress, purposely folding, adding smaller pieces and bellowing them out to create a sort of shieled high-turtleneck appearance. In order to add final details, I purposely let glue drip and connect at various points so that when it is looked at closely, you can see even more accentuation to the icy webbed illusion.