Every year the Seniors are assigned the task of making a garment from non-conventional materials and the past couple of years the theme has been breast cancer awareness. This year they added the twist of not being able to buy the goods that we were to make the garment out of. We had to use an old wedding dress provided by the department as a base and then had to use our gathered materials.
In a sad irony, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer the month before I was assigned this garment, so this is a personal subject for me. She was completely my inspiration. I brainstormed my theme and wrote a story about the dress which I was going to make and then drew up some sketches.
The end result was the dress that you see above made using 90% of the original wedding dress, latex gloves that were dyed by yours truly, and IV tubing underneath the straps for cushion as the dress weights about 40 lb. The story is as follows:
A Gown Like No Other
It is said that the pink gown has a past. Though it may look like it has never been touched or worn, this gown has been around for time only knows. Many have fashioned this dress young and old and some don’t even know that it hangs in their closet. It’s past is told by the mouths of those who have survived it. Each story filled with, for some, heart ache and despair and for others gumption and determination.
See, this dress is a gown like no other. It’s relation with it’s owner is not of beauty as it appears but of invasion.
One out of seven women will come in contact with breast cancer and another story will be added to its history. You may think now that this dress is pure terror but if you look closely you will see that it obtains a more powerful message. A message that is the kryptonite of its survival--hands. Hands that support one another, hands that heal, and hands that detect.
Out of three million women, one million will be the ones that don’t even know that they have breast cancer. Don’t be the woman who doesn’t know. Take the message from this dress.
A Hand Can Help
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