Eclectic Electric Lady

You shock it, shake it, baby.

Electric Lady, you're a star.

You've got a classic kinda crazy,

but you know just who you are.

                                                                           Janelle Monáe

I first caught a glimpse of Janelle Monáe briefly on an episode of P. Diddy's "Making the Band", when the aspiring group members for Diddy's upcoming band had to cater to the unknown star and her band.  Immediately I was drawn to her appearance: her natural hair and black and white tuxedo.

I purchased a ticket to see her perform at the House of Blues in Anaheim, California in early 2014. Of course, me being the die hard fan I am I had to go in style; in black and white. I decided to wear her latest look: a short sleeve white shirt, black suspenders, black leather  fingerless gloves, white pants accented with multiple chains cascading down one leg,  and black boots.  All that was missing was the black and white varsity jacket she wears with this ensemble. I couldn't afford to buy one at the time,  luckily I don't believe in throwing clothes away anymore, so I had pieces of clothing lying around. Two of these pieces were a leather vest and large white sweatshirt, just the items I would need to make a black and white jacket. The assembly was rather easy since all that needed to be done was the removal of  the sleeves from the sweatshirt and sew them onto the leather vest. A very quick and painless task that was done in minutes. Thus I was all set to go see my favorite artist in full attire. 

After several encore performances the concert was done all too soon and the lights went up. As people began to head for the exits many were shocked to see how accurate my outfit was to what she was wearing that night. (Yes I had done my research). I even posted the picture on my Instagram and got a surprising "Like" by Ms. Monáe herself.

Even if it makes others uncomfortable, I will love who I am. 

                                                                                                                    -Janelle Monáe

Fringe Benefits

"Hold It Don't Drop It" is my favorite song recorded by Jennifer Lopez. In the music video, Lopez is singing and dancing with a microphone stand in a white room while standing on a podium with three male back-up dancers behind her.  She is wearing a white hooded halter dress topped with lots of white fringe. When I first saw this video in 2008 I wanted this dress, but I didn't know who the designer was. In May 2014 while shopping in my favorite thrift store when I came across a rack of XL white tees. I grabbed all of them, after all they were only 99 cents each with 25% off my total purchase, and decided to recreate this fabulous dress. 

I bought 6 t-shirts: 1 was used to make the dress form (the halter top and the body of the dress), the 2nd shirt I used the bottom to make the oversized hood and the top of the tee I used to create a row of fringe. The rest of the shirts were used to recreate the fringe effect all over the bottom half of the dress. Each shirt made 2 long rows of fringe, which I overlapped slightly on top of each other while sewing the layers onto the dress. 

I finished this dress just in time for my local hotspot's White Party and received so many compliments on this dress.  No one believed it was creating solely out of shirts. That night I can truly say I danced the night away twirling around on the dance floor in layers of fringe and channeled my inner Tina Turner. 

"C" is for Cookie

From a simple sketch...

To reality.

I made this Cookie Monster dress with a blue T-shirt that I used to make the hair bow and the top of the dress along with bits of white and black T-shirt strips for the eyes and mouth. On the bow I also created an adorable chocolate chip cookie accessory out of brown and tan polymer clay, a dab of paint for the eyes and blushing cheeks, and a small ball of aluminum foil that I rubbed all over the cookie to give it a more realistic texture. 

The bottom of the dress is made using 20 coral fleece gloves used for washing cars, which I purchased at the Dollar Store. I am very happy with how this dress came out. Up next, an Elmo dress!