Francesca Carter

The origin of the Spectre Dress
#hatfest #aperiodic #transpride #fashion #math #openuniversity

So the origin of the spectre dress is relatively mundane and silly. Following a rough period of early transition (I started in 2022) I felt like I was finally starting to hit my stride and could feel my confidence growing. I'd purchased a trans pride-themed dress from an Etsy seller earlier in the year which had been attracting a lot of positive attention, and since I consider my transition and my journey through mathematics to be intimately related, I wanted to combine the two.

Originally I wanted to contact Stefan Pautze [http://pautze.de/] and use a colour variation of one of his designs (rough version pictured), as I've always been a huge fan of his art and I'd also met him in-person at the exhibition in memory of Uwe Grimm in 2022 where we hit it off. At this point it was still just a kernel of an idea, nothing concrete. But then two things happened in a short span of time. Hatfest was announced, and the spectre tiling was discovered about two weeks later. The idea for the dress instantly crystallized, and I got in contact with the same Etsy seller who did my pride dress to ask about a custom design. (0/8)

Stefan Pautze

Graphic Artist Stefan Pautze

Jul 25, 2023 at 10:17amWeb
Show threadFrancesca CarterJul 25, 2023

I knew immediately there would be some issues with colouring. For any 2d tiling there exists a 4-coloring as the famous map colouring theorem goes, but from an aesthetic point of view, I wanted to keep it balancing pink, blue and white in a roughly 2:2:1 ratio to match the original flag. Since time was short however (~1.5 months) and I knew production would take longer than anything else, I slapped together a quick 6-coloring using GIMP, and the result wasn't bad.

But it quickly became apparant that a fully custom dress was a bit beyond the seller's capabilities, and if I was going to commit to this, I needed to commit to it *fully*. So I started reaching out to some local seamstresses. By pure luck, I bumped into Jane Dorning [https://use.worksome.com/profile/86181], a seamstress who was not only 5 minutes away from my workplace, but whose children already some impressive credentials in science and engineering. She immediately understood what I was looking for, it was a perfect match. (1/8)

Jane Dorning | Seamstress and Designer with product dev... - freelancer on Worksome

View the freelancer profile for Jane Dorning on Worksome - Fastest growing platform for on-site consultants and freelancers.

Worksome
Show threadFrancesca CarterJul 25, 2023
Jane was amazing in helping me pick out a style for the dress and explain what else I'd need to get it made. It was at this point we started getting our first samples produced by the fabric printing company Contrado [https://www.contrado.co.uk/], to test things such as the print quality, material feel, colorfastness, etc. (2/8)
Contrado: Buy or Sell Artist Designs | Print on Demand

Shop unique artist designs on fabrics, clothing, homeware & accessories. Handmade in the UK. All-over & custom printed on demand. Next day delivery.

Contrado UK
Show threadFrancesca CarterJul 25, 2023
None of the samples felt right, but one of the smaller fabric patches in their generic sample set was really catching our eye. The deadline was also really starting to bite, 17th of June, 1 month until Hatfest. We quickly ordered another set of samples in the alternative fabric, along with some solid colours for trim fabric, but they got lost in the post and didn't reach us until the 26th. Luckily when they did arrive, they looked amazing. (3/8)
Show threadMaggie CohenJul 25, 2023
@FrannaCotta Thank you for 0 indexing
Show threadFrancesca CarterJul 25, 2023
@magc No problem, I knew you'd eat me alive if I didn't 😜