joie de vivre collection: claire de lune

This ensemble was created for the Fashion Royalty challenge of Project Dollway, where designers were asked to create a centerpiece for a proposed collection called Joie de Vivre, with the theme of Clair de Lune. 

The centerpiece doll for the Joie de Vivre collection is about the joy of the Veronique dolls' private life... the personal enjoyment of the luxury and success she's worked so hard to achieve.  This doll's character is a woman not afraid to be incredibly elegant.  The other pieces of Brenda's proposed collection would address various other aspects of a good life, but the Clair de Lune doll would be a kind of elegant hostess ensemble.  The imagined scenario is for her to receive a special unnamed guest to her penthouse for drinks on the terrace in moonlight. 

The glittering pants are a sleek garment in the longstanding fashion doll tradition of elegant home entertaining wear. The fabric is a wonderful stretch knit with a very fine gold fleck effect on deep midnight blue, quite sophisticated and not at all garish.

The cape is of a lovely steel blue taffeta.  The collar frames her face and the cape's silhouette emphasizes her long legs.

When the cape is removed, we see a matching bustier with a scattering of tiny sequins and beads-- not too little, not too much, in an artistic curved arrangement suggesting moonlight on water. The back is daring and open, held together with a 14K gold filigree that echoes the gold in the pants.

Here are several studio views of the ensemble, including the back view with the cape worn at the correct position, and some views of the cape removed to reveal the bustier more completely in front, and also to reveal the back view of the bustier for the first time.

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Worn and photographed correctly, the back of the cape is just that-- a cape.

Note that for the outside of the cape only, not the inside collar or the bustier, there is an overlay of opalescent organza over the taffeta for an elegant moonlight-on-water effect. This can be seen above in the close front view.

Cape removed, revealing the beaded bustier.

A final view.

NOTE: By invitation, Brenda Cox Giguere participated in the recent international fashion doll couture competition, Project Dollway; after a year of designing doll couture under difficult conditions was the last fashion designer eliminated before the final challenge.