Light em' up [Make your Dresses Glow]
Be realistic about you're creations. The problem with light up dresses is that you can’t really wash them. As a 'creative idea' light up clothing isn’t new. For years, the rave community has been making outfits lined with luminescent wire, fiber optic filament, and battery powered glow accessories. And now, with flexible LED and EL wire you can pretty much make any outfit a light-up outfit. But again, if you glue/stitch/permanently attach lights ONTO the garment you can’t ever really wash the garment. [It makes more sense to attach the lights to props].
I’ve worked with 2 types of lights. The LED dot string, and the EL wire. The LED dot string lights are brighter, but the battery pack is attached to the string, so the weight/size of multiple packs adds up. The EL wire looks more futuristic. It also has flashing settings, and multiple strings are able to share 1 battery pack, but it’s not as bright as the LED dot string, and it’s not as bendable. They both have their perks. But if I had to pick one, I’ll say that the LED string is more durable. The lights are part of a thin metal wire, so you can bend it into corners and it’ll keep its shape. The EL wire is more inflexible, and will try to remain straight; the EL wire designs always have to be loops because of this stiffness. The designs look better if you attach it onto a heavier fabric that doesn’t yield to the natural coiling tendencies of the wire.
I’ve worked with 2 types of lights. The LED dot string, and the EL wire. The LED dot string lights are brighter, but the battery pack is attached to the string, so the weight/size of multiple packs adds up. The EL wire looks more futuristic. It also has flashing settings, and multiple strings are able to share 1 battery pack, but it’s not as bright as the LED dot string, and it’s not as bendable. They both have their perks. But if I had to pick one, I’ll say that the LED string is more durable. The lights are part of a thin metal wire, so you can bend it into corners and it’ll keep its shape. The EL wire is more inflexible, and will try to remain straight; the EL wire designs always have to be loops because of this stiffness. The designs look better if you attach it onto a heavier fabric that doesn’t yield to the natural coiling tendencies of the wire.
When making a light up dress, you want to avoid putting the lights in areas of the body that bend too much. At center-front and at the hem are best, but not around the waist. The design must account for the continuous length of the wire around your body, without interfering with movement.
You also want to start the design at the location where the battery pack is kept. Most of my dresses have the battery pack on the back; either in the waist band, or at the shoulder blade. So if the design is at the hem, you have to account for the extra bulk of a battery pocket, and the distance from the pocket to the hem. I’ve seen a few quick project tutorials, where the wire is simply safety-pined to the dress, [which works], but I’d still rather stitch it down for a more secure placement. On the first few dresses, I stitched the wire to the fabric by hand. My first dress was simple; the wire was in a large spiral around my body. Starting along the bottom hem, then once around the waist, and then around the bust, ending near my armpit. It didn’t require a lot of planning since it wasn’t a symmetrical design, and battery pack was attached to my back, near the zipper. |
After that, the next garment had the EL wire shaped like a vest; battery pack in my back pocket, with the wire coming around to the front, straight up around my neck, and down the other side. I wanted something more elaborate, so the next dress had lots of simple loop designs at the hem. I like using the seams as guidelines, so I created a decorative overlap at the hem of the dress just to provide a template. I portioned out the length of the wire so that each loop was identical in size. See my Shaymin.
Things picked up speed after that.
I figured that most of my time went into the hand stitching. So I tried to find a way around it.
I tried twist-ties, and threading it through mesh fabric. Somewhere along the way, I realized that it would be convenient to have the lights be on detachable parts of the outfit. Like on a belt, or vest, or hat. That way you can pair the lights with multiple outfits, and still able to wash the outfits.
So I came up with an idea involving taping the light wires to a clear vinyl under-dress, which could be worn along with a variety of outfits. This was faster than stitching it down, but the tape did peel off occasionally because of hot temperatures. With the vinyl being so close to my body, the outfit was sticky to wear. It was the fastest method so far, but still not perfectly successful. See my Snow Maiden. or my Winter Wonderland. or my Green Christmas. Green Fairy.
This lead me to another idea, involving rigging the lights onto large ornamental trinkets that would be worn on top of the clothing. Like: elaborate hats, collars, and armor.
Everything is better when it lights up. It's all about the ‘wow-factor’. I love stuff that glows.
Things picked up speed after that.
I figured that most of my time went into the hand stitching. So I tried to find a way around it.
I tried twist-ties, and threading it through mesh fabric. Somewhere along the way, I realized that it would be convenient to have the lights be on detachable parts of the outfit. Like on a belt, or vest, or hat. That way you can pair the lights with multiple outfits, and still able to wash the outfits.
So I came up with an idea involving taping the light wires to a clear vinyl under-dress, which could be worn along with a variety of outfits. This was faster than stitching it down, but the tape did peel off occasionally because of hot temperatures. With the vinyl being so close to my body, the outfit was sticky to wear. It was the fastest method so far, but still not perfectly successful. See my Snow Maiden. or my Winter Wonderland. or my Green Christmas. Green Fairy.
This lead me to another idea, involving rigging the lights onto large ornamental trinkets that would be worn on top of the clothing. Like: elaborate hats, collars, and armor.
Everything is better when it lights up. It's all about the ‘wow-factor’. I love stuff that glows.
See Below: I used 5 packs of string lights in this dress. The lights are attached to the solid under layer of the skirt, underneath 3 layers of mesh tulle fabric. You can hardly see the strings when they aren't On. There are 2 pockets on the back of the dress where the batteries are kept.