body wear inspiration

My favorite class this quarter is definitely going to be body wear - lingerie, swim wear, athletic wear, extreme sports wear, dance wear, sleep and lounge wear ... all the stretchy things, which are all my favorite things.

AND I HAVE TO PICK ONE?!

I visited Theater House the other day, Cincinnati's pretty-much-only stretch fabric store (well not Cincinnati, but given that it's closer to Cincinnati than the Cincinnati Airport I'm just gonna keep it simple).  It's located in Covington, KY, right outside of Newport, and they specialize in dance wear and performance wear fabrics - stretch velvets, nylons, Lycra, spandex of every kind, sequin fabrics, stretch mesh, stretch lace, you name it.  I got a bunch of sample swatches of things, and even bought two yards of something (they are really wide so 2 yards is definitely enough ... and how much fabric do you need for a bikini, really?)  The fabric I got is "powermesh", which is a really fine synthetic mesh stretch fabric.  Mine is a lilac, white and purple ombre/tie-dye type color, and it's really beautiful.

Parents and sister - remember the shirt I had from Anthropologie, black with a square neck and "wrapped" or draped details all over it?  It was kind of meshy, and had two layers and no edge finishing?  That is powermesh.  Super stretchy, super breathable, transparent in a single layer.

Which leads me to my inspiration, and why I was drawn to the dyed effect - stained glass windows.  Not just the beauty of the light going through, but also the beauty between each lead frame, and how colors are often swirled with one another in one individual setting of glass.  Our theme for this year is simply a breath of fresh air, to be interpreted literally however we like.  I would love to do something using mixes of colors or dyed fabrics resembling stained glass panels with dark outlines much like the framing of stained glass, or using fabrics representative of geodes or agate stones with a hard shell.  So maybe a swimsuit and some sort of jacket.  We have to execute 2 looks, in the same category.

Since there are more beautiful things in the world than I know what to do with, I'll just start showing you some pictures of body wear that has inspired me thus far.  I haven't yet decided where in body wear I want to be, but that's what the process work is for!

Sources: WGSN, net-a-porter, Style.com