Just happened to be checking Ebay after scoring the birthday dress, and came across an amazing -- make that unbelieveable -- find: a vintage space -age metal dress. It's a knock-off, not a genuine Paco Rabanne, but still. I copied a small scan in case the seller takes the photos down, but you should really follow the link and look at all the pictures. It's amazing.
It was my size but I didn't even bother to bid. An outstanding piece like this would definitely get bid up far higher than I could pay. In fact it went for more than 10 times my budget: $785 was the winning bid! As cool as the metal dress is, to my mind it's not worth that much without the designer label. But at least one person disagrees with me, so I could be wrong.
where would you even *put* a designer label on that dress?!?
:-) :-)
man, what an amazing dress.
it would be a pain, but i bet you could make one out of scrap metal from the scrap exchange.
Xta: I guess you would etch the signature onto one of the metal pieces. The question is, would you put the etching on the inside as a real couturier would do, or the outside so everyone could see that it was a designer original?
Lisa: Believe me, I've thought a lot about trying to make one. But it would require a whole new set of tools and skills. (not a bad thing in itself, but I don't have time for it right now.) Plus the knockoff is shaped by using different sized plates, but in the Rabanne I linked to, all the plates are the same size. I can't for the life of me figure out from that photo how he shaped the dress. It's a feat of engineering and I want to see one from all sides and figure out how he did it.
Found a photo of another vintage Rabanne:
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/arthistory/Courses%202002/Images/ARHT6903PacoRabanne.jpg
This one looks more like the knockoff on Ebay. The plates are different lengths, but they still seem to be the same width. Maybe the connectors are more snug around the bodice?
It's amusing to look at the bidding history on the dress--there were a total of 36 bids, 35 of them from the same two people, most of those in the last hour of the auction. Only one other person thought it was worth bidding on, and s/he only bid $70!
So there are precisely *two* people in the eBay universe who think it's worth anything like $750.
yeah I noticed that. $70 is about what I would have paid for it too.