When I taught a workshop at Cohim in China last month, the students made botanical dresses on the last day. A short video of their beautiful dresses posted on social media was very well received. Students have been requesting this class and I am excited to be able to offer it to you!

I will teach a 2 day botanical couture workshop at Brannan Street at the flower market in San Francisco on March 3-4 and one here in Portland on February 20-21 at studio Tendue. My studio is too small to accommodate students and mannequins, so I decided to teach at the brand new studio Tendue, which is located 5 minutes from my studio.

For more information about the workshops, please click here

Whether you would like to make a floral garment for a show-stopping window display, to participate in a competition or even to wear for a special occasion, the techniques you will learn can be adapted and applied to a myriad of ideas. As this is a very time consuming project, students will work in pairs to make the dress form for a mannequin and collaborate on the design and application of leaves, flowers and textures.

All the beautiful designs will be documented by a professional photographer

Here is an example of a dress that I made last week. I created the base of the dress on a mannequin and decorated it with silverleaf, rosepetals, lilies and orchids, foliage of pepperonia, rex begonias and cyclamen, succulents, pieris and berries. There are endless possibilities for the styles of dresses and how to decorate them.

Many thanks to photographer Ted Mishima and model Raven Surratt

If anyone is interested in hosting this workshop in another city, let me know!