I'm always in awe whenever I see a picture of Noelle. I swear she could be on the cover of a magazine. The camera LOVES her! I mean really, really loves her. She is so photogenic, and I have yet to see a picture of her that is unflattering. Believe me, I see a lot of pics of her on FB and haven't seen a bad one yet. All beautiful, and you'd swear she could be America's Next Top Model.
Her mom told me the shop where the dress was purchased would not fix the gaposis problem. I don't know why. It is a very easy fix with a simple small seam and camouflaged with crystals if one wants. To do this correctly, it really should be fixed on the flat pattern. These dresses, however, are manufactured to fit the masses. I'm guessing that most manufacturers are now producing dresses for C-cup girls. That is okay unless one is really small or very well endowed. Dresses can be padded to fill in the cup or altered to fit. Sometimes gaposis in the chest area rears it's ugly head and must be dealt with to provide a pleasing look to the dress and personal comfort for the wearer.
What I did was stand behind Noelle and create a dart seam at the back neck on the strap. The dart can't be created on the front for the obvious reason that it would just look darn weird. The back neck area is an ideal place to create dart seam. It is not noticeable, and does not affect the overall appearance of the dress. The trick is to dart it just enough that it prevents gaposis, but still provides comfort to the wearer. I keep asking, "Is this okay? Is it too tight? Is it comfortable?" I need to know. There is a very fine balance going on here. I felt we struck a good balance and proceeded with the dart seam. Nicole opted out of crystals to hide the seam which was fine. She was wearing her hair partially down which would hide the seam. The alteration did create more of an angular strap at the back neck, but it the grand scheme of things, it worked. I still wonder to this day why the shop didn't want to tackle the gaposis issue, but oh well. First fitting problem solved.
The next fitting issue was secondary. Noelle is an athlete. A VERY good, natural athlete. Athletes tend to have asymetry issues. Noelle was no exception. One side of the dress was collapsing in toward the hip on one side of the body, the other was filled out by the fuller hip. It was not a case of extreme asymetry by any means, but it's an issue she needs to be aware of when purchasing clothes. The problem presented itself in the form of a slight dragline as well. We weren't going to reinvent the wheel here. The goal was to minimize the issue as much as possible with a simple, inexpensive fix. I tweaked the seaming to do just that. Not a complete solution, but one that had less drag without a noticeable collapse of fabric.
Once those two alterations were completed, it was time to step back and looking at the big picture, the overall silhouette. Yes, Noelle looked beautiful as ever in a dress that had a beautiful fit for her figure. The most pressing issue of gaposis was solved, and she was picture-perfect ready for the prom.
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