look at that you can still see me through it it still looks like glass everything is melted it is gross oh hello my name is Shay and this week I am making a dress that is made of glass kind of I'm going to be trying to get as close to a glass dress as I can without actually using glass this idea has been stuck in my brain for years ever since I saw this glass dress by Zach poen in 2015 but then this year Lanning wore her own version of a glass dress and it brought this idea back to me in full force and this time I just decided why not this is a dream dress I'm just going to try and make it so let's make a glass dress so before we start making a glass dress I have to figure out how to make a glass dress through my research there's actually been quite a few glass dresses some of them especially the ones made of real glass aren't always wearable but there have been a couple notable ones that are wearable one of the ones was Zach posen's dress for Nina Dov at the Met Gala it's a short little Tinker Bell like number and from my research it's actually made of 3D printed resin there's a special type of 3D printer that 3D prints with resin and if you use a special technique and print like 100% density you can get this really cool clear effect on the other end of the spectrum we have Iris van herpin who's made a couple glass dresses and she made them out of real glass they are absolutely breathtaking she worked with a glass blow and it's just jaw-dropping like absolutely incredible another more recent glass look was Al Fanning's look at the mat Gala I believe her dress was made with a mix of organza and resin and that's why it looks a little less clear I like all these interpretations and they all kind of have their own different techniques and different looks but for myself I have a couple different criteria that I want for my glass dress one I want it to look like glass my goal is as crystal clear as I can get it very Cinderella's glass slipper number two it has to be wearable none of this oh it could only be on a dress form stuff it doesn't have to be practical but it has to be wearable um and number three I don't have a crazy budget it has to be doable with the skills budget and materials I have I don't have a resin 3D printer I am also not a trained glass blower I'm just someone who sews in their backyard so it kind of has to be something that people can actually do at home and isn't going to take like $3,000 equipment to do so with that info on the inspiration and the constraints that I have I think before I even start touching designing my dress I going to first figure out how to make a glass dress it's experiment time AKA it's time to try a couple different techniques and see if I can make something that looks like glass so first up before I mess around with resin or 3D printers I'm going to try my own way which is using thermoplastics these are sheets of pet g plastic I haven't done something like this before so this is very much an experiment it's a clear sheet of plastic so I'm just going to try heating it up with a heat gun and draping it on my mannequin that way I can almost drape it like it is a garment I think I have to use resin results they're not bad but they're not really good either on the pro side they're really clear look at that it's like crazy clear however it doesn't look like real glass I couldn't get any of those organic pleats they just look like wrinkles and in order to shape it you have to get it really hot but if you get it too hot it burns and it burns white and wrecks the whole piece I can use resin I just don't want to as a last Stitch effort before resorting to resin I took the advice of some folks on Instagram and they suggested clear warbl we might have found a backup I still might not have to use resin this is very similar to petg it's a clear thermoplastic it heats up at a much lower temperature it's supposedly a lot more easy to mold it also is a lot more expensive pachy was maybe like 10 20 bucks this was 80 but let's give it a shot to see if it even works I am doing like everything in my power to avoid using resin first thoughts already this stuff is way more flexible than the last one I used feels more like plastic wrap than it does a plastic sheet I just worry it might be too delicate you know already so much better my God [Music] look at those organic shapes I was able to make the ple I'm so happy with this I did not have hope for this but look at that once you get it hot enough you can really just like mold it and it'll drape to itself like Fabric and it didn't have any of the problems of pet G where it burned or it did weird stuff you can see he's a little thin and flimsy so I don't think in that sense it really looks great but in the sense of looks it looks so good and look how clear it is like the only bad thing is it is pretty expensive and I'll probably need like two or three rolls so it's going to be like a $300 project which is a little pricey but sometimes if that's the material that works that's the material that works I think this might be the method I think I might not have to use resin it's a good test Okay so not great news about this guy he does not like to keep his shape as a little test I left it in my car parked in a parking lot just to see what would happen it did not keep its shape so I don't think it's going to survive storage and if I'm going to put a bunch of hours into making this dress I kind of want it to last past summer so I've tried literally every way to avoid this but it is resin time resin still terrifies me so I'm going to safety up get gloves get a respirator on and just just do a couple test pores okay let's do it and I'm not sure if resin is just going to have enough strength on its own so I'm going to be using a Sheer Illusion netting with it and kind of soaking the illusion netting in it to get that like very clear effect okay it is set it has done its thing let's see oh how it looks okay okay I thought I stuck this to the mannequin accidentally she peels off pretty easily okay I need to try this again this was a fail yeah that resin test was not not super successful the illusion mesh was not giving any illusion it just looked like tan mesh and the resin I poured without the mesh was just way too thin and breaking so I tried again this time with a thicker resin por I didn't really like the way that the resin looked with the shear tool so I'm just going to try straight resin and see if that works that one was even more of a fail so step one don't be dumb and leave it in the Sun not only did I use clay that melted in the Sun but the resin set unevenly I cleaned up the mess from that little melty test and these were the results we were left with we have good news and we have bad news start with the bad news first resin on tool held it shape great looks bad resin just by itself sucked as well the big problem you run into with resin is it's going to always pull in the lowest areas and what you end up getting is everything just settles into the deepest parts and it just doesn't cover it so it's just bad we also get the bonus Badness of the clay that I was using melting that was the bad news however all is not lost I tested clear resin on top of the thermoplastic bus that I made earlier and I think this might be our winner not terrible we can work with that not only did it make it way sturdier but it also stayed super clear like look at that you can still see me through it it still looks like glass yes that was a pain in the butt to test everything but I think we do have a winner now I just got to find a clay that doesn't melt and a resin that doesn't run and then we've got it we've got our resin thing okay let's go this glass dress is not going to be practical in any way shape or form but I actually do want to try out some new looks for summer so let me introduce you to the sponsor of this video thread up thread up is basically an online thrift store I like it because it's Thrift ing but it's made super easy you can literally search for specific pieces that you want so you can literally type in puff sleeve white crop top or pink floral summer dress and you'll get pages of clothing that matches it it still gives you all the benefits of thrifting so all these clothes are still secondhand it's more eco-friendly it's more budget friendly it's just way way more convenient lately I've wanted to try new Styles and participate in some of the new trends but I didn't really want to support fast fashion and buy new clothes so instead I Look to thread up to get a few new pieces and try out a few new Styles right now it really feels like summer dresses are the trending style so I picked out a couple of summer dresses I particularly love this cider dress it typically retails for about $51 on thread up I got it for about $18 I even got this little junan Ivy cardigan to pair with them it usually retails for $64 on thread up I got it for just $1 19959 and this whole outfit just screams summer picnic to me so I think I'm going to wear it to a little picnic on the beach another style I've been seeing this Summer that I want to try out is what I like to call yacht core it's like vacation clothes but a little classy and a little fancy so I picked up some tall flowy pants and cute poofy tops that I could style as my own classy fancy summer looks lastly I wanted to try a bit of an experimental style so I picked up this Asos pink skirt for $15 on threat up it typically retails for $48 and I styled it to match the whole Leather and Lace Trend that's been popular lately and I like this skirt in particular because it's versatile enough where I can also style it into a more cutesy look that matches more of my personal pink flowery style but genuinely I love to shop from thread up so much most of the clothes you see me wearing in my videos even the videos not sponsored by thread up are still from thread up so definitely check out thread up try out some new summer fashion styles and Shop secondhand you can use my code sheay for 45% off and free shipping on your first order but now that we've gotten all the real clothes sorted out for summer we can get get back to making the silly and practical ones so let's make that glass dress now that I finally have something that I think is going to work let's go pick up some more supplies and get started on our final dress we got the goods so after all of that materials testing this is what I've come up with as my final plan I'm going to start by making a sculpt of the final dress shape I want out of clay for this sculpt I'm actually just using cray as Model Magic which is a non-toxic kids modeling clay and I just ended up using this one because it was on sale in the craft store it's non-toxic and most importantly it shouldn't give me any troubles with heat because it is an air dry clay with my clay I am just going to essentially build up the skirt because I am shaping the thermoplastic directly on this dress form I need to give it a skirt that it can mold too it's kind of just me slapping Clay on the dress form and pushing it into the shape that I like look at her I'll do a little turn around this is just the base the clear plastic is going to take the shape of but I'm so happy with it now all I've got to do is just take this shape and make it clear that's tomorrow's problem though I'm going to let this dry okay she's dry I've got my clear warbl I am [Music] scared I think this is literally the first time I've done a project in a while and nothing has gone wrong there's been no it accidentally melts on me no I sewed through my finger none of that Shenanigans it just worked work the first time I don't want to jinx it [Music] dude it's the glass dress it really looks like glass I'm already so happy with this honestly I could probably stop right here and just leave it like this but I am going to add that resin coat on top not only to make it a little bit more durable but also to give it a little bit more of that glassy water look it came out so much better than I thought it would because it's supposed to look like glass the dress is actually clear so I tried wearing it over just a nude leotard but I think that looked a little weird I ended up grabbing some iridescent Fabric and whipping up a quick little underdress just so that there was something under the dress and it didn't look totally sheer this is such just like a cute dress there's not a single stitch in this it's all hot glue and with that this is kind of the final look let's go do a little photo shoot [Music] and that is the final glass dress for just experimenting and trying out new materials I'm pretty dang proud of it it's clear I made it out of stuff that I mostly had at home and it is wearable so I think I did the thing wearable is a little debatable cuz it's still not comfortable it is a sculptural dress so you still can't really sit in it but you can walk around in it you can move in it and with any of these sculptural dresses you have to make those sort of compromises also let me know if you like the underdress I'm actually still not sure how I feel about it like if I was to wear it to an event or a red carpet definitely I think the underdress makes it look more like a complete look but I also still kind of like it just clear where it looks like I'm just wearing this weird clear dress cuz that's what this project is supposed to be a weird clear glass dress but that is pretty much it for this project this is actually the first time in a while where I don't have any ideas on what I'm going to make next so if you have any ideas of things I should make leave them in the comments whether it's a cosplay or dress Recreation or an original concept or even like a construction project leave it in the comments at this point I think I've moved past just being a sewing channel so I'm down to pretty much try making anything and again a huge huge thank you to threadit for sponsoring this video definitely check them out pick up some new clothes style some cute summer Trends and if you do end up shopping there you can use my code Shay for 45% off and free shipping on your first order and that really does help this channel so check it out if you're interested but thank you for coming on my little glass dress crafting journey I hope you're having a lovely day and I will see you next time bye-bye [Music]