Custom-made stage outfit for Miss Earth Croatia
Is there any project better to have than a completely custom-made, one of a kind, handmade piece of art to produce for stage ?!
For me, there is not. I adore a project that allows me to give three-dimensionality to the clothes and to literally make it outside of the frame. So when the opportunity arises to such an occasion of course I was more than ready to be a sponsor for our Nera Nikolić Miss Earth Croatia for her final competition, Miss Earth, in the Philippines and made her one of the stage outfits.
If you don’t know what kind of beauty pageant it is let me tell in a few sentences. Miss Earth pageant is an International Environmental Event. MISS EARTH Beauty Pageant, has its candidates and winners actively promote and get involved in the preservation of the environment and the protection of Mother Earth. Every year, their candidates from all over the world compete on beauty and knowledge of environmental issues. You can check their Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/MissEarth/
Nera won in Croatia and was ready to take on the finale pageant in the Philippines. One of her stage outfits needed to be one that represents the country she is coming from and that year’s theme was a national flower. The National Flower of Croatia is IRIS CROATICA.
First I went to the research flower itself, its meaning, and possible symbolism behind it. Even though there is more than one color of this flower the most knowledgeable and commonly seen is one with purple petals and small white interesting patterns inside of the petals with long green stem and leaves. I choose green, purple, white with a dash of silver and glitter for a color palette. When you see the photo of the flower I think it is pretty easy to understand my choice. I added a splash of silver and glitter because of course its and stage outfit and it is a pageant it needs to be poping, eyecatching, and overall astonishing to make you say wow.
And of course, it needs to be on-brand aesthetic. I used the geometrical symbol that represents flower in our history I recreated with my signature stripes on the bodysuit. For the base, I made a purple bodysuit then layered with purple tulle in a darker shade of purple to get depth to it and then layered with a silver pattern to recreate the feel of the inside of the petal itself. Representing leaves and stem, attached to the bodysuit was long green tulle. To give her flow to take up space on stage beautifully.
My favorite part and one that was most difficult to make are big petals on her shoulders. Oh my, that was an adventure for itself for sure!
First I made construction with the wire. It is not easy at it might seem, I made a three version of wire construction before it was successfully made into the desired shape. The wire was so hard to bend so thanks to my dad for helping with his strength to tame the stubborn wire! After that, I put purple tulle on the petals, and part of the construction that was going on the shoulder I put in green tulle again to get that petal and stem visuals.
Petals were pretty big so they were an additional piece of the outfit and I made the to put on the back like a backpack, so it is easy to put on and off and she also had an option to move around without them till they were needed to go on stage. So It can be beautiful and practical. For the final touch was layering and layering tons of glitter to really stand out as big ass petals were not enough 🙂
I was very happy that outfit fits perfectly on her! She only sends me her measures and we didn’t meet up in person ever before the competition. I was really content when she told me everything fits nicely, even though you have measures no one’s body is the same so I am always on needles till I get confirmation that is all good.
I left her to think about how to transport them to the Philippines 🙂 Luckily she manages to take them there in one piece and here is she from the competition itself. I think she overall looks completely stunning and it is not that’s because I am biased. But check for yourself in the photo and video below.
After her return, we organized a shooting in Zagreb but it was December and really cold and she was posing in that outfit in nature and still manages to look amazing so kudos to Nera to be true professional even though it was freezing! Unfortunately, petals didn’t survive the round trip and lost their original shape but what can you do it is all of the part life.
Makeup by Ela Tomaš https://www.instagram.com/ela.tomash/ Photography by FOTKam https://www.instagram.com/fotk.am/
Model Nera Nikolić https://www.instagram.com/nera_nikolic/
