dellareams

Della has been making clothing since she was 7 years old. She has been creating one-of-a-kind textiles and apparel since earning an MFA in Textiles from RISD in 2005. Collaboratively developing digitally-printed fabric designs based on paintings, she makes them into pattern-focused dress designs for gallery exhibition. Reams’ work has been shown in nine countries and numerous publications as well as earning several design awards.

Red Mohair Dress

Red Mohair Dress – The exciting part of machine knitting is that it greatly expands design possibilities.  Instead of being limited by fabrics that can be purchased, one can create an original fabric while concurrently building a garment. Motivated by the texture and color of the red kid mohair yarn, a single mohair rectangle was […]

Red Mohair Dress Read More »

Blue Mohair Dress

Blue Mohair Dress – Motivated by the texture and color of the “Cool Water” blue kid mohair yarn, five different arbitrarily-sized mohair rectangles were knitted by machine. Machine knitting mohair is challenging, because the characteristic hairiness of the yarn gets caught in the machine repeatedly resulting in numerous fabric flaws.  Originally the rectangles were intended

Blue Mohair Dress Read More »

Della Reams

Della has been creating one-of-a-kind textiles and apparel since earning an MFA in Textiles from RISD in 2005.  Collaboratively developing digitally-printed fabric designs based on paintings, she makes them into pattern-focused dress designs for gallery exhibition.  Reams’ work has been shown in nine countries and earned several awards.  Her work has appeared in Boston Globe

Della Reams Read More »

Treasure Palm Dress

Part of a collaborative series, fine artist Larry Rushing’s painting was used as an inspiration for a textile print and unique apparel design.  The original artwork named “One Handed World”, took Rushing about three months to paint.  The painting was chosen because of a curiosity about how the hands that appear in it could wrap

Treasure Palm Dress Read More »

Hands and Holy Grail Dress

The Hands and Holy Grail Dress is from the collection From Fine Art to Fashion. The surrealistic imagery and harmonious color sense featured in African-American painter Larry Rushing’s artwork have inspired me to collaboratively develop digitally-printed fabrics.  Using sections of Rushing’s painting “Naked Lady” and Photoshop, I designed a repeat, which was printed on woven

Hands and Holy Grail Dress Read More »

Ribbon Tuck Dress

The intention of this work is to illustrate the direct influence of fine art on fashion design in a future exhibition – featuring a series of related paintings, textile designs, dress designs, and fashion illustrations.  Collaborator Larry Rushing’s fine art painting “Flora Rush” was the inspiration for a textile print and an apparel design.  The

Ribbon Tuck Dress Read More »

Sacred and Profane Dress

Celebrating color and exploring its expression in texture, pattern, and form, this design integrates 2D textile design with 3D fashion design.  A balance of old and new practices – hand painting, digital printing, draping, and sewing by hand and machine – are featured in this one-of-a-kind dress. Collaborator Larry Rushing’s fine art painting provides inspiration

Sacred and Profane Dress Read More »

Angel in the House Dress

Angel in the House is part of a series of digitally printed and draped dresses.  Inspired by collaborator Larry Rushing’s* painting called “House”, the fabric print was  digitally designed and printed.   The dress silhouette was fashioned with Julian Robert’s “Subtractive Patternmaking “.   Finishing included areas of the print being folded and stitched in tiny tucks

Angel in the House Dress Read More »