Wrote Armand Limnander in yesterday's New York Times "T" magazine, "Backstage after their spring show, the designers Viktor & Rolf explained that because of the credit crunch, they had decided to 'crunch their couture' — literally, burrowing tunnels and cutting away slices in their extravagent tulle dresses. In the spirit of fashion's new D.I.Y. ethos, they offered this simple guide to reproducing their results. Have fun."
1. Purchase 149 yards of fine tulle for the skirt, 44 yards of stiffer tulle for the underskirt and 2.3 miles of very thin yarn, which you will use to sew the garment by hand.
2. Dye the tulle pale green.
3. Create a stiff black inner crinoline-like structure, measured to your body, using camel's hair and boning, in the shape of the final skirt with a cutout strip below the hips.
4. Build up the skirt, gathering the tulle layer by layer, lightly hand-stitching the layers together. Work toward a solid shape that is airy and light; fine-tune the volume. Use sharp, slim scissors to cut a perfectly straight and uniform horizontal swath in the tulle to match the cutout in the structure underneath.
5. Move on to the bodice, which you should fashion to your body using metal boning and chiffon. Hand-embroider 547 white sequins onto the front panel.
6. Attach the skirt to the bodice.
7. You're done! And it only took 163 hours.
