Sorceress’ Element Dress for Air

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Tang Dynasty Hanfu, Sort of…

Today’s paper doll gown is for the curvy B&B paper dolls. It’s part of my Sorceress Gowns Project. My goal with the Sorceress Gowns Project was to create a series of gowns for a sorceress, as one might imagine. I started with the classic four elements- earth, air, fire and water. The element of Air inspired today’s paper doll gown.

For a series of gowns based on the elements, most of the Sorceress gowns were pretty easy to design. I created Water, Fire and Earth. Earth was the hardest, but only because my sister is a geologist and I feared judgement if I didn’t get it right.

Air was hard, because air is transparent. So, unless I wanted to post a blank image and declare it an Air dress, I needed to come up with some way to give Air some form. So, I went with flowing garments and soft drape. Her staff references a bird’s wing and the swirls on her dress are meant to be the breeze.

Traditional Chinese dress from the Tang Dynasty influenced this paper doll gown. I saw things like this and and this being labeled as Tang Dynasty. Now, I realize these have about as much in common with actual Tang Dynasty dress as this does with actual Italian renaissance dress. Intrigued by these outfits, I did a little more research and found this painting and this painting. Again, I have no idea how accurate most of this is. My knowledge of Chinese clothing is distinctly Qing Dynasty. And even that era, I know only the most surface of facts.

Still, I love the shape and the drape of these garments, so they heavily influenced today’s paper doll gown.

The chose to use colors I associate with the sky at dawn. I didn’t know exactly what colors would symbolize Air, but I thought pale pastels made the most sense to me.

As always, I love to hear what people think in a comment.

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