There are two different ways to make beautiful ruffles or also called frills.
You can create them either by gathering the material or by giving it a circular shape.

Circle

The straightening of the round cut out will create the beautiful ruffles you are looking for. They are really easy to create and to control, but they are time consuming!

How the ruffles will look like depends on the outer and inner diameter of the round cut out. The smaller the inner diameter of the cut out is, the more ruffles it will create and the more dense they will be.

If you choose a big inner diameter it will create a very smooth look. The ruffles are more spread apart and more wavy.

The length of the ruffle is also very important for the look you want to create. If you choose to keep it short it will give a more young perky look and would f.x. go good with a mini skirt. The longer ones are more elegant and look fantastic on dresses or pencil skirts.

If you have some latex at the hand and a little spare time test it out for and check for yourself what you like best.

How to do it:

I used a latex gauge of 0.4 mm for this tutorial, since this is mostly used for latex clothing and gives the nicest ruffles.

After you have decided the size of your ruffles, you will have to cut out a couple of them to be able to cover a whole seam.

For me it was easier to join the circles one after each other while I am gluing them on, instead of creating at first one long curly strip out of all the small circles.

How many you will need depends of course on how long the seam is. Dividing the seam length by the circumference of the inner circle will tell you how many you will need.

Gathering latex

This is also a very easy method of creating ruffles and it is even faster. But it is not suitable for all types of clothing styles. The minus here is that it is not as easy to control and to keep the even look.

Like the header already describes it, you gather the latex. It will create a more or less crinkled look, which is f.x. nice for tops or baby-dolls which are gathered right under the breast or even in some cases to create  short puffy sleeves.

And its of course THE one thing to use for jogging suits or similar.

How to do it:

You glue a stretched strip of latex on to the area where you would like to have the material gathered.

The way it will look like depends here on the gauge of the latex as well on the stress you put on to the stretched strip.

If you choose latex in a thing gauge and stretch it a lot you will most likely have a lot of riffles and you will see that at the area where you applied the strip to. It  will have tiny riffles which are not always nice to look at. If you choose a thicker latex gauge the riffles will be more easy to handle and you avoid those riffles on the strip.

What I prefer is latex in gauge 0.3/0.4mm and a little thicker strip  of latex like 0.5/0.6mm to stretch. That will create some nice ruffles and you will most likely avoid the riffles on the strip itself.

On the picture you can see how different the latex looks depending on the thickness you use.

The easiest way to do these ruffles is with help of another person, to hold and control the latex while you apply the strip.

If you dont have anybody to help you with that, then use some clams which will do that for you.

Kitty

If its Lady Gaga, Madonna, Victoria Beckam or a bunch of fashion designers, they all have been using Latex as a attention and sale boost in their carrier. Which brought the shiny piece of course closer to the catwalk and the mainstream fashion, e.g. in form of latex leggings or mainly lycra leggings.

But believe it or not the British fashion store TopShop started selling glued latex clothing in their stores!

At the London Fashion Week 2010 they presented their new collection for this season, a rough Denim look with a shiny twist, LATEX.

The wide range of latex clothing introduced to the mainstream consumers included pencil skirts, jackets, very tight and loose tops, leggings and rubber cycling shorts.

So if you always have been wondering how it would be and what it would look like if latex hits the mainstream take a look at the new TopShop collection here or check out the short video.

Unfortunately,  most of the items have already been taken down from the online store, so we cant take a closer look at it, but honestly its also not its money worth!

TopShop claims to be a outrageous high fashion store with “purse-friendly prices” , but if I take a look at their shiny rubber items, it makes me wonder if they had a moment of amnesia, since they forgot all about fashion, the good look and of course the affordable prices!

Seriously, who would give £ 80 for a simple top like that or worse £ 110 for those cycling shorts? To give you a better alternative take a look at Libidex or House of Harlot. They offer a good fitting fashionable range of latex clothing to a fair price. And if you hurry you will get the Valentines deal at Libidex with 25% off!

Or DIY! You can start with my latex leggings tutorial.
I think one of my next projects will be a tutorial on how to make the TopShop Latex Clothing yourself.

This is a great oppertunity for latex crafters there would like to win some free supplies for making latex clothing. With a Blackstyle gift voucher like that, you can buy latex sheeting, latex cement, liquid latex, latex strips and a lot of other good things at Blackstyle!

Here is a list of people who offer latex classes around the world:

• Polly Pandemonium – World wide.
• Robert Anton – U.S.
• Ego-assassin - Canada
• RubberAngel - Berlin

If you know of other classes or Workshops, please drop me a mail, I would love to add them to the list.

The $39.95 latex clothing beginner kit includes:

• 2 x half yard of Latex
• Latex glue – 50ml
• Rotary cutter
• Roller
• Small cutting pad
• Glue thinner/latex cleaner – 100ml
• Seam cleaning cloth
• Glue brush
• Gel pen
• Latex shiner sample – 50ml

While this will definitely give a lot of aspiring new latex crafters a good start at making latex clothing, I highly recommend that you get a acrylic/plexiglass sheet for bigger working area, a larger rotary cutter and some latex milk for gluing thin latex and attaching cotton to latex.

Furthermore, they have widend thier range of zippers and metal parts for us latex crafters.

So hurry up and check out their sale, it last only to the 31.07.2009!

And while you shop on discount, have a look on their latex supplies. Blackstyle offers all kind of goodies you need to make your own latex clothing, from thinner and glue to precut latex strips.

Furthermore, I’m also planning on adding a readers gallery, with photos of the things that YOU made! The idea is to show all that everybody can make their own latex clothing with success.

So, if you have something that you would like to show off, then please send me a email containing your name, the photo and a little description, so it can be featured in the readers gallery.

Thanks a lot.

Kitty

It’s amazing how many things you need to do before you are getting married. The wedding went fine and we really had a great time. Next up was our kinky wedding after party, and of course I had to make a latex wedding outfits for me and my husband!

I made a long white latex wedding gown for myself, using a brought pattern I adjusted to fit me.

The gown has a deep cut out in both front and back. The front part is gathered under the breast with pleats. There are extra linings in white around the cut outs and a sweet white bow in front to finalize the decolté.

For my husband I made of course a latex suit.
The suit consists of a white latex shirt and suit pants. The latex shirt has double cuffs and a regular botton line in front with pearl buttons to close it.

The latex suit pants have two pockets in front and the back. The back pockets have as well real buttons in to close them.

I made the pattern using the suit he was wearing at our wedding.

I am very happy with the outcome and got a lot of positive comments about it from friends and family.

The shower curtain made from 4 meters of Radical Rubber’s Translucent Olive (0.4 mm) latex sheeting, 2 meters of cotton strip, 14 eyelets, latex milk and rubber cement.

I started out by gluing together 2 x 2 meter latex sheets together.

Then I coated the cotton strip with latex milk on both sides and let it dry completely.

Then I glued the latex cotton strip along the top of the latex sheets.

Afterwards I covered the bare side of the cotton strip with a slightly wider latex strip and cut off the excess fabrics.

Finally I marked and cut the holes for the eyelets that was incerted with the special tool they came with and a hammer.

I hope you like it!

My favourite latex sheet manufacture – Radical Rubber has come out with 11 fantastic new latex colors in the last six month.

Some of the colors are already available on Radical Rubbers website, the others will soon follow.

But you can already check all of them out on Libidex new color chart.

I already found my favorite colors; translucent lilac, nigthshade blue, medical red, metallic black and the delicious chocolate.

It is so great with so many possibilities and combinations. I love it!