Gail Be Designs
About Gail (source: Gail Be Designs)
With her life-size fashions, Gail Be is forging her way into an entirely new art genre. The uniqueness of Be's couture fashions is that they are made completely of beads, sequins, ribbons and feathers. Little or no fabric is ever used, she beads onto beads, not onto fabric.
Be does not draw or pre-sketch, solder or use mathematical calculations in any of her designs. She admits that she does not even know how to turn on a sewing machine and has received no formal training in dress design.
Be got her start when a friend gifted her with four beading classes. Her passion was so great that she beaded daily for hours. Through this self-teaching, in a year she won a state beading contest and was designing her own jewelry line.
But in 1989, Be was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease, which eventually left her legally blind and unable to bead even the most simple patterns. Heartbroken, Be turned her focus to intense bead collecting.
In 1996, Be received her first corneal transplant and then a year later she received her second. During this time she went through 35 corrective lenses and 15 pairs of glasses. Frustrated, but determined to regain her sight, Be underwent LASIK surgery through a Canadian doctor. Miraculously, her eyesight was restored to 20/20.
Be believes that during this challenging time she was "spiritually blessed" because when she began beading again, the complexity of her accessory designs became much more intricate and complicated. In 2003, Be created her first life-size design, which took her to new heights in the worlds of fashion and art design.
Although her eye disease is permanent, so is Be's enthusiasm, gratitude and determination. She reminds us all, "Please be an organ donor because you never know what Picasso you might help right around the corner."
A designer from Edina has wowed the fashion world after unveiling a masterpiece wedding dress she made using almost one million beads.
This week on her website, Gail Be gave the world its first glimpse of her three-year labor of love, Fantasy, a wedding dress weighing in at more than 380 pounds and featuring a 20.5-foot long train.
The 57-year-old, who shuns the notion of working with fabric, has seen her bead creations attract the attention of Lady Gaga, who wore a headdress and matching top created by Be on the cover of her and Tony Bennett’s recent single Anything Goes, according to the Mail Online.
http://gailbe.com/dresses/fantasy
You can find Gail Be Designs at:
http://gailbe.com/
https://www.facebook.com/GailBeDesigns
http://www.pinterest.com/gailbedesigns/
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