CMU School of Drama


Saturday, April 06, 2013

Carrie Underwood dress lights up Grammys

TODAY Entertainment: As Carrie Underwood took the stage to sing "Two Black Cadillacs" on Sunday night, Grammy fans noticed something strange was happening to her dress: the seemingly white gown started to light up with a variety of holographic patterns.

16 comments:

Nathan Bertone said...

I know I have seen this dress before and it STILL shocks me to see this dress on stage. I am intrigued by the projection-like quality of the dress, but there is just something about it that is odd. I have a strong feeling that there was a line between costumes and media, and this dress poorly combined the two of them, negating any line that was there. Carrie Underwood looks beautiful in anything, but this dress definitely isn't flattering. I am curious to see if there will be any further explorations like this one, or if there are designs that will be similar to this one. I kind of hope not.

However, there have been some really interesting costumes that have come out of a collaboration between media/lights and costumes. I definitely love to see the experimentations...this one just didn't work well.

Unknown said...

Yes, anything can be a surface for projections. Yes, it's always good to try new things. No, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

I can see where the idea for this experiment may have come from, but the execution of it just really does not appeal to me. The projections are so vibrant that they steal the focus from Carrie Underwood as a person and turn her into an oddly shaped projection screen. The media designs by themselves are quite interesting, but when combined with the dress and the situation, they just really do not work.

Unknown said...

I hadn't heard about this, and while I think it's a very cool idea I think that the actual dress she wore and the projections, were a little tacky. The fact that the images were only on one part of the gown is a little weird looking; maybe if the projections were all over the dress (of course i understand if they couldn't do that), it might have looked better. I also think that the style of dress wasn't terribly flattering (of course Carrie Underwood looks good in just about anything), but it was so princess-y that along with the projections it all just became a bit distracting. I would love to find out how it works if it's more than just surface projections. I agree with Dan, it's good to try new things but just because it can be done doesn't mean it should. I wonder if this is going to be a new trend. Hopefully if it is, it'll be accomplished in a more elegant fashion.

Unknown said...

meh, I'm not really impressed by this. At first I was stunned but thats when the title of the article had me thinking it was a light up dress. I watched a video of this and it was just a simple projector, they didn't even figure out how to make her move around? I worked media crew for Macbett and they had projector mapping that moved around and reacted to the actors and looked a hell of a lot cooler while doing it. I feel like this technology is not new enough for everyone to be this stunned by it. I saw a video on ABC where they replicated this in their studio with ease. And even after doing that the newscasters were still so stunned.

april said...

I completely agree with Dan on this one. Just be cause something is a possibility does not mean you should do it. I get why this would be a cool concept and maybe under the right circumstances (not really sure what they would be at this point in the artistic world) projection on an outfit could have the potential to be something spectator. But this was not that occasion. The dress was ok by it self, but once the projections were added it just became a complete mess. It seemed like a "Hey, Mom! Look what I can do!" moment for the media. I am actually pretty surprised that no one on the design team was able to speak up and say that that looked ridiculous and keep it from going into the show. I am hoping this will be a case where the designers learn from their mistakes and not a time when they feel like they have discovered something that they should start using all the time.

Jenni said...

I feel like this was an an experiment gone wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. I love the idea of combining media with costumes, but it has to do something more then just fill a bland dress with pretty colors. It should help convey an emotion of tell a story. Looking at the images from the dress it just looks like they threw projections of pictures they thought were pretty on to the dress in hope of a positive crowd reaction. Also, they way they were projected was very unflattering. Mostly I blame this latter fact on the dress. It was vey simply (similar to a wedding dress) and they focused solely on the bottom portion of the dress like it was some blank canvas Underwood was wearing.

That aside, the image where the dress was covered in butterflies did work to an extent. If that image had some meaning to the song, and the butterflies had been projected on the entirety of the dress rather then the bottom, then they all flew away, the dress might have works. Might have. even then I'm a little nervous that it would still come across as tacky.

rmarkowi said...

OMG that is a cool dress. I wish the article had said how they did it; I have been wanting to make light up clothing for a while. I have had a few times where I had wanted to light up costumes, and it's always been a difficult thing to do. Projection mappings have their limitations and lighting from the inside seems hard to do! Very cool; and also apparently had a very profound effect on he audience.

Emma Present said...

Holy cow that dress is BEAUTIFUL. How anyone could find it offensive is beyond me... A dress that can hold pictures of flowers and beautiful blue designs doesn't seem like it should be offending anyone, but instead it should (as it did to me) cause a jaw-dropping feeling of awe. I would, however, like to see the performance that this dress accompanies. It is possible that the dress distracted and took away from the show and made her singing fall into the background, upstaging both her and her voice. But the pictures by themselves seem to be simply beautiful, and have basically sold me on this incredible dress.

simone.zwaren said...

Maybe this is just me, BUT I LOVE DRESSES THAT LIGHT UP. The dress being used as a projections screen is really well done, not to mention the dress alone is quite elegant. I think that is the way designers need to approach a concept like this; with elegance and really not try to overwhelm such a beautiful gown. Like Nathan, I had also heard a lot about this dress the day after she worse and performed in it and I remember it being received incredibly well; I predict this will become a more widely done idea. If that was English....

Jason Lewis said...

I still wish I knew how this was done instead of having speculations of what may have been the cause of the images appearing on her dress. I think it's great what they have done with this. I can see how some people may not take a liking to this, but I find it interesting because I've always wondered what it would be like to team up media with costumes and see what can come of it. This may not have been the best, but it was refreshing, elegant, and well thought out. Not to mention they took a chance and to be quite frank, it didn't fail. So more power to the designers. I enjoyed it and hope that we see more adaptations of this idea.

Hunter said...

So this is yet another article on how Carrie Underwood's grammy dress was incredibly beautiful and had crazy gypsy magic interwoven in it. It seems very strange to me that with such a memorable dress and technology involved there would have already been a definitive explanation of how the effect was pulled off. Maybe the creators of the dress are purposely keeping it secret. if that's the case then shame on you dress makers, shame on you

AlexxxGraceee said...

Ugh i think this is hideous. She looks extremely uncomfortable. not only that but the projections are incredibly amateur and lame.

I completely agree with Dan. I think projection mapping is one of the coolest things happening right now with media and if i could i would apply it to almost anything. however i feel a though in this situation its just not working. The dress is poorly designed- just as a normal dress- and it really does take away from her. (which in my opinon wouldnt be too bad.) But i think the idea is a good one else where.

David Feldsberg said...

I like how costumes are beginning to catch up to the rest of the industry and becoming more electrical, if you will. it gives them so much more depth both metaphorically and visually. Even when we inlaid all those LEDs in Lady Han the image was breathtaking. It reminds me of so many class projects in which we were pushed to provide something new and strange in a familiar and comfortable setting and I think this dress achieved just that.

Akiva said...

I personally really like this dress and I think that the general reaction to it is very strange. Perhaps the people who do not like it are just suffering from shock over how amazing it was and have not fully understood it. The article it's self was really poorly written. The content of the article only said that Carrie Underwood wore a dress and that people didn't like it, but that the writer liked it even though they didn't know how the effect was done. When I read the news I do it so that I can learn about how the world works or current events. The only thing this article did in that respect was tell me that she wore a dress. The only quality element of the article was the photos. But in the end it's the super cool dress that is important and I hope to learn how it works and maybe one day incorporate it in to my designs.

JamilaCobham said...

The effects were lovely, I just wish that the dress was more fluid and not so stiff, but it made her performance even more memorable. It also worked that we didn't have to look pass her onto an LED wall or onto the something else to see effects, but that everything was on her. I'm amazed that people didn't know about this before. The Grammys happened a while ago.

caschwartz said...

I feel like this is a really cool idea in theory, and then lost something in practice. It might be because, as other people have pointed out, the projections onto the dress make Carrie Underwood seem almost secondary, and make it seem as though the purpose of the event was to show off the dress. I think the dress might have looked more natural if it wasn't so stiff, but I don't know if it would have projected as well. I feel that the concept would have been better served if the dress itself lit up, instead of the dress being used as the projection surface.