Like most other 17-year-olds, Ciara Gan was excited for her graduation ball.
The Filipino student knew she wanted to wear the perfect dress for the occasion – and so she decided to make an entire hand-painted dress from scratch.
At first, Ciara hired someone to make her dress, which she designed herself, but she was unhappy with the result.
Despite having barely any knowledge of sewing, Ciara was determined to make her dream ball gown, so she watched a lot of YouTube tutorials.
Ciara and her mother spent the entire month of March working on her dress – a stunning dark green ball gown.
She and her mom then individually cut, sewed, and perfectly all the skirt panels for her dress.
This wasn’t an unfamiliar dynamic to them – she and her mom have always loved doing Do-It-Yourself projects with each other!
It was actually her mom who offered her encouragement to take on the difficult and challenging task, and they sure enjoyed the challenge of it all!
Ciara enjoys trying new things and she had the month to pour into making her gown because she didn’t have as much schoolwork then.
Ciara and her mother purchased a lot of items for the dress – boning, crinoline, Swarovski crystals, and an impressive 13 yards’ worth of fabric.
When they finished painstakingly creating each skirt panel, they constructed the dress and put it all together.
Then, it was time to add designs onto the gown.
Ciara would spend the next five days slowly and carefully using acrylic paint to paint gorgeous flowers on the dress fabric.
Every single decision Ciara made for the dress design was based on things she loves.
She made the dress a dark emerald green to suit her Harry Potter house, Slytherin, because she’s a huge fan of the franchise.
She added orange tiger lilies as flowers instead of daintier, softer flowers or roses because she wanted the dress to reflect her vibrant personality – and also as a nod to Jody Lynn Anderson’s book, Tiger Lily.
Ciara decided not to tell anyone that she was working on the dress, so her classmates and friends had no idea what she was up to.
When the day of the graduation ball arrived, she donned her incredible handmade masterpiece and wowed everyone she knew!
Classmates were doing double takes, and many thought her painted flowers were printed on because of how good they looked!
This was only the second time that Ciara has taken on a sewing project at all, with her first time being during her junior year prom.
Back then, she’d needed to rush and redo an entire skirt for her dress within just two days – which included sticking more than 200 individual crystals onto the fabric!
Ciara shared images of her gown on social media, and it has since taken off and gone viral.
People are just blown away by her talent and skill, and there has even been fanart made!
She’s since been receiving art commission requests, and considering the fact that she has 5 months of summer ahead, she’s eager to do them as a way to earn a little extra income.
Share away, people!
