Julie had a compelling feeling about her artwork after she had made pages. She wanted a dress made out of the pages of music that she had composed for the album. She asked Galway artist Sharon Costello Desmond if she would make it. Sharon kindly hand stitched and sculpted the dress on hand made paper using Julie's orchestral score. The orchestral music for every song from Julie’s pages album was used and pages dress is completely made of paper.

Because of the fact that paper doesn’t fall into shape like fabric, measurements were crucial in the design of the dress as was the geometric structure.  

Sharon used a cross-stitch on the paper and used 250 yards of gold thread. Every seven inches of stitching would involve a process that took two to two and a half hours.

On the replica of the traditional corseted bodice, Sharon laced ribbon through metal circular eyelets which she had coated in a gold colour, the same gold the gold thread.

Each of the paper panels on the bodice required reinforcing 6-fold at the edges to avoid tearing and the panels on the skirt required reinforcing 4 fold with a variety of techniques. Aside from stitching there was an elaborate amount of ironing and measuring and a deliberate effort was made to use only paper in the whole dress.

The halterneck is attached separately and also features intricate stitching. A dress like this has never been done before and definitely not with a composer's score. Furthermore no composer has ever worn a self-composed score as a dress. Julie wears it from time to time!

Julie's first performed on TV wearing the pages dress

on The View with John Kelly.

See Julie's blog about how she made pages

Julie thoroughly enjoyed her live pages shows at Galway Arts Festival, Farmleigh House and Kilkenny Arts Festival. She is very excited about performing at Electric Picnic!    

After that she will cook the pages show for her Autumn tour...with a few rumoured surprises in between!