Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #542

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Woman Painstakingly Makes 'Chainmail' Dress Out of More Than 2,500 Pennies
By Rebecca Flood
A woman has painstakingly cre- ated a dress made of more than 2,000 pen- nies, worth just over $20 in coins.
Shay Rose regu- larly creates dra- matic looks and shares the fin- ished products on social media, with her latest design taking three weeks to finish.
The 22-year-old
shared the incred- ible look to
her Instagram an d TikTok accounts, @cres- centshay, earlier this month, where they amassed millions of views.
In a series of posts Rose explained exactly how she made the chainmail- inspired look, as she revealed in the end 2,652 cents contributed to the look, which is worth $26.52.
Modeling the cop- per dress, which can be seen here, she said: "In total this dress took: 13 spools of thread. 4 broken needles. 150+ of hours of work."
She admitted it took her a lot longer than planned, saying: "But boy o boy yall has this dress been a JOUR- NEYYY.
"I totally underes- timated just how many pennies this
skirt would take, and especially how long it would take to chainmail all of the pennies, so this "quick December proj- ect" has stretched to the end of January.
"But it's finally done!!! and hon- estly, despite all the work it took, I really do think it was worth it. This dress came out SO much cooler than I initially imagined it would—I love this dress so much, I am so proud that I was able to bring this weird idea to life."
She joked: "Turns out chainmailing pennies takes a LOT of time." And there was a side effect of handling so much money, as Shay added: "Also my hands have smelled of pennies for weeks there is no escap- ing it."
And revealing how she made the look, Rose, whose bio indicat- ed she went to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),
claimed
she drilled holes into each coin in order to be able to sew them together.
"But I think the ending effect is worth it—it's almost like mer- maid scales or a fantasy style armor? either way, I think it's a really unique look," she added. After finally finish- ing the look, made for a cash app sponsorship on TikTok and YouTube, Rose said she was a "little pennyd-out."
She added: "Typically when I post "finished" photos of the dress I love to have big full body shots of the whole look, but I found for this dress I really loved the close up detail shots so much more?
"I love how you can actually see each individual penny and how they makeup the top, but when you step back it all burs [blurs] together into this sparkly shiny
piece."
According to the U.S. Mint, a cent weighs 2.5g, meaning Shay's dress weighs around 14 pounds (lbs.)
Chainmail dates back to the medieval period, and was worn by European knights and members of the military.
The body armor was usually made by "sewing iron rings to fabric or leather," accord- ing to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The site added: "Medieval armor- ers improved on the early version by fabricating mail independent of cloth or leather and by interlacing the rings, which were firmly closed by welding or riv- eting.
They noted: "[It] was worn in late Roman times and may have origi- nated in Asia, where such mail continued to be worn for many centuries."
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine