Vintage Remake - 80's Dress

Hey Sewers!

This week I bring you something a bit different. A new vintage shop has opened in town which I am very excited about! Even though for the last 2 years I have vowed to only sew my own clothes I will still purchase vintage clothes because I feel like I own a piece of history which I find enchanting. I find vintage clothing tends to be made from higher quality fabrics to what the highstreet offers now and more care has been taken with the construction. Also, even though this dress is from the 80's it was made in the UK which is pretty rare nowadays!

Before
After

I saw this dress in the window and was immediately attracted to the colourful print. The dress only cost me £8 but it needed a lot of alterations before I could wear it - it was a size 16 and I'm typically a size 8.

Adjustments I made:

  • Firstly I had to remove the shoulder pads - as awesome as they were I didn't want to look like I was going to a fancy dress party!
  • Then I removed the sleeves so I could fit all the seams and reattach them later
  • Now the fun bit! I put on the dress inside out and just pinned in the side seams and the princess seams. I took it off, evened them out and basted them before a final fitting and then stitched them properly. I repeated this process a couple times until I was 100% satisfied with the fit. I finished them off with the overlocker to remove the excess fabric - there was a lot!
  • The hardest part of this project was refitting the sleeves. I began by reducing the sleeve head the same amount I reduced the shoulders and re drawing the shape back in. I added ease stitching and then basted them in - it worked! 
  • The last part was the cuffs. Originally the dress had little pleats held together with non functioning buttons - this infuriates me! So I took the buttons off added a button hole then made sure I placed the buttons back in the correct place to get a snug fit around my small wrists. They're definitely functioning now as I need to undo them to take it off!

I didn't change the length as I think it's quite flattering as a midi length and I like the kick pleat. I also didn't change the neck line as having that expanse of fabric across the chest was my favourite feature. It was a really fun project! Loved claiming the dress as my own and giving it a new lease of life. I'll definitely be going back to try and find some more treasures.

Till next time!

Liz 

Location: London, UK

Comments

  1. Caroline29 January 2019 at 21:27

    Such a great re-fashion!

    ReplyDelete
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