Tuesday 2 September 2014

Conservative 'Little Red Dress' to Tunic

The before photo, I think, makes this dress look far less conservative than it actually was.


A few years ago I wouldn't have dreamed of wearing red, let alone a shimmery red with a floral design.  But times have changed... and I was instantly drawn to the intense bright red colour of this dress.

Well it seems I didn't take enough photos of this refash, but it was basically a 2 step refashion, so I will try paint a visual picture by some unimpressive word smithing of step 1.

Step 1 - as you may have noticed in my 'before' photo, this dress was a couple of sizes too big for me.  So I turned it inside out, wacked it on my dress form and pinned the sides so that it fit nice and snuggly.  I then whizzed these new side seams through the Bernina.



Step 2 - Mini skirts and dresses just aren't my thing, so this dresses new life was always going to be as something other than a dress.  I decided on a tunic top.  So I cut a few inches off the bottom.


Then I pinned and stitched the new hem.  


Now I have a 'tunic' top that I actually quite like (but I wasn't really in the mood for photos this day, so smiles and good poses were hard to come by ;-) ).



Top: $0 (Hand-me-down), Jeans: $0 (refashioned hand-me-down item), Pashmina: $4 (thrifted),
Levi Denim Jacket: $15 (ebay), Havaiana Slim Thongs: $15

Hand-me-downs - So as you will notice, many of my items are 'hand-me-downs', a term not heard much outside of children's clothing really.  But I've been lucky enough over the past few years to have friends who often clothes share when they are finished with unwanted items, along with a super stylish mother who regularly rotates her wardrobe. As a result I have mountains of 'hand-me-down' clothing items, and relatively few thrifted items.  This suits me really well, because although I do like a bit of shopping, and as much as I love hanging out with my two super cool kids, the two just don't mix well, so being able to pick up clothes when visiting my mum or meeting up with friends is fantastic.



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