Saving my mum's vintage dress

Hi,

 

Today I bring to you my latest project....

 

A while ago now, when me and my family were on holiday in the IOW my mum bought this beautiful original 1930/40s dress in a vintage shop:

 

 

It fit her really well and looked nice however, when we got it home we realised it had some quite bad watermarks/staining on it :( They hadn't shown up in the shop (we hadn't been lied to, just nobody had noticed them), but are clearly visible in daylight:

 

My mum was really disappointed and hasn't been able to wear the dress due to the visible staining on the bodice and the main stain (pictured above) on the skirt. My mum tried getting it dry cleaned- they tried their best but nothing could be done :-( Again I was sad because my mum really liked the dress and it cost her £125; though this is not extortionate, it is still quite expensive, and definitely is an amount you want to get some enjoyment from.

 

My mum stashed the dress in the wardrobe, then yesterday we were watching a programme on TV called 'This old thing' which was all about vintage clothing and refashioning it. We decided to get the dress out and give it one last attempt to try to make it wearable. I looked at it, assessed it, thought about hard etc... and then I came up with this idea:

 

A central panel of matching colour scheme purple crepe type fabric (fabric from one of the bargains I got in the costume store!). My mum thought that sounded good as she wanted to preserve the dress (so not cut into it) but also to cover all the stains on the bodice and skirt of course- and the panel can do both! Also I knew I had to come up with a solution that was fairly simple in style so as not to overpower the rest of the details on the dress or make it look 'too much'. The simple, clean shape of the panel should be perfect.

 

I started work on it today- I have got the shape tacked onto the dress and the bodice and skirt panels cut out and ready to be seamed together- I will work more on it tomorrow and will of course bring you lots of pictures when the transformation is complete. I really hope it looks gorgeous and I know it would make my mum really happy if she did love it and could wear it- she had kind of written it off after the dry cleaning didn't really work out. I have made it my mission to SAVE MY MUMS DRESS!!!! :0)

 

Hehe, I have also got some alterations I am working on for my next door neighbour too, I need to finish those of tomorrow as well- I will be a busy bee! But in-between I can relax with dad and brother who have both happened to have the day of work/school and we are getting subways, a mcflurry and playing tennis at the park. So that will be nice. I had a good day today as well- me and my mum saw the importance of being earnest at the theatre and had cupcakes from Sweet couture. Mmmmm... I am craving another one now!

 

Lol, I better get off to bed ready for my busy day tomorrow,

 

Speak to you all again soon,

 

Bye XxXxXx