The Great Cocktail Dress Quest
14 Jul 2010 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneI've had this dress which my mom bought at a thrift store for quite a few years. According to the experts, the textile probably started life as a sari. Further examination shows that whoever performed the transformation from sari to cocktail dress was incompetent.
Tragically, their incompetence combined with my ignorance of how one goes about dealing with super-fragile fine silk fabric makes the project I was originally envisioning of turning this slightly-too-big sheath into an A-line of the right size way too time-consuming and risky, which is a gigantic tragedy. :( I really love this dress.
There's a lining of a not-very-pleasant synthetic material in it, and the lining is sewn into all of the seams, which are fat, uneven and lumpy due to never having been ironed; the former darts pointed out in the first photo, which are now just slashes without any sequins in them, were sewn into the lining and dress at the same time with only one set of stitches. When I ripped the seam out from armpit to hem on this side, I discovered the front and back of the dress are different lengths, which was made up not with easing but with random clusters of folds.
Meanwhile, the actual silk of the dress is about the weight and consistency of a Kleenex, and therefore a fabric that I decidedly don't have the expertise to mess about with. Then there's the ugly shape of the shoulders, something that would be hard to fix because the sleeves, neck, and hem are bordered in a double line of seed beads and adorned with a seed bead fringe. All that would have to be removed, and sewing it back on would be time-consuming to say the least, especially considering the sequins would already have to be hand-applied to the gaps in the pattern where the darts were.
So I had just realized a few days ago that I did not possess the bravery/fortitude to tackle this project after all and was becoming quite sad about not getting to wear the dress after all and even more depressed about having to tackle the Buying An Appropriate Cocktail Dress question, which is very difficult when you are approximately 5'7" or 170 cm tall and 103 lb or 47 kg. Children's shirts are my typical solution to the Very Narrow Torso & Very Flat Chest Problem, but you can't (usually) buy a children's formal dress, so if the dress is designed to fit at all, it usually doesn't. Therefore, I dread the purchase of dresses and try to avoid it as much as possible.
But! The very next day, taking my little sister with me, I decided to do a bit of very basic dress-situation reconnaissance. And in Studio 25, an expensive and trendy rock'n'roll sort of boutique which I usually can't afford to shop at, I found this highly out-of-season intended-for-Christmas dress on sale for 10€!
Because it is quite stretchy, it fits nicely. So problem solved! Except that created the new problem that I can't wear the lovely robin's-egg blue t-straps I bought for the seafoam dress with it. (I have multiple pairs of shoes I can wear with it; they just aren't as novel and delightful as the blue ones.)
Tragically, their incompetence combined with my ignorance of how one goes about dealing with super-fragile fine silk fabric makes the project I was originally envisioning of turning this slightly-too-big sheath into an A-line of the right size way too time-consuming and risky, which is a gigantic tragedy. :( I really love this dress.
There's a lining of a not-very-pleasant synthetic material in it, and the lining is sewn into all of the seams, which are fat, uneven and lumpy due to never having been ironed; the former darts pointed out in the first photo, which are now just slashes without any sequins in them, were sewn into the lining and dress at the same time with only one set of stitches. When I ripped the seam out from armpit to hem on this side, I discovered the front and back of the dress are different lengths, which was made up not with easing but with random clusters of folds.
Meanwhile, the actual silk of the dress is about the weight and consistency of a Kleenex, and therefore a fabric that I decidedly don't have the expertise to mess about with. Then there's the ugly shape of the shoulders, something that would be hard to fix because the sleeves, neck, and hem are bordered in a double line of seed beads and adorned with a seed bead fringe. All that would have to be removed, and sewing it back on would be time-consuming to say the least, especially considering the sequins would already have to be hand-applied to the gaps in the pattern where the darts were.
So I had just realized a few days ago that I did not possess the bravery/fortitude to tackle this project after all and was becoming quite sad about not getting to wear the dress after all and even more depressed about having to tackle the Buying An Appropriate Cocktail Dress question, which is very difficult when you are approximately 5'7" or 170 cm tall and 103 lb or 47 kg. Children's shirts are my typical solution to the Very Narrow Torso & Very Flat Chest Problem, but you can't (usually) buy a children's formal dress, so if the dress is designed to fit at all, it usually doesn't. Therefore, I dread the purchase of dresses and try to avoid it as much as possible.
But! The very next day, taking my little sister with me, I decided to do a bit of very basic dress-situation reconnaissance. And in Studio 25, an expensive and trendy rock'n'roll sort of boutique which I usually can't afford to shop at, I found this highly out-of-season intended-for-Christmas dress on sale for 10€!
Because it is quite stretchy, it fits nicely. So problem solved! Except that created the new problem that I can't wear the lovely robin's-egg blue t-straps I bought for the seafoam dress with it. (I have multiple pairs of shoes I can wear with it; they just aren't as novel and delightful as the blue ones.)
(no subject)
Date: 14 Jul 2010 06:48 pm (UTC)