OK, this dress was totally $1. Part of the reason...it was worn during the first Thanksgiving. This screams Pilgrim and not the cool Scott Pilgrim varietal. We gots to fix this!!
I love brown and the material was a super thin and light cotton, so I saw the potential. This piece is going to rule just by using the 'remove the excess' mantra. Way too frilly neck? Remove the excess. Overly covered sweater with patches? Remove the excess. In this case, white cuffs and a bib at the neck? Remove the excess.
I began with the neck - with my seam ripper I started to de-stitch the threads holding the collar bib in place.
I went round the neck...
...and took it all off!! What am I gonna do with this leftover bib?!
The arms came next. Instead of leaving them long and seam ripping the white cuffs, I just cut the arms at the elbows and pinned under the raw edges.
I decided to keep the length because I'm going to go the belt route which will end up making the piece shorter! I re-stitched the neck and got the arms tacked down making this plain and simple brown dress ready to wear.
With a favorite gold-ish belt with nylon rope weaving from the flea market and my Steve Madden patent color blocked flats (I scored these puppies at Ross for $11.99) my simple dress was finished!
Pretty bruise, eh? (I actually gave that one to myself - no kicks from the below dude assisted in that shin shiner!) I added my Missoni-esque cardigan (which is actually Dana Buchman found at Marshalls years back) to give a little color and a little warmth.
This turned out to be an awesomely simple dress. By just looking at the parts that didn't work, I have something that works without reminding everybody of cartoon turkeys and cornucopias! I'm feeling more of a Mad Men vibe now.
Just give me a computer (check!) and a name plate for my door (work in progress) and I'll get cracking on those Heinz beans ads stat!
