Forever 31
When I found this dress by Forever 21 at one of my fave thrift shops, I was reminded that I’m an entire decade older than their target demographic. Yikes.
This is what I look like first thing in the morning.
Other than being shoddily constructed by an evil fast fashion giant (end of rant), this dress had a couple of other issues as well. It was about a size too big for me, it was really faded (hard to see in the pic), and it had a damaged zipper.
I’m starting to see why someone let this one go. :/
I decided to take care of that fading first. I grabbed a box of black dye…
Azabache!
…then took the dress and started folding it into a pitcher, sprinkling a bit of the dye powder into the folds as I went.
Sprinkle Sprinkle!
Keep it going!
Once the dress was completely wadded into the pitcher, I filled it with hot water.
Hawt.
When it was filled, it looked like this:
Kind of gross looking, actually.
I left the dress submerged for about 2 hours, then gave it a thorough rinse in my washing machine.
Okay…so the faded color was taken care of, but it still needed a bit of fitting.
Pin each side!
Then, Whirrrrrrr! 🙂
After a quick press, my dress was ready!
Well…almost ready.
I still hadn’t fixed that zipper, and was running late to meet a friend for dinner. :/
So I did what any self-respecting refashionista would do and just used a pair of pliers to get zipped up!
I promise to go back and replace it later.
My friend managed to take a few really blurry photos of the “after”. 😉
This is not an Instagram filter.
But I snapped a couple of backups at home. No worries. 😉
Sassy, no?
It continues to be a good bit chilly here in SC, so I immersed myself in a massive cardigan!
My absolute favorite sweater in the world! 🙂
Hope you guys have a great weekend!
Cheers!
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You make me want to go packs or Rit and just dye everything in my closet!
go GET packs of Rit dye…ok it’s Friday and I am officially ready to go home!
Good Job!!!!
You got me kind of interested in Rit, never really thought about it to change the look of something that is either faded or a really odd color (yeah you are right why would one buy that in the first place, but hot summers make us do all kinds of thing……..) so I will give this run when it gets a bit warmer here (down there YOU in SC do not complain to a gal from the Northern subs of Chicago about it being cold, I cannot even be inside the house dressed like you in your new little dress!!!
I have a question for you did you ever think about turning something useless (like a boyfriends old shirt /////????) into a little dress for a tiny little girl? I just saw something like it and could not help thinking about you… And I know you did some refashioning ideas for women from a men’s dress shirt which are very cute too especially for summer.
Keep it up…
Edith YourChicagoConnection
I agree with you about the shabbly made garments. I raid thrift stores and pick up quality items and remake them. You give me inspirations. Keep up the good work.
Interesting use of the dye. Never would have thought to sprinkle it into the folds to get that look. Love it!
Love how the color turned out. Have to try that on some stuff I have laying around
That dye job turned out great! I never would have thought of dying it that way. The pitcher you used is so pretty I hope it isn’t spoiled forever by the dye.
Wow!! This turned out fantastic. I love it!!
I think that’s the coolest dye job I’ve seen – really modern
Love the dye job and as always all your refashions
Great work again. I like the way you used colour to make it original.
Amazing! I think this might be my favorite one this year.