Flip It! An Upside-Down Dress Refashion

When I grabbed this dress out of my rapidly-dwindling refashion stash, I winced a little.

Babies of the ’80s & ’90s will no doubt remember these fake two-piecer dresses that were an oh-so-common staple of the average woman’s wardrobe back in the day.

This $1 thrift store dress consists of an upper and lower layer that are connected by an inner lining.

Even that necklace thing is fake!

Such lies! Such deceit! And in unprecedented times such as these when we’re all in it together as a family more than ever…!

WAIT. That’s just copy from every advertisement that’s out right now.

i.e. “We’re here for you. We care about you. So come to us for your next oil change.”

*eye roll*

Anywho…let’s Refashion this thing.

To get started, I first made a big cut!

Now, some of you might think I’m getting ready to turn this into a strapless dress.

WRONG!

I flipped the bottom of the dress upside-down. Since it has slits on the sides, those are going to become my new arm holes!

I put the dress on me upside-down and marked how big the neck hole needed to be. Then I pinned along what would end up being the new shoulders of my new dress.

Note: I’m doing all of this with the bottom part turned inside-out.

Then, I stitched ’em down!

Now for those side slits/my new armholes!

These were a little too gapey to work as-is, so I took them in a couple of inches by pinning, then stitching down the sides.

Let’s tackle that bottom hem!

You can see where I left part of the lining from the top of the dress intact. This was necessary give my dress the length it needed to be a dress, rather that a shirt.

I pinned it under.

Then, stitched it down!

So now my dress was complete, other than one small detail.

A quick sash!

I trimmed off some of the fabric from the bottom of the original top and used that to cinch my waist!

Check out my upside-down Dress Refashion now!

I really like the new vintage-y look of the neckline and shoulders. It has a sort of ’60s vibe now, doesn’t it?

And if you’re feeling a bit of Déjà vu right now, it’s because I’ve done similar upside-down refashions in the past. There’s this one from an old skirt-turned-dress and this one from the bottom scrap of a previous refashion.

But wait…what’s that on my shoulder???

That’s right! I just knew you guys would ask me what I planned on doing with that fake necklace thing, so I cut it off and stitched it to the shoulder.

I think it gives a nice bit of visual interest to what would otherwise be a kind of plain dress.

My new dress enjoyed a trip to Five Points to pick up a dinner to-go order for me and the Mr. from one of our favorite restaurants.

Cheers!