Repurpose your old

In this video, I’m going to show you how to transform your old wedding dress so you can bring your gorgeous gown out of the attic and back into your life again. We’ll be taking an old sample wedding dress by ‪@ModecaBridal‬ and turning it into a multi-way garment to wear which means it can be worn as a dress, a skirt or a top.

This was featured in RELOVABLE, my book about what to do with your old wedding dress, which you can order from www.carolinearthur.com/shop/product/relovable

DESIGNER TIP
If your old wedding dress has a horizontal join at the waist, then this video is ideal for you to watch, as you will see you can separate the bodice from the skirt and create a new garment with a minimal amount of sewing.

ECO TIP
One of the cornerstones of sustainable styling is in choosing pieces that are versatile and can be worn in different days.

LET’S GET STARTED

STEP 1
Firstly, we'll assess the fabric and potential. The fabric is a floaty georgette which is perfect for creating a drapey look. It says polyester on the label which means if I wanted to dye it, I would need a synthetic dye, so I’m going to use DYE NA FLOW which is a fabric paint similar to a dye. You can find your nearest place to order this from https://www.jacquardproducts.com/dyen....

I’m also using scissors, an unpicker, pins, and an old printed canvas which I’ve turned upside down. This will allow me to paint the skirt design, but without the fabric resting on the table and therefore going all smudgy.

STEP 2
Next comes unpicking. You may discover this is one of the most therapeutic parts of remodelling an old wedding dress. Just go slow and steady, and remember to keep all the threads and leftovers. You’ll find other videos on my channel to give you ideas for what to do with those.
First, I separated the skirt from the bodice. The fabric of the skirt is so lovely, I wanted my finished garment to have a very loose, flowing, abstract, floaty, almost holiday ish kind of vibe to it.

After trying a number of different ways of draping the fabric and pinning it, I discovered that by strategically placing fastenings and leaving some parts open, and putting a zip in it, I could create something that was a skirt AND a top AND a dress. AND it would work for different body shapes, which I always love.

STEP 3
Test colour swatches. For this, I removed some fabric from one side of the bodice so I could do some testing with my paint. I didn’t want to plunge straight in there, so just used a little piece to make sure I got the colour right.
I tried adding more or less water, until I got the look I wanted, each time, allowing it to dry. This is a very important stage, because if you’re going to spend time remodelling your dress, you want to make sure you’re definitely going to wear it. If you dye or paint it and the colour goes wrong, you probably won’t wear it, so do lots of testing at the start.

STEP 4
Next, I asked my models to try on the garment and with a bit of careful pinning, was able to secure the anchor points for the shoulders and waist, so it could be worn multiple ways. I used the trim from around the waist and neckline to secure the top edges so it looked really nice and also featured this extra detail from the wedding dress.
I think it’s really nice to try and incorporate features from the original wedding dress where possible, as it makes the whole project very authentic and is a lovely reminder of a wedding day.

STEP 5
Finish the edges. You should have some trim or edging somewhere on your wedding dress which you can use to create a neat finished edge on what will become the waistband or neckline edge.

STEP 6:
Get ready to paint! Once I’d completed all the sewing and done the hemming, I made a rough plan for how I wanted the painted design and then using pins, outlined the rough areas I wanted to paint, so that the design fell at the point I wanted it to.
I then pinned the garment onto my canvas board, using an old cardboard tube to lift it away from the canvas so I could paint it easily and then started painting.

PAINTING TIP
I mixed it with a small amount of to make the paint colourfast -you can order this here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/60ml-Jacquar...

This is a product, which makes the paint color fast when dry, so if you need to wash the garment, the paint won’t wash out.
The painting was such fun, so rewarding. And as you can see, the blobs dried in this beautiful watercolor sort of effect.

LEFTOVERS
This project was a zero-waste project and I had heaps to play with once the garment was made, including bunting which I’ll show you in another video.

WHAT NEXT?
Have you got a wedding dress that you're thinking about remodeling? Let me know what it's like. Has it got a horizontal join? Leave a comment let me know.

#weddingdress #repurposeweddingdress #recyling #remodelling, refashioning #whattodowithyouroldweddingdress

Images Andrea and Eloise Verenini