In today’s video I’ll be showing you a stylish way to restyle an oversized shift dress and give you an idea of what you can do with an old t-shirt and leftover fabric scraps for a mini-me outfit.
I got dress from an online consignment shop to wear over the holidays. I was looking for something with a relaxed fit but this dress wasn’t it. I thought it was in my size however, when I got the dress it was a LOT roomier than I anticipated.
I mean, I knew the dress would loose-fitting but I didn’t think I’d be drowning in it. I should’ve known better because I find that I have to size down when it comes these style dresses.
This mean’t the dress required a major overhaul and that was more than I had time for. Especially with the back to back holiday planning and all. Even though the festivities are over, I wanted to share with you the idea I had in mind for the dress. I won’t go into details but give you a quick run down on how I arrived at the end results.
My goal for this dress was to define the waist. At the same time I wanted to incorporate the design details the dress had such as the pleats running midway down the front (known as pin tucks). The other thing I didn’t notice before was that the hem had a partial ruffle.
I decided to keep the pin tucks intact. And I wanted the upper body to remain loose-fitting with the lower half more fitted. Two things I had going for me was that the dress was unlined and it had an open back (because I really dislike removing & installing zippers 😬).
Mini outfit deets
I had some extra fabric from the alterations so I made my daughter a matching dress with the help of one of her old long sleeve tees. I based the design of her dress by the amount of fabric scraps left.
I turned her t-shirt into a ruffle drop waist dress using the larger piece of scraps. The other bit I had left I used to add accent trims around the front neck and sleeve hems.
Since I was using a woven fabric on a knit top, I didn’t go all the way around the neckline with the collar. I didn’t wanna risk limiting the stretch or worse warping the neck. I took a chance with the sleeves and hem since they were straight and not curved like the neckline.
↓ Make sure to watch in HD, for the best viewing experience ↓
As you can tell from the video, she loved her dress especially the ruffle sleeves. I styled my dress with the sleeve cuffs open instead of shortening them. To polish off the look, I paired it with my DIY designer dupe heels which you can find here
I hope you found this tutorial helpful. Let me know in the comments below.
Until next time!
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