Prom Remodel

What do you get when you combine two prom dresses from the early 2010s? This Prom Remodel! This is my first 100% custom made recycled dress.

Ester Haute Couture | Pinterest inspiration

Last December my workplace was hosting a holiday gala and I really wanted to make my dress for it because the last time I had a purpose to create a fancy dress was for my last prom, five years ago. This also happened to be where I got the idea for this dress…

I first found my inspiration on Pinterest (see pic to the right), and per usual my find was pretty ambitious and would require me to essentially build the entire pattern from scratch. So *cue in my overconfidence* my thoughts were only, “why wouldn’t I be able to recreate this dress, especially on a short time line?” :-) Since it was Christmas I wanted something red, and it since it was a 1920s themed gala, I also wanted beads. Beaded fabric from a roll is very expensive though and I’ve been working on moving away from buying fabric to buying recyclable garments, so I decided to check out a local thrift store. Turns out, I got so absolutely lucky with my thrift store finds that day. I was able to find two red dresses of a nearly identical shade, one of which was completely bedazzled.

Due to me finishing the dress a long time ago and just now finally getting a little photoshoot in of the final product, I don’t remember exactly the process I went through to put it together. Overall though, I admit it’s a straight miracle that A. the dress actually resembles my Pinspiration, B. it was finished in time for the event, and C. it didn’t fall apart mid-party. Honestly, I don’t even know how I was able to pull this off, not having a pattern at all—it’s truly anti-gravitational. A lot of miracles occurred for this project to come together and I learned a couple of important lessons as a result.

Exactly what I needed to recreate my Pinspiration.

First of all, although it looks nice and put together on the outside, it really does not look the best on the inside. This is partially due to me working with two already finished products instead of good old fabric. I had to do things some things less correctly to make the best use of my limited and oddly shaped resources. However, it is also due to me working on a limited timeline and just kind of “arts and crafts”-ing this dress together. I don’t really want to do that anymore. So from now on I’m going to go back to the basics, work on simple, not overly ambitious projects, and focus on my craftsmanship.

And second. I learned that this process of thrifting and making patterns from scratch is actually super fun, although challenging, and can work out! I really enjoyed the success of turning something old, kind of ugly, and most likely never going to be used again into a brand new outfit!

Check out my little gallery below to see my adorable holiday gala gingerbread man accessory and some pics from the assembly process! The last pic shows the only fabric I had leftover from the two prom dresses. P.S. My sister @solbergana in the first picture made her dress too :)