Concert Dress Refashion: From Drab to Fab!

Here is my newest Refashion project!

As some of you know, I am a professional singer. A while ago, I refashioned a concert dress for a series of concerts around New Years Eve. Finally I am getting around to posting!

While I would definitely not ever order very cheap dresses from China over Ebay anymore nowadays (...!), I decided to transform this drab thing into a glamorous dress. In my defense: I didn't used to get paid enough for one concert to be able to spend hundreds of Euros on the dress alone...

Let's zoom in a bit. The old version had really cheaply made flower decorations. Nothing about it looked fancy, except that I really liked the shape in general, and it fit me perfectly, since I once even had a seamstress alter it for me...

 Funny thing is - for the concerts this dress was for I got paid a lot of money. I originally wanted to buy an amazing robe for them. But then I just didn't find anything I considered worth the money, which is why I ended up refashioning.

 I bought expensive embroidered lace fabric, which cost about the same amount a cheap new dress would have cost...

More zooming in from old (strange yellow stain-lines along the stitching...):

...to new:

Here is the back before and after...

As I said, this fabric was really expensive... But isn't it gorgeous?

I bought the width I needed at the hem of the dress. Then, forming the shape of the skirt part, cut out some of the motifs "on the way up" and carefully stitched the tulle together again. Up close it looks a little Tim Burton-esque...

...but with the green skirt behind it and moving around it is really not bothersome...

This way I didn't have to cut through any of the embroidery.

There was A LOT of hand-sewing in general, and I really tried to be careful and precise.  Look at the stitching along the zipper...

 In the front I cut out the embroidery and stitched it on directly to the old dress, cutting away the tulle around the edges. It wasn't easy placing the flowers, since the motif isn't symmetrical, and since I had to cover up those strange stain-lines...
Here you see it pinned in place before I hand-stitched it on...

I am especially proud how I handled the sides. I left the tulle run to the side-seam, and cut out the motif which lapped over to the front, stitching it on carefully...

I placed some gold trim along the diagonal in the front, and more gold around the neck... - yes, all by hand.

For the first concert, the gold trim around the neck wasn't finished, and I discovered a safety pin and some un-stitched places afterwards too, haha!
After that, the dress did a fabulous job and got many compliments...

 This is the Musikverein in Vienna...

I'd say an amazing venue like this definitely needs a fabulous dress!

With all the gold around me, the dress looked perfect. Here is a somewhat unusual view of me in action...

It's a bit late to wish you all a Happy New Year now, so I'll just say Happy Easter instead ;-)

Take care,
Katja