Greecian Dress - Winter 2004

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay homage to the dress, for the dress did right by my momma and now it's done right by me.

<boast> I rediscovered the dress this summer when mom and I were rooting through a bunch of old clothes she had kept in order to determine what to hang on to and what to donate. I decided that even though it didn't fit me, the dress was kind of nifty and had a bunch of potential. She had hung on to it because it was her first real evening gown and had a whole lot of fond memories attached to it and hoped that someday I would want it. Miracles never seem to cease and so I grabbed the dress and took it up to school with me.

A few weeks ago I decided that I needed a dress to wear to the Senior Banquet this year (aka Vet Prom) and I didn't want to wear my junior prom dress. In looking at the few options that hung in my closet I once again rediscovered the dress and though it would be a good choice. However, a few things about it seemed a bit dated to me, and the dress had alot of potential in it that just needed a little work to bring to full glory. And so the seed of an idea was planted to take the grecian look of the dress and run with it, making a few changes to add to that theme (as well as make it a little bigger, since my momma was a size 10 and I am most certainly NOT.) I figured that since I was going to be getting into the sewing in order to alter it I might as well go in whole hog. (Our favorite vet student plots to the right, while showing off the original collar of the dress. Notice that it's not zipping closed in the back because it can't...)

SO, after calling Mom and asking for permission to mutilate her beloved dress I got to work. First I went out and got fabric at Joann's for the purpose. The dress is cream colored polyester of some sort with lots of stretch to it. JoAnn's probably hasn't sold anything like this since 1982, so I got something of a matching texture and approximate color. I also got a few yards of creamy yellow sheer fabric for the bits that I wanted to add, as well as some gold ribbon, some sheer cream ribbon, cream thred and gold thread. As luck would have it, all the fabric I bought was in the clearance section, so the grand total for this endeavor: approximately 10 bucks. I used the heavier fabric to put in some gores to the shell dress that lives beneath the flowing outer layer. The dress could now zip closed no problem and you couldn't see the added fabric. Once the dress actually fit me, it was time to go for the fancy stuff.

The first thing I did was take of the crochet and lace neck and replaced it with a pleated sheer neck with the thick gold ribbon encircling my neck. Later I used the exact same ribbon in my hair.

The last part was adding on the floaty arm thingys. I eventually worked it out so that they rested on my arms in a line with the top of the dress, they then swooped down with a gap over my arm and were brought together again about midway down my fore arm and then finally met at my middle finger where they attached to a ribbon that looped around my finger and then back where it tied around my wrist to secure it. A nice effect of the finishing process was that the outer edge scalloped itself because I was finishing on the bias.

To the left here we can see my roommate Sharon and I posing for a picture and looking lovely.

The final part of the whole ensemble was doing my hair up to look grecian as well. The night before I slept in foam rollers and the next day took them out several hours before the banquet so that they would fall out some and not be so tight. With 4 hair combs and a bunch of bobby pins and colorful phrases I managed to get my hair up into what I imagined was a proper hairdo, though I had no reference pictures to go by. I then wrapped the remainder of the gold ribbon around my head and then did a second loop up around the pile of hair trailing down the back of my head and tied it beneath letting the ribbon ends dangle with the rest of the hair. It wasn't incredibly stable and instantly fell apart the moment the dancing started, but it looked awesome for the three and a half hours of banquet the preceeded it.

In this close up we can see my hair better than in other pictures, though I never got a shot that really showed it off well.

I was posed in this odd pose to help show off the arms of the dress as well, which it does a little bit, but is hard to differentiate against the cream background.

Ok, the TRULY final part of the ensemble was the purse and shoes. Two hours before the banquet was to start I realized I didn't have a light colored purse so I took the leftover fabric I'd used to make the dress bigger and made a little drawstring purse that I added some leftovers of the sheer fabric to make it match the dress.

In this final picture you can see my shoes as my roommates Audra and Sharon pose with me and we all look a trifle posessed. The shoes were exactly what I was looking for, simple sandals made of natural leather with a low heel. Steve Madden is my friend.

The whole night was wonderful because I kept getting tons of compliments on the dress, how fabulous it was and how striking I looked in it and even got compared to Nicole Kidman (w00t!). Audra told me how people across the room who didn't even know me were commenting on how lovely the dress was and how much it stood out, though I will be the FIRST to admit that in pictures this dress makes me look 7 months pregnant. It was more flattering in person, though this was before I lost much weight in my long journey to fitness. On the whole, a very satisfying experience. Nice to have the ego stroked like that once in a while.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for bearing with me while I reveled in the sewing and relived my tailoring triumph, you have been a forgiving audience. It's back to jeans, glasses and ponytails for me! </boast>