This week’s About a Dress has been hijacked for the menfolk, in honor of our man-friendly pop up vintage shop in the backroom. I found this “dress” in Fond du Lac, WI, while shopping the Value Village with my mom. We both fell in looove with the airplane print on the skirt, but the rest…. *sigh* This is definitely an example of a revamp gone wrong. While I applaud the efforts of taking a men’s vest and repurposing it for women, it wasn’t working. The armscyes were much too large (read: major side boob!), and without any darts, this vest would make any woman look like a rectangle. So, A for effort, but this particular garment had to be reclaimed for a dude.
First off, I removed the skirt and removed those adorable, yet beyond cheesy, mini airplane
buttons. Already, a vast improvement 🙂
Next I dug through our supply of vintage clip on ties, and found one that complimented the vest and also went with the color scheme of the airplane print material. I opened up the vest, and added stripes from the tie on the back. While the lining was still open, i also repaired some fraying edges and general wear on the fabric. In order to tie the stripes in on the front, I removed the welted pocket edges, and replaced them with more of the salvaged tie fabric. To finish it off, I put new, lighter colored buttons down the front.
Confession: I’m making myself a skirt out of the leftover airplane fabric. But there WAS a lot of fabric, and i had to share some of it 🙂 I made this awesome airplane skinny tie, and also managed to use some blue gingham scrap for the lining. I’m a big fan, so keep an eye out for more one-of-a-kind ties cut from scratch! Ginger Root Design’s menswear is getting a wake up call for spring, so stay tuned….
