Attire & Accessories Forum

Rebuilding a dress

I really love my grandmother's dress and she would love for me to wear it.  The only problem is that she was 90 lbs when she got married, while I can put the dress on it doesn't close in the back and I would need to remove a rib or two to make it close!

Has anyone rebuilt a dress?  How did you find someone to rebuild the dress?

Re: Rebuilding a dress

  • ask seamstresses, for instance here in the tacoma/seattle area where I live their is a gal who specializes in modernizing heirloom dresses. how much to small is the dress? you might be better using the lace or some fabric and having a new dress made with it.
  • It's much trickier to make a dress very much larger than very much smaller because the material just isn't there to work with. You could try taking it apart and just using the fabric to make a totally new dress if there's a lot of material to work with in the skirt. if there's some excess in the skirt that you're willing to get rid of, you could also try adding panels to the bodice. There's really not a lot that can be done without changing the style of the dress.
  • What about changing it to a corset back then it doesn't need to "close"
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
  • I thought the same thing that Em&MC2B said. Turn the back into a corset style, and if you don't want to show skin, add a flap of similar fabric under the corset ties.
  • Thanks for the ideas!  I will have to look at the dress again and see if corset back work. 
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards