Hello again. Today I would like to present you with a dress I call The Hayley. It's named after Paramore rocker Hayley Williams. For those of you familiar with her style, you may be wondering how I correlate this dress to her. Simple, she has an unexpected style. Although she is mostly rocker, sometimes you will see her glam up a few vintage pieces, and I think this one would fit her bill of a little punk, a little sweet, but mostly vintage for the rock. Plus, it provides tons of color for a girl who loves color. It just didn't start out that way.
When this dress and I began our relationship, I almost left it at Aunt Bev's. It had a wrap around it which was cute, but the dress was too big, which made the wrap sag and not fit correctly. After playing with it for awhile, I realized there was no way to fix the wrap to fit correctly without major annihilation of the dress, which I wasn't prepared to do. It started out like this.
I took it anyway. After my brain wrapped itself around getting rid of the wrap, no pun intended, I saw the chance to have The Hayley. With the way the waist was cut sideways, I saw the potential for a simple dress, with some flair and punk to it, if only I could remove the wrap, cut off the sleeves and shorten it. The mission was simple enough, and became even simpler when I realized the wrap was on there by exactly two stitches that came right out with a seam ripper, and then the rest was sewn into the sleeves. Because I removed the sleeves, this was no problem. Everything was looking up. Then it went downhill.
There's a reason this dress is also known as The Dress That Should Have Stayed At Aunt Bev's. Once I got the wrap off, I realized taking off the wrap, getting rid of the sleeves, and shortening the dress were the least of my problems. There was padding in the neckline. It looked like I had three boobs in the front and one in the back. We're not talking about a little bit of padding here, folks, we're talking about a ton. Four hours, a lot of hand stitching, some swearing, some machine sewing, a ton of cutting, and a lot of reshaping later, I had this. The perfect "Hayley."
All in all, I found the dress adorable alone. It didn't need sprucing up, but I added a necklace to give it a night look and a pair of heels to glam it up. You could wear it casual during the day, or out to the nightlife as seen below. Yep, definitely worthy of Hayley.
Today, I was going out casually, but quickly realized in the sunlight you could see through The Hayley. I am in the process of getting a slip off of Aunt Bev, so I did what any vintage girl would do and added my own style. A pair of leggings, flip flops, and a cute blue head band later, I had my very own style. I like color, bright color, sometimes ones that you wouldn't think to put together, and others that go together, but are all bright. This outfit shows this off best. Oh, and don't mind my face, I wasn't wearing any makeup.
All in all, this dress took me the longest out of all the dresses due to the neckline. It also frustrated me the worst, but it's the one I love the best. There's so much I can do with it and it's so playful.
At the end of the day the dress took me six hours and here is what I did with it.
- Removed the wrap
- Removed the sleeves
- Shortened six and one half inches
- Repaired the side
- Removed the neckline / took out padding / re-sewed and hand stitched
I am looking forward to wearing this dress as many places as I can, and it's comfortable. The neckline, although slightly differing from its original form, still read and breathes fifties, as does the pattern. In fact, we were at a home owned by one of my mom's clients today, and the wife commented that I obviously had good taste because of my dress. I told her it was a fifties rehab, and she said she was born in the fifties and could tell, which is why she loved it. Mission Vintage Girl complete!
When this dress and I began our relationship, I almost left it at Aunt Bev's. It had a wrap around it which was cute, but the dress was too big, which made the wrap sag and not fit correctly. After playing with it for awhile, I realized there was no way to fix the wrap to fit correctly without major annihilation of the dress, which I wasn't prepared to do. It started out like this.
I took it anyway. After my brain wrapped itself around getting rid of the wrap, no pun intended, I saw the chance to have The Hayley. With the way the waist was cut sideways, I saw the potential for a simple dress, with some flair and punk to it, if only I could remove the wrap, cut off the sleeves and shorten it. The mission was simple enough, and became even simpler when I realized the wrap was on there by exactly two stitches that came right out with a seam ripper, and then the rest was sewn into the sleeves. Because I removed the sleeves, this was no problem. Everything was looking up. Then it went downhill.There's a reason this dress is also known as The Dress That Should Have Stayed At Aunt Bev's. Once I got the wrap off, I realized taking off the wrap, getting rid of the sleeves, and shortening the dress were the least of my problems. There was padding in the neckline. It looked like I had three boobs in the front and one in the back. We're not talking about a little bit of padding here, folks, we're talking about a ton. Four hours, a lot of hand stitching, some swearing, some machine sewing, a ton of cutting, and a lot of reshaping later, I had this. The perfect "Hayley."
All in all, I found the dress adorable alone. It didn't need sprucing up, but I added a necklace to give it a night look and a pair of heels to glam it up. You could wear it casual during the day, or out to the nightlife as seen below. Yep, definitely worthy of Hayley.
Today, I was going out casually, but quickly realized in the sunlight you could see through The Hayley. I am in the process of getting a slip off of Aunt Bev, so I did what any vintage girl would do and added my own style. A pair of leggings, flip flops, and a cute blue head band later, I had my very own style. I like color, bright color, sometimes ones that you wouldn't think to put together, and others that go together, but are all bright. This outfit shows this off best. Oh, and don't mind my face, I wasn't wearing any makeup.
All in all, this dress took me the longest out of all the dresses due to the neckline. It also frustrated me the worst, but it's the one I love the best. There's so much I can do with it and it's so playful.At the end of the day the dress took me six hours and here is what I did with it.
- Removed the wrap
- Removed the sleeves
- Shortened six and one half inches
- Repaired the side
- Removed the neckline / took out padding / re-sewed and hand stitched
I am looking forward to wearing this dress as many places as I can, and it's comfortable. The neckline, although slightly differing from its original form, still read and breathes fifties, as does the pattern. In fact, we were at a home owned by one of my mom's clients today, and the wife commented that I obviously had good taste because of my dress. I told her it was a fifties rehab, and she said she was born in the fifties and could tell, which is why she loved it. Mission Vintage Girl complete!
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