Vintage Dress... to Tie For!

I was recently given a beautiful vintage dress from a private collector. She off loaded this party frock to me because the colour of the fabric was in very poor shape. Originally it was a beautiful cream dress with black embroidery. Circa early 1950's, the fabric had not aged well and it was heavily discoloured and stained. I took it to my dry cleaner who is a magician with such problems but alas, she declared it unsalvagable.

Nevertheless, I decided that this little vintage dress would live again. After all, it fits me perfectly and the fabric itself is actually still in great shape with not a hole nor tear in sight.

Inspired by the recent Paris shows (still) current ode to 1960's peace loving, flower power silhouettes, I realised that all this little frock needed was a touch of tie-dye to breath the life back into it.

...and I'm thrilled with the results. I love the juxtaposition of the demure 1950's shape of the dress crossed with the harsh charcoal and purple hues of the dyed fabric. Having never been so brazen as to stick a 60 year old vintage dress into a pot of vegetable dye, I was pretty nervous during the process but I'm very impressed with the fabrics durability (it seems to have not been damaged by the process at all!).

Now that I know what I'm doing I think I might do a few more little frocks for the Rescued by Bowerbird range too.