THE LITTLE (FAULTY?) PRAIRIE DRESS

Let’s have a chat about this dress. I love it, the colours and the ditsy floral with the shirring, frilled sleeves, high neck and practically no shape... this dress is me all over. I saw it on a few people on Instagram and fell into a fast fashion trap. 

It was on sale and for no clear reason... so obviously I bought it. I don’t regret buying it as such but when it arrived and I tried it on I was slightly perplexed. The arms seemed far too tight, and the shoulder seams were definitely off, but I’m no expert... my mum is. Having a mother who is a very skilled seamstress is incredibly useful, especially when analysing what is wrong with a garment. We figured out that I was right, the seams at the shoulder and arms were off which caused a lot of issues. 

I thought about this for a while and realised I had seen no photos of anyone using their arms in this dress, no ones arms were above their heads and on closer inspection it did even look a little weird on the Zara website. Being otherwise totally obsessed with this faulty sale find, I had to find a way to fix it. Which essentially meant my mum fixed it for me. 

At first we considered removing the sleeves entirely, but I wanted to keep as much of the dress in tact as possible. I then asked why we couldn’t just unstitch the arm seams and add in a panel of fabric, so that the dress could fit and I could, you know, move in it. At first we were reluctant as we couldn’t exactly take fabric for this extra panel from anywhere else in the dress. I then just thought... lace.. when doesn’t lace look pretty? Plus, it’s certainly the most breathable fabric we could add to the armpit of a garment. 

And then my mum worked her magic, and our vision actually worked. I wore this dress for the first time today, on a picnic for mine and Finn’s anniversary and I was super comfortable and happy. I hate feeling restricted in my clothes, and clothes should never be restrictive but I just couldn’t let go of this dress once I had it. And quite frankly, I’m glad I didn’t. 

If you’d like a more visual representation of what I just explained, I’ve popped a little video on my IGTV of the process and I really hope you enjoy it. 

IWx