July 10, 2010

Have You Ever Been Stuck in A Dress?

I was going to take a break from blogging today, but I have too much to share. First off, thanks for all the nice comments about my "BDD". I really love it and can't wait to go to a Tiki Bar and show it off. I may have to take a train into the city and do just that. While sewing the dress I listened to a wonderful podcast called Cocktail Nation. I listen to if often and enjoy Coop Kooper and learning more about this style of music and living.

In my new found love of vintage I have found a passion, but much like my ADD (Attention to Delightful Distractions) way of living, I can't seem to stay within one time period. I move from the 40's to the 60's and back to the 50's at the mere mention of something. It is enough to drive a blogger wild. Who is Sassy Lassie? What is her style? All I can say is it changes minute by minute so stay tuned as nothing holds her attention for long. I may take you back and forth in the next few weeks from the 40's to the 70's, as I picked up some amazing magazines from the 70's at an estate sale yesterday.

Before heading out to the closest fabric store for miles to purchase chiffon for the MOD dress, I went to an estate sale. Oh brother. I became like a crazy person when I looked into their barn and saw a metal rack with tulle and bows and flowers dripping from it. I pushed people out of my way and just started pulling hangers off the rack. I had so many in my hands at once I had to finally drop them all to the floor, as a women nearby sneered and said, "Are you taking ALL of those?'. At which point I demurely lowered my eyes and said a simple, "yes".

So, at this moment I have a car full, I think there are 8 or more in total, of 1950's and 60's prom and evening gowns which I was hoping to keep, they looked like my size, but are wayyyyyyyyyyyy too small in the waist for me.

So now I have to sneak them past hubby and photograph them and put them on ebay. I hope to keep some of them, but a few are just wayyyyy too small. I may refurbish a few. I just have not figured it out yet.

This dress below is stunning and my absolute favorite, next to a mod coat that the lady at the estate sale said belonged to her sister who was a model in NYC in the 60's.
 I knew it had issues, but I was willing to look past them. Lots of rust stains on the skirt and underskirt, but with the way the fabric moves, I would have worn this dress no problem. My daughter Molly called just as I had slipped it over my head to try it on. Slipped is not exactly the appropriate word, it was more like wrangled it while moving my shoulder blades in positions they are not meant to go in. But I did it! Then to find out the waist was 2 inches to small. There was NO way for me to zip it up. Stephanie thought that with the proper foundation garments on that I might be able to zip it, but trust me the only thing that could possibly fit me into this dress is a surgeon to remove some lower ribs.

Well, that was just the beginning of it, and I hope you never have to experience what happened next. With Molly on the phone and telling me her plans for the week, I tried to take the dress off!!! OMGoodness... I was stuck, really stuck. My shoulder blades did not move in the way they had when I put the dress on. I started to panic. I felt a repeat of those dishes in a post a month or so ago, that I broke after only having for 5 minutes. How could this dress survive all these years only to have me ruin it in 5 minutes. I started to panic, at which point Molly screamed through the airwaves, RIP THE DRESS, MOM, RIP THE DRESS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! I could not rip the dress. I was willing to live in it for the rest of my life if I had to, but I was NOT going to rip the dress.

Finally the angels of "too small dresses being tried on when they shouldn't be", came to me, and lifted it over my head, or possibly dislocated my shoulders without me knowing and removed the dress for me. Whew!!!

So here are some rough photo of the beauty, non ironed and after years of hanging, 
but unharmed by 'this one'.

6 comments:

  1. Ahhh, don't feel bad, we've all been there at least once! What a beautiful dress too!

    ~Kelli @ Smidgens

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  2. Loved the stuck dress story - reminds me of a similar episode with a long dress my mom had made for me, but it just didn't fit. My friend came over to try it on. She was a gymnast and a world arm wrestlling champion. Her upper body muscle mass fas exceeded mine. Same thing happened, except we all got the giggles. Good friends are those that walk you into the bathroom with a dress stuck over your head so you can pee and not wet your pants. However, I did stop to pee first myself - she had better bladder control than I did too. Thanks for the memories!

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  3. The same thing happened to me with a prom dress at David's Bridal! It was horrible.
    We only have crap yard sales in RI and if anything they're full overpriced ov 80s dresses (because the people who have yard sales aren't the sort of people that shop at them!) Yuck.
    What fabric stores do you have up there?

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  4. Totally gorgeous dress. I hope you're okay.

    What do you think of using parts of these dresses to make something of your own, basically refashioning or repurposing them?

    Trudy
    www.sewingwithtrudy.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. Trudy, I'm not sure how I feel, I may put them on e-bay and see what happens and if no one wants them will do the refashion. Some of them are SO of the era, that I hate to disturb what they ARE. Only time will tell.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Because my waist has always been sizes smaller than my hips, bust..I have been stuck many times trying to fit into a dress that fits my waist but not the rest. I could fell claustrophobia coming on just reading this!
    Oh and great score!

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate each and every one of your comments. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me.

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