Posts Tagged ‘tailor’

Find a good tailor in your community. A tailor can change your wardrobe and the fit of your clothes for the better. Hem pants, add a cuff, reshape shoulders, shorten sleeves or cut a dress or jacket to fit your body like a second skin.

Q. I loved wearing my wedding gown on my wedding day. It’s an ivory, strapless, floor-length Nicole Miller gown that I bought in the evening wear section of Nordstrom, so it isn’t super bridal-no lace, beading or tulle, just sleek silk satin. Before I got married, I thought that by buying a white evening gown instead of a wedding dress I’d have more opportunity to wear it again, but anytime I consider wearing it, it seems too bridal. Should I just give up hope of wearing it again and pack it away for future generations, or is there any way I can accessorize it to make it less “here comes the bride?” Thanks for any help, I love your site.
-Always a Bride

Alison: Saving the dress for future generations is risky - a lot of care must be taken to store it properly and you can’t be sure your descendants will want to wear it, so my suggestion is to find a way to wear it again. If you can’t get the wedding march out of your head every time you slip on your white evening gown, consider taking it to a tailor and ask if the fabric can be dyed a darker color. Or have a good tailor shorten the length of the dress to cocktail length and you’ll be assured that the dress will look different. You should make a change since it’s likely that you’ll wish to wear the dress to an event with people who attended your own wedding. Another benefit of making the change is that your dress and wedding memories will always be significant to that day. Have fun mixing up color in your accessories like bejeweled strappy heels, a colorful clutch and dangling earrings. A pretty wrap or fitted cashmere cardigan can also help change the look of the dress.

I am a huge fan of vintage shopping and when the invite to scour the finds at the Padena Rose Bowl with my friends Theodore Leaf and Matthew Habib came about I jumped at the chance. My first find was pink sleeveless dress with a kelly green belt, very pre-Kate Spade, but unfortunately it had a stain and that’s a no-go when shopping vintage-you don’t know if if will come out in the wash or how long it’s been there. But then I spied this dress hanging off a canopied stall fluttering in my direction from the breeze beckoning me. It was tagged for $20, but I negotiated it down to $12.

In its before shape it’s a little big, too long and the scoop neck is overwhelming in this print.

But after, with the help of my trusty tailor, Galina at Elegant Mode in Los Angeles, it turned into a cool retro dress. I had her add a v-neck, chop the length and slim the sides.