Yellow Prom Dress Fix: Before

I have this habit of picking up thrifted clothing even when it has flaws.  Often it turns into a wearable garment, and sometimes it doesn't, but the great thing about thrifted stuff is that it's usually pretty cheap.  So, if a modification experiment doesn't work, or you only wear the garment a few times, you've lost very little.

This particular dress was a little on the expensive side for thrifting, but I decided to pony up the $26 anyway.  It's a dress that doesn't quite work in a few different ways: the neck is just too high and constrictive, the ruffles are a little much, the bow is very twee, and the length makes one look like a bolt of craft lace.

But there's still something charming about it.  I'm fairly sure it's a homemade dress, since most of the seams are unfinished and there's no tag.  It's obvious that someone worked very hard to make this dress: there's a metal zipper, a zillion gathers and ruffles and darts and a horsehair braid on the bottom hem and holy moley, just a lot of polyester in general.

The bow is already missing half a snap, so it may come off entirely.  The dress may still need a sash of some kind, but I think it might look better in a different color.

There's also a pretty bad stain on the lining at the feet - maybe someone poured punch all over our poor girl at a high school dance.

I may sketch it out first before I do any modifications, but I'm thinking of replacing the bow, cutting the neckline down to the first layer of lace, shortening the back zipper, and maybe shortening the hem - or at least trying to get the stain out.  We'll see.