Good Alterations

One of my absolute pet hates is badly altered vintage. I know that sounds a bit petty or fussy, but it infuriates me when I find a cute dress or skirt that I would love to buy except someone has hacked off the bottom 5 inches to make it a mini skirt (and decided they didn't need to hem it). I see it all the time, why would you butcher a dress and not even finish the job?! (and then try and sell something with a ragged hem!?).

I'm definitely not against altering vintage (some people are, which is fine). I think making small alterations is a great way to incorporate vintage style into your own, without feeling like you are wearing a costume. I alter things all the time, it's one of the skills I am most grateful for. My mum and aunt taught me how to sew and although I have never really made anything from scratch, I whip out my sewing machine every few weeks to take up or let out hems and make other small adjustments to the stuff I buy. 

I thought I'd show you how I altered this dress to make it more wearable. I bought this dress a few months ago and wore it once as is (pictured above) before deciding it was too matronly and throwing it in my sewing pile for another day. On Sunday I finally got around to fixing it up. I love the print and the flowy sheer skirt, but the high neck and weirdly long sleeves make it all a bit dowdy for me. I thought about changing the neckline to make it a bit more low cut so it balanced out the sleeves, but in the end decided to remove the sleeves instead.

Removing sleeves is fairly easy, I just unpicked them at the seam and then re-sewed the raw edges. It took me about 20 minutes all up. This is something that anyone could do, you don't even need a sewing machine (although it makes it a lot faster). Most fabrics will just fray and look crap if you don't re-sew and tidy up the raw edges, so it's important to not to miss that final step.

My dress, belt and green necklace are all op shopped and the other necklace is from a cheap boutique in Queensland. My two bangles were both gifts and by far the most expensive part of my outfit, the clear one is Mimco and the grey swirl one is Dinosaur Designs. My wedges (aka. the most comfortable shoes I own) are from Hobbs.