Vintage dress makeover

Mum and I were hooked on the TV series This Old Thing on Channel 4 recently, all about buying and wearing vintage. So I recruited Mum's help to refashion this vintage dress.

The dress is vintage Laura Ashley, and I bought it from Armstrong's in Edinburgh for only £12.50. Armstrong's is a brilliant shop, with three different branches in Edinburgh, all of which are well worth a visit. The label said that it was from the 1970s, but the dropped waist and puffy sleeves made me think more of the 1980s. It was the sort of dress I could have imagined Princess Diana wearing at that time.

I really should have taken a photo of the dress on me in its original form to show how it looked. The dropped waist and the length of the dress made it look seriously frumpy on me in its original form, but I could tell immediately that bringing the waist up would resolve both of these problems. But it was still a nerve-wracking moment when Mum took the scissors to it!

Once the dress had been cut into two pieces, I tried the top half on, and Mum looked at me and asked, "Have you thought of making it into a top and skirt?" to which I replied, "No, but I am now!" so we decided to do that. Mum did lots of work pinning, tacking and sewing, hemming the bottom edge of what was now a top, adding tucks and buttons at the end of the shortened sleeves, creating a waistband and buttonholes for the skirt, and sewing the skirt so it didn't flap open.

I've now got a really cool crop top that looks brilliant with skinny jeans, a skirt that will go with many items in my wardrobe (the fabric has so many colours in it that it will match almost anything!), and the option of wearing both together for a tea-dress look. I still have the fabric that was cut off the sleeves, so I'm planning to make a hairband or a flower brooch.

Now I need to clear some space in my wardrobe so I can go shopping for some more frumpy dresses to make over!