I love vintage clothes. The excitement of searching for that special skirt, top, dress at vintage fairs! Then the disappointment when a size 10 which is what you are now bears absolutely no resemblance to a size 10 back in the day. You take a size 10 fifties style dress to the changing rooms to try it on, it’s a bit tight around the bust with the zip done up. Then you can’t get the blasted thing off! Some kind women have to help you by turning it inside out and pulling it over your head. By this time, peri-menopausal and feeling quite hot, you thank the strangers and reluctantly you take the dress back. However, your mind keeps going over the possibility of converting the dress into a skirt and you just have to have it You think that somehow you can become a seamstress and any alterations will be easy! After all, you have watched the Sewing Bee and you sew for a living (albeit not clothes!).
You buy the vintage dress. You take it home and then in the following few days, you take it to a local seamstress, after deciding that really the alterations aren’t simple and you would probably ruin it by trying. The seamstress insists that you try it on and again the same thing happens – you get stuck. Again the dress has to be pulled over your head inside out, but you just love it anyway! You come back the following week to see the altered dress. It’s still beautiful and this time is slightly easier to get off but not much. Material has had to be taken from the front of the dress to insert into the sides as there was no leeway in the original seams.
The repairs turn out to cost as much as the dress! You have paid a small fortune for a dress that although looks good, realistically you have to wear when someone is around to help you take it off. You look back and think why? Or maybe you should have just cut the top off and just turned it into a skirt which you know full well you would have been capable of doing anyway.
Lesson learned! Well, maybe, however it will not stop me enjoying looking for vintage clothes. However next time I might try and be more realistic with sizing and at least buy a dress that I can take off by myself!
Has this happened to you? I would love to hear your vintage clothes stories!
Lizzy's Homemade 