Laura has transformed one of her old dresses using Hollyhocks D from Liberty’s Floranation collection. We love the puffy sleeves & lace details – gorgeous!
“I’ve had this mint coloured, drop waist and sleeveless H&M dress in my wardrobe for about 5 years now and I’m sorry to say I’ve probably only worn it 3 times?? That is really bad I know. The next time I try to buy anything sleeveless please just boink me on the head and shout “STOP” really loudly in my ear. I’ve been meaning to sell it on Vinted for a while but never quite got around to it- probably because I’m lazy and apparently not at all motivated by the thought of making some extra cash (potential problem, that?). BUT in this instance it all worked out because I was inspired to try re-working the dress instead!”
“The perfect complimentary fabric presented itself in Liberty’s recent capsule collection, Floranation. There are so many pretty fabrics in the collection but Hollyhocks D in particular has a lovely range of colours that works so well with the mint lyocell blend fabric of the H&M dress. The fabric features a garden of hollyhocks illustrated in soft watercolour, with flowers coloured pastel peach, pink, yellow and cream while the background and leaves are shades of soft teal and mint. It is slightly washed-out with vintage vibes all around, perfection!”
“The final dress doesn’t look much like the original at all but elements do live on, and I certainly wouldn’t have made it this way without being inspired by the original. It was a different sort of challenge, but lots of fun! The gathered side panels and skirt section have become the puffy sleeves, with elastic inserted into the old hemline to make elasticised cuffs. There are seam lines on the backs of the sleeves that wouldn’t have been there if not for the original dress having panels, but I like to think it adds extra interest. Likewise, because the original dress had side panels instead of side seams this new one has unconventional sort-of-back-side seams instead. That is the joy of converting vs making from scratch, I suppose! Maybe someone with more sewing/pattern making skills could have come up with a better solution to the not quite side seams, but this works well enough for me.”
“The button opening at the back neck felt like a smart thing to keep (dress closure already sorted, woo!), and from there transforming that whole area into a back panel seemed a good thing to do. I cut away curved panels on the front and used the resulting negative piece to cut out the same shape in the Hollyhocks fabric for the front of the dress. Given the gathers that were going to be on the sleeves, I thought gathers at the neckline on the front would be a nice complement. I made a channel and inserted some vintage lace to gather the neckline there, hand sewing two small holes in the fabric in order tie the lace into a bow on the front. The lace may be a little bit TOO vintage to withstand being undone and re-made, so we shall see if that holds up long term… haha.”
“I’m pleased with the end result, I hope you like it too and are inspired to try some clothing conversions of your own! Surprisingly, the final dress uses just 1m of Liberty fabric for the front and back panels so it turned out to be quite the economical conversion. It was a fun challenge and I’d definitely love to try more in the future. There may be more clothes in my ‘sell when the motivation strikes’ pile that could be converted instead. So basically, what this means is my clothes-selling laziness was a good thing all along, right? :P”
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Liberty Tana Lawn® Fabric Hollyhocks D£25.75 Mtr
