Every year, my non-profit puts on a beautiful gala, called “The Memory Masquerade”. It’s a beautiful event, raising awareness and money for families affected by dementia while honoring all of those we love who are either living with or lost their lives to the disease. This mission is near and dear to me, inspired by my beloved mother who passed away from frontotemporal dementia 2 1/2 years ago at the young age of 56.
If you’ve ever been to a gala before, you know that it is usually a formal event. For the masquerade, everyone comes dressed in their formal/semi-formal gowns and it’s a lovely evening filled with great fun: a delicious dinner, a silent auction and raffles, entertainment (we’ve had an up-close magician come a couple of years!), dancing and music. And of course a special tribute to those we love.
My daughter has been privileged to attend the past couple years; she is 14 now and has been wanting to attend and honor her grandma. One of her favorite past times with her bff is going shopping and trying on formals gowns. The tricky part about ready-to-wear clothing for a young, petite teenage girl is that it’s hard to get the right fit; everything is too big and too long for her. There’s also the modesty factor…it’s hard to find formal gowns that aren’t overly revealing. The trend nowaways seem to be extremely low cut, bare midriffs, dresses that barely hug the girl’s bottoms. Let me first make it very clear that this post isn’t to shame any mom out there who allows her daughter to dress with the trends; we each have our own opinions on what is appropriate or non-appropriate and I am not judging anyone out there, I’m really not. We all do what we feel is best and comfortable for our families! With that said, we are just a little bit more conservative around here. Aubrey isn’t comfortable with overly revealing clothing herself, so it does make it difficult to find a dress while shopping.
A couple of years ago, I made both her dress and mine. I have to admit that I like hers better than mine. It had been many years since I’d made myself a formal gown!
Last year, I refashioned a dress given to me while Aubrey wore a dress that her older sister and I made together when Maurina was in high school.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do about this year’s dress. Make our own? Borrow? Recycle? About a month ago, Aubrey was out shopping at Windsor and found a dress that she’d fallen in love with last year, which was now on the clearance rack for….wait for it….$10!! Yep, you read that right. This dress was only $10, originally priced at $120. She texted me a picture of the dress, asking if she could get it and asking if there was any way for me to fix the sheer tummy. Now, I’m no dummy. I know that I couldn’t even buy the fabric for the skirt for $10, so I told her to get the dress and I would work some magic on it. Needless to say, she was thrilled and wanted to get started right away on refashioning this dress.
We worked together on design. She really just wanted a simple top, with a soft V neckline and short cap sleeves. It seemed easy enough. I created a basic fitting shell for her and then made adjustments while it was on her body: I added darts in the front to make it a little more snug, drew in her neckline that she wanted, shortened up the basic sleeve I’d created and adjusted the side seams to make it more fitted.
After separating the skirt and original top, I then sewed the new top into the skirt, adding a nice lining to the top and an invisible zipper. I happened to find the exact fabric as the original top, which Aubrey liked; we thought about lace but couldn’t find something we loved, so she decided she wanted to keep it simple. I also had to cut off 7″ from the hem since this dress was super long. We decided to use the excess hem for a sash to go around her waistline. She wanted a bow and long sash in the back.
And here’s the final product! When everything was said and done (dress, materials and zipper bought), this dress ended up costing only $25!!
What do you think?
Aubrey loves her dress and can’t wait to wear it to the gala this year. I think she looks beautiful and sweet. I am really happy with how it turned out! Although it was perfectly lovely before, she now has a dress that she is comfortable in.
And now, it’s my turn! I thought about doing a refashion for myself (I also gravitate more towards conservative styles) but found some fabric and decided to be adventurous this year and make my own…including the pattern! Fingers crossed that it turns out as well as Aubrey’s dress!
