Tales From the Workroom

Chanel-ly Gown Upgrade/Upcycle

You know that "Walmart of Gown Stores" National Chain with the seriously inexpensive yet sometimes good basic dresses?  I love the challenge of taking one of their dresses and doing a hardcore Alteration and Design Upgrade to them.  Here's one example of an Oleg Cassini interesting basic dress, the fugly flower that was on it now removed.  It's a good start:

The Inspiration (or mine anyway) was the Chanel Spring 2010 Ready To Wear Collection, which was set on a faux Normandy farm runway complete with hay bales.  Click here for Style.com's slideshow coverage of the entire event: www.style.com/S2010RTW-CHANEL  

(Yes that's Lily Allen rockin' out in the background!)

The Bride's inspiration had to do with her matte silver metal, wheat and burlap color scheme that was going to weave throughout the event from invitations to decor to her awesome rope heeled espadrille shoes.  

The Result included a beautiful raw linen net over silver metal organza made into cap sleeves, a waistband with long back trailing ties down the back, and lots and lots of little hand made flowers with beads and matte silver sequin centers.  Raw (yet sewn for stability) fringed edges a la Chanel around all of the new pieces finished the look.

Upgrade complete!  Chanel-inspired glamour for a fraction of the cost.  

Btw I used to work the inhouse fashion shows at Chanel NYC, hours of fun being able to inspect everything from The Suits, RTW, to the OOAK Couture Gowns and even the Fine Jewelry.  

<3 Coco and Karl!