I frequently chat about my friend Tina Witherspoon of glam.spoon, a local fashion designer and style blogger whom I met at Urban Craft Uprising a few years ago. I stumbled into her glam.spoon booth and instantly fell in love with her re-fashioned designs. After "flirting" on Twitter for a few months, we finally met again for coffee and didn't stop talking for hours. We have wildly different lifestyles, so we don't often get the chance to see each other, but we try to keep in touch via FB, Twitter, Pinterest...all those places we both love to hang out.
Not too long ago, she rescued me from a serious fashion dilemma and I have been remiss in not blogging about it sooner. It was January. The holidays were over. I needed a black, full-length, formal evening gown and there were none to be found. What's a girl to do? Feeling rather clever, I hit Tina up for ideas about where to find a black, full-length, formal evening gown in January. Duh. Then I remembered she could probably design one for me.
So...I just happened to have this vintage wedding dress hanging in my closet:
And it fit. I hoped, fingers crossed, that Tina would be able to transform it into a black, full-length formal evening gown....not too tall of an order, is it? We started by looking at an LBD inspiration board I put together on Pinterest of dresses and details that I liked. I also showed her some of the dresses in my closet, so she could get an idea of what styles I like and what I think looks good on me. Ultimately, the dress sort of revealed to us what it could be as Tina deftly peeled away the layers of paper lining in the skirt and stripped off the lace bodice.
A fan of fabric dye, Tina soaked the dress in three dye baths to get it to a deep black. What used to be the outer skirt fabric became the lining after she added sheer black fabric over the top to create some movement and depth. The bodice features some fantastic fabric that Tina created herself by stitching and pleating black tulle. Amazing what this gal can do with a needle and thread!
Here is the bodice in process:
And here I am wearing the final design. (Excuse the crazy hair...was windy on the balcony!)
The transformation was remarkable! You simply can not tell this was ever a wedding dress. I accented the neckline with a vintage brooch that I love and a shoe splurge that I had to have. The whole look was vintage elegance...exactly what we were going for.
And so, this brings me to the second point of this post. Tina is having her very first trunk sale this Friday night at Frock Shop on Phinney Ave. N. It's being held in conjunction with the monthly Phinneywood Art Walk, which is also a fabulous event. I'm so excited that Tina has asked me to come help out with her show, so I'll be at Frock Shop with her meeting, greeting, styling and cheering her on. If you live in the area, definitely put it on your calendar and come make a night of it. Tina will be featuring her new spring/summer line starting at 6pm. She usually only makes one-of-a-kind pieces from recycled materials, but at her show she's introducing a specially designed, limited-run, locally manufactured "Saturday Market Dress" in a range of sizes and a variety of prints...she has even designed some of the prints herself.
It's going to be a lot of fun, so don't miss out! Come meet Tina and check out her amazing work. Hope to see you there!
