Hello all! I’ve got a fun one to share with you today. This dress was made all the way back in December for a new years party, and it’s ridiculous that I’m only now getting round to writing it up. So the theme of this murder mystery party that I was going to was 1920s. From that I theme I took fringe, and then went decidedly non-1920s for the silhouette.
The colour scheme of this dress was entirely dictated by the shoes that I wanted to wear. So I picked up fringe in blue, and then a two tone fringe going from purple to white. I also went a bit wild with potential options for accessories as you can see below.
As always, time was tight so I was lucky to have a base dress to work with already in my wardrobe. I made this dress all the way back in 2013 and whilst it’s definitely a bit snugger since I was 16 when I last wore it, the zip did up, which was the main thing. The first thing I did was to cut the straps off and re shape the neckline. I also hemmed it a tad shorter. The neckline was then finished with bias tape and it was time to figure out the fringe.
I quickly decided that I was going to have to split my two tone fringe into the two colours, so I laid it all out on the floor, stuck masking tape down the middle and used that to stick the fringe strands together whilst cutting. Then I bound the edge of the purple strands with bias tape to make my third set of fringe.
Then it was time to do the maths. I had 3 colours to evenly space out, whilst also taking into consideration that I only had 4 metres each of the white and purple. I think it worked out that I spaced each layer maybe an inch apart? I drew each sewing line onto the outside of the dress as there was going to be fringe covering the markings anyway. Then I started at the bottom and just worked my way up! In the picture below you can kinda see all of the rows. If I’d had more fringe I would have done more rows spaced closer together to try and prevent that.
So that’s my fringe dress for you! I’ll be honest, I’m not convinced about the colour scheme, but the dress does co-ordinate with the shoes perfectly. Next time I’d like to go for a darker toned, more sultry look. Ooh, maybe even with some beads!
I do really love how this dress fits, and how it moves. It’s definitely one of those pieces of clothing that puts a strut in your stride.
Thank you so much for reading at to Sam Chapman for the beautiful pictures!
Lauren