I bought this velveteen dress from the Salvation army for $3.50 (it was originally $7 but discounted by 50%). What attracted me to it initially was the texture of the fabric since I knew that texture was essential to styling your monochrome outfits for the upcoming autumn and winter. The dress very 90’s in style; it had a baby doll type of drape to it.

For some reason, it would remind me of the type of dresses ribbon dancers would wear. What was very interesting about it was the fact that it was made by AVON! …oh and that it was imitation velvet (velveteen).

I actually prefer that the fabric was imitation as opposed real velvet because of its durability. Had it been real velvet, I don’t know if I would be able to modify it as I believe you have to cut velvet a certain way (please correct me if I am wrong, I never worked with velvet). Also, velveteen is more forgiving to spills and stains. I had already spilled green tea all over the dress when I went to Musha with Gian and it turned out okay. But anyway, I had upcycled the dress above into the dress you see here:

The tayloring of the dress was very simple. All I did was pin the dress to fit, draw out the outline and sew to fit.

I had made a movie about how I taylored / upcycled the dress. You can view it here.

At the end, I showed ways you can style the dress. My favorite way was to take my black peplum top by H&M and wear it over the dress. I simply love the peplum shirt as it is flattering on every figure. The peplum creates the illusion of hips (mine go straight down) which then makes my waist feel smaller. I feel that this outfit is just so vogue. This makes the simple black dress feel ready for the Autumn 2012 trends! It addresses the peplum silhouette, the monochrome trend, as well as the texture trend! I loved the peplum styling of the dress so much, I took pictures of it after filming.