Vintage transformed

January 11, 2008 - My first wedding for this year. ’twas Meg’s wedding.

Recalling how Meg and I met, I think that was last year August? She found out about our services  from an old flyer she got from some bridal fair we attended, and she contacted me thru text. She texted me the simplest of all sentences which every Filipina wants to know, asking for how much is a gown?  Eventually I found out she was inquiring for her wedding. On the same day, she wanted to meet with me and that’s what we got.

Of course, that happened around 10 in the morning, when I just got myself a happy Mcdo breakfast meal and still on my way to my office. I wondered what she was like, and what she wanted for her wedding gown. It was not one of my UP days, but i had to be professional! Finally, when Meg and I met and discussed her needs, I was very surprised what she wanted for herself as far as her wedding gown is concerned…

She wanted to wear her Mom’s 1971 Wedding Gown…

Upon hearing this, I got sooo excited (at the same time, I wondered what her mom’s gown looked liked, hoping that it’s still in a very good shape, wearable, and not like those haunted wedding gowns you see in the movies!) And it dawned to me what could be the possible challenges that I might face (or smell!).

But the excitement overcame the worries.. On our second meeting, I saw the photo of the gown . =) it was a classic shift gown, very simple… the magnificent beadwork detail in front and on  the train were the main focal points. The train was detachable, but unlike our trains today, it’s attached on the shoulders not on the waist, somewhat reminiscent of medieval trains.

All I can think of that time is when can i see the gown, what could be the possible alterations and  how much will the alteration cost. And on our third meeting, I saw the actual gown, crudely packaged in a little dirty white box (which is almost torn  and it was vintage too! you can see and smell it from the old rust-colored stains.. heheh).

But good thing, the gown was in a good condition. The only not-so-good thing about it are the stains caused by moisture, and of course, time.

But I was optimistic that we can remove those old old stains, just find a good dry cleaning service to do it for us! of course the dry cleaning services of the hotels are the best and most credible among all services we know of.  But before we do that, Meg and I decided on how to MODERNIZED this vintage dress…

We wanted to retain its over all look, we just wanted 3 things. 1st - Clean it, 2nd - adjust it to Meg’s size and 3rd update it.

This is the sketch of the modified gown..

The number 2 and 3 were not a problem. The gown only needed minor alterations in size. The end-look or modified design was simple and not very complicated to do. But the 1st one was the most time consuming of all… I had John, my fiance and ever reliable sidekick to check out a couple of prestigious hotel laundry services for me  if they can handle Meg’s very delicate vintage gown. And we chose this particular hotel to do the task for us because the person-in-charge had a background with gowns and gave John plenty of quality information and advice which were really really very helpful. But, there was one catch..

We had the remove the embellishments…

and I said “what?”

After a series of question and answers in an attempt to understand why they cannot dry clean in with the beads, i rested my case, and proposed to Meg what we are going to do with her gown.

1. Remove the embellishments and detach the old lining and fusing (stiffening material) to avoid further stains.

2. Dry clean it.

3. Adjust the gown, and reattach the new lining and fusing.

4. Reattach the beads.

5.  Do the finishing touches and remove some more remaining stains.

Of course, it was easier to enumerate it done do it. But God was on our side. For some reason, the previous designer made the embellishments into patches or appliques therefore it was easier to detach and reattach.

Also, another fact is that it was our first time to alter a vintage gown, but I’ve altered some gowns before, but we had to take extra good care of this one, so this was one of the risks

We were also faced by the fact that one kind of the beads corroded which turned some part of the embellishments into black (originally it was clear or probably silver in color). But good thing Meg liked the look of it.

We also had to clean the embellishment to remove accumulated dirt and the smell which was carefully done with some water and detergent.

Some of the old stains cannot be removed from dry cleaning, most probably the cleaners feared that they might  of destroy the gown if they applied cleaning detergents (cause they cannot put stain remover. The gown was somewhat creamish in color, if they put stain remover it will make the stained parts whiter!) So we had to resort to manual labor using our magic cleaning tools… water, white ivory soap and toothbrush!

and thank God it was really magic.

This is how Meg’s gown looked like during her fitting. You may click on the pic to get a bigger view of it.

as you can see, it was impossible for meg to contain her excitement… hehe

Fast forward to her wedding day.. here is the final output…

This is me and Ate Marie with Meg by the entrance of the church.

on a side note, Meg was actually the one who inspired me to try out shift dresses.. and thank goodness i did.. it was easy and so comfy to wear! hehe
You can see more pictures of her gown and entourage gowns in Meg’s album.

The entourage gowns were a different story…. and there were a lot of ups and downs in this part which I will share to you eventually.. =)

But the best thing about Meg’s gown is that she was happy and her dad commended our work, which according to Meg made all the difference.