How To Take an Old 80's Prom Dress and Make it 2008!

 by threadbanger
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This time Threadbanger has taken the prom dress challenge. We found an old puffy prom dress from the 1980's, and made it into a cute and fun prom dress for this decade. Its a fun and simple tutorial that explains everything, but leaves enough room for your own creativity. If you want to see more of threadbanger, subscribe to us on itunes!



Materials:

Vintage 80's dress that is desperate for a makeover
sewing machine
scissors
pins
additional embellishments of your choice
 
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Step 1: Deconstruction

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1. First, Its very important to study your garment. Sketch out a drawing to plan out exactly what you want to do. We decided to take this extremely puffy 80's prom dress and change it up into a cute and sexy, short black dress for this decade.


2. Start the deconstruction of your dress.


3. Begin by cutting off the puffy sleeves, and we decided to set them aside for later.


4. Then cut off the skirt. If you have ruffles on the bottom, as we did, separate the ruffles from the main skirt to get a large piece of flat fabric.


6. Cut out the old boning and save to use later.
tking-3 says: May 31, 2011. 5:33 PM
Love it!! Can't wait to try a re-do for my daughter, she will be thrilled to have a 1 of a kind look just for her. Thank you!!
daydreamr says: Sep 15, 2009. 4:17 PM
I actually like the original dress better
boudewijnchill in reply to daydreamrMar 27, 2011. 9:03 AM
lol me too
bookfreak53 says: Jul 15, 2010. 12:24 PM
I admire your clever fingers and creativity. I'm too old and too pudgy to try your idea, but I wanted to compliment you. So...when you have your own business someday you might want to run a spell check or borrow an old English major. Some people lose sight of the creativity if you have misspelled words. seem is really seam. Tool is really tulle and finally is finale. I do not mean to be picky, I just want you to know that spelling matters when you want to be taken seriously. I wish I could sew. I took it in high school, but it "didn't seem to take"! ;)
mysss in reply to bookfreak53Aug 3, 2010. 9:33 PM
I can't help it. That exclamation point belongs inside the quotation marks. : )
greendragonfly says: Aug 12, 2008. 10:01 AM
So, the process is laid out nicely. Where's the pic of the final product?
SwitchGirl in reply to greendragonflyJan 8, 2010. 8:26 AM
Great post... but agreed, I'd like to see a full shot of the final piece. The video goes way too fast to see what your getting and there are no photos. Please post.
SSJanell says: Apr 28, 2009. 1:38 PM
its a lovely dress
theemilyforce says: Feb 12, 2009. 2:47 PM
I honestly wished you would have kept the top and took off the arm ruffles and then just shortened the bottom of the skirt. But thats just me. I love the 80's.
halfpint_4 says: Feb 11, 2009. 12:49 PM
Does anyone know the brand of this dress? I am actually planning on wearing this dress but blue instead of black for prom this year. And when i found this website and saw the same dress i was surprised.
Stephy_The_Great says: Nov 6, 2008. 11:42 AM
I was wondering the same thing. Wheres a picture of the full dress? I was also a little dissapointed that none of that white material got used, but to each their own!
Sunny124613 says: Jul 11, 2008. 1:48 PM
Wow I think that the dress is sooo cute!
shop dweller says: Mar 21, 2008. 12:11 AM
Cute.
freakaziod 101 says: Mar 7, 2008. 1:46 PM
luv ur ideas
canida says: Mar 5, 2008. 7:45 PM
Looks awesome! Loved the interviews, too. ;) We'll see you guys at the NNN party at SXSW, right? I agree with fizil - a nice full-length picture of the finished product would be nice to see.
fizil says: Mar 5, 2008. 6:46 PM
I'm not getting much from the final shots :(
GorillazMiko says: Mar 5, 2008. 3:00 PM
McDonalds! :D

Nice job on the Instructable by the way!
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