AA Cotton Spandex Two-Tone Fitted Mini Dress vs. DIY Metallic Dress

retrogurl: Introducing DIY!! Kerin Rose is a designer/stylist/writer, she specializes in silkscreening, DIY in dresses to hats to jewelry. Please welcome her to the nitro:licious family, she will be holding up the DIY section of this blog! If you guys have any ideas or requests, leave a comment here and may be she’ll DIY it!

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Photograpy & Written by: Kerin Rose

Like most modern women I have a love/hate relationship with American Apparel. Especially their assistance of bringing futurism to the hands of the frugal with line of lamé. However, I’m a lady who’s stacked in the front and the back, so wearing a spandex lame’ tube dress is a risqué risk. Not that I haven’t done so on more than one occasion…As I’ve become increasingly infatuated with anything with shine I’ve become subsequently pissed that the Mr. Charney hasn’t expanded the lamé line. So I’ve taken it into my own hands with an American Apparel DIY dress.

Because most American Apparel garments are made of stretch fabric, and each piece is made of two or three pattern pieces, even the least skilled seamstress can customize with ease. Note: I picked the two toned dress because I prefer the fit. Pick whatever dress is best for your figure! I was lucky enough to find every color in the AA Lamé line at my fave fabric store: Spandex House, on 38th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues – or online at www.spandexhouse.com, and I went with 2 yards of blue for a wallet friendly sixteen dollars. Shiny!

Check out the steps after the jump…

And you need the following tools: a Sharpie, a needle, some thread, and a scissor.  See? EASY!

Take your fabric and fold it in half, with the shiny sides facing one another. Place the dress of your choice on top. 

Trace around the dress, with an extra quarter to a half inch between your sharpie and the dress, to ensure your dress won’t be too small. I speak from experience: spandex dresses that are too tight only show off fat in your bad places. When you’re done, remove the dress and bask in the glory that is…the outline of a dress on some fabric, sans MS Paint arrows, of course .

Next step: CUTTING!  Cut around the entire outline of the dress.

When you’re done, fold the dress in half and check for any major symmetrical inconsistencies. Treat the cutting of major symmetrical inconsistencies like trying to cut your own bangs. DON’T GO SCISSOR HAPPY. Fabric, like hair, always looks a little off when you sew a bit of extra on for length.

Unfold and VOILA! You’re ready to sew! This can be done by hand or by machine, either way, it’s simple: sew along the sides of the dress, and the top seams – don’t sew the bottom, on the curves of the armholes, or the curves of the neckline! You can do it by hand, in bed, while watching Goonies. Or 10 Things I Hate About You. Whichever.

Last step: turn your DIY design inside out, and breathe a sigh of relief. Slip that sucker on and whew! After one hour, and $20, I’ve got myself a DRESS. I decided, after I put it on, to cut the neckline in the front a bit deeper; if you love something, set ‘em free! Know what I mean, ladies?

More DIY tips and tricks to come!