Selkie Alterations: Monte Marte Tea Rose/Ritz Hybrid

When Selkie released the Monte Marte print last year, my oldest daughter and I were smitten with both the print and the styles. It was very cottage cozy vibes of Little House on the Prairie or Mansfield Park that make me want to don my dress and a warm shawl for a long day spent daydreaming by the window. My sweet girl wanted to wear the Monte Marte Ritz to her prom last year, which surprised me as it doesn't really give off prom vibes, but my girl has always marched to the beat of her own drum and I definitely know that when you find Your Dress, nothing else will do.  

Unfortunately the dress was double the amount we had set aside as our "prom dress budget."  I offered to put up half if she would work and save for the other half.  Long story short, it just didn't happen and she ended up wearing one of my Selkie Marie gowns instead.  She loved the dress, but neither of us really forgot about the Monte Marte.  Flash forward six months and the Monte Marte Ritz went on sale on Boho-Chic Clothing for 40% off!  Now we were in the realm of possibility.  I texted her and she said she'd love to have it for next year's prom so I ordered it and as always, Boho Chic shipped it right away and it arrived from France in about a week.

The dress fit her perfectly.  I saw the way she glowed from feeling so lovely and I am so thankful to Boho Chic for offering such a bargain so that we could get her dream dress.  The only trouble was that my daughter is not terribly tall, so the dress was dragging the ground by several inches.  Not to worry, I set to work taking 10" off the length of the ruffle as I have done with one of my cotton Ritz dresses and also with a Picnic Terrace gown, so she can dance and enjoy herself at prom.  It is a lot of work, but worth the end result.

I suddenly found myself with a seemingly endless amount of Monte Marte ruffle, so I had an idea.  What if I bought a Monte Marte Tea Rose dress in my size and attached the ruffle to make it a longer dress.  I love the tea rose style of dress, but it feels a little like the dress equivalent of a mullet-the top is all party and the skirt is all business.   I don't hate it, in the way that I don't hate the femme-mullet on the right person, but it wasn't quite right for me.  I wanted a little something extra to the skirt to bring a little more balance to it.

Normally the Tea Rose dress is $295.  I found one NWT on Poshmark for $162, so I bought it and set to work attaching the ruffle to the bottom.  The Tea Rose's skirt is substantially less full than the Ritz, which means I only used about half the ruffle I had available.  If I tried to use the whole thing it would have been way too heavy for the skirt.  

I ran a gathering stitch, gathered and tacked it in, and then attached the ruffle to the underside of the skirt, so unlike the Ritz, the ruffle doesn't show around the top.  Not only was I trying to create something that is not a direct copy of my daughter's Ritz, because she should have her own dress and style, but the Tea Rose is a little less grand than the Ritz, so it only made sense to me to have a more subdued ruffle, although I think it would have still looked nice had I done it the other way.

While my daughter is waiting to wear her Ritz to prom, I wore this Tea Rose hybrid a couple of different days on my vacation and it was so comfortable and perfect for walking around, even when it got a little breezy.  I styled it just how you see it here in the photos.  This cobweb shawl was a decoration made by a dear elderly lady but I quite prefer it as a wrap especially since it's October and all.

And, something about this print reminds me of the type you'd see on those Victorian porcelain dolls, so I wore my doll head ring from Unlogical poem and my matryoshka purse.  I loved the look so much that I dug out my old porcelain doll and decided to use the remaining fabric to make a new dress for her.  She was a gift when I was about 5 and has only ever had one set of clothing which is hopelessly sun-faded and threadbare.  She also sustained a severely broken leg which was never properly mended, shortly after her accident, I had an accident of my own and also sustained a severely broken leg which has never fully mended.  On the same leg actually.  Hmmmm.....this doll may be haunted.

 

Haunted doll aside, this little project has been a great success.  I appreciate that Selkie is a company that makes so many feel so beautiful including my own precious daughter, and I've also learned that when they have something that I love but it needs a few tweaks to make it perfect for me, it's worth every minute of work to have results like this.

Shopping Info: Monte Marte Ritz at Selkie-$399 or at Boho-Chic-clothing-$239