Storybook Dress With a Storybook Ending

Once upon a time I saw a dress that looked like it had so much potential waiting inside that I decided to pay the price and take a risk to make my fairytale dream a reality.  When the Storybook dress in Night in Paris released last year, I immediately liked the print Ok, but not the style.  On Selkie's photographed version, there is so much flourish that it almost looks like one of those tacky blouses in the 1980s that had medals or coins hanging off it.  Do you know the kind I mean?  

It was the kind you'd see on soap operas being worn by rich sliver haired women who went yachting for the day.   Flash forward a year to when I saw this dress pop-up on TheRealReal and fell head over heels in love.  The print was perfectly placed with the two pheasants on the center of the bust and all the flowers seemed to have blossomed on the dress.  It felt like an entirely different print, a print that I wanted, a print that I needed.

Now I had a decision to make.  Selkie still had a couple in stock in my size and the one on TRR was two sizes too big, but on TRR I knew exactly what I was getting and with Selkie, I would have a dress that fit with a janky print.  I'm not fond of the Storybook style, there's too much dress there for me.  

The sleeves are too long the collar and the ruffles, it's all just too much.  I knew that no matter which version I purchased I would be doing some alterations to make this dress suit my shape and style.  I decided to go with TRR's dress since I would be guaranteed to get the print as shown and since I would be doing alterations anyway, I figured it couldn't hurt to just add a size adjustment to the list.

The dress arrived in just a few days with tags still attached and exactly as photographed.  I cleared an afternoon to begin work shortening the sleeves, removing the collar, and taking in the dress around the waist and bust.  I briefly considered putting a corset back on the dress instead of a zipper, but since there is a tie around the waist, I decided to leave it as is.  The result, my dear friends is a dress that I am infinitely a happier with!  

Starting alterations without trying a dress on as-is, is like salting your food before you taste it.  So, I did try the dress on as-is and it confirmed what I already thought, which is that the dress would have been wearing me instead of the other way around.

I still have a few things to work out as far as the zipper goes, because it used to zip all the way up the collar and now that the collar is gone, I can either take out the whole zipper, move it down and sew it back in, or fold the top down and move on with my life.  For the moment I have folded the top down, but at some point, I will be setting things right.

I'm getting pretty good at shortening Selkie sleeves, so this job went quickly once I purchased some pre-made casing and re-used the elastic from the sleeves.  I took several inches off and probably could have gone shorter, but I'm content with the way they look now and don't want to chance them being too short.

Ultimately though, the dress was constructed in such a way that it was easy to remove that collar by just cutting it out, it was basically a separate piece.  So, snip, snip, snip and that was done.  I did have to be careful to create my own lines at the back as the collar basically ran all the way down under the apron dress, but it was fairly simple to do that once I had examined the dress and figured out the best way to proceed.  Always look before you cut!

As much as I believe that a good dress should do all the work, especially when it comes with a hefty price tag, sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and make a few adjustments so that a garment's true potential can shine through.  Not everyone gets handed a happy ending to their storybook, sometimes you just have to go out and make your own. 

Shopping Info:  Night in Paris Storybook Dress on Selkiecollection.com, TheRealReal.com, Bettie Page Shoes from Amazon.com