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You may be wondering what to do with your old bridesmaid dress. If you are lucky, your bride went with current trends and picked black as the color.  If the dress is a formal length, it’s as simple as going back to the seamstress who did the original alterations for you and having it cut off to cocktail length and voila!  A brand new little black dress!

Many brides today are allowing their attendants to pick the styles of their dresses if not the colors, and a lot of them are even being much more sensible about colors as well.  If you are asked your opinion on these matters – you know what to do.  But if not – remember this is her day, not yours.

But what if you got stuck with one of those peach horrors with huge gobs of ruffles, giant poofy sleeves, a train and a big swoopy sash?  All is not lost.  If you have a good seamstress she can still help you.

Trains and Long, Full Skirts

First, trains can be turned into even hems – so the skirt can be cut to a straight skirt.  The length can be whatever you want.  If it is a full skirt and you want it slimmer, that fullness can be taken out by paring down at each seam.  If the top of the dress is just too horrid to contemplate, just cut it off altogether and make a skirt out of the bottom part.  Short or long, your choice.

Ruffles and Flourishes

If you like the basic construction of the top but the embellishments are too much, have the seamstress carefully remove them and take another look.  Some fabrics show marks after removal of embellishments so you may want to consider adding back some – just more restrained.  For instance, remove a large ruffle and replace with a tiny one, or some matching piping made from the left-over fabric.  Or a row of beads, lace or tiny sequins to cover the edge.

Sashes and Sleeves plus Necklines

Taking off a large sash may leave marks at the waistline but a trim belt or a matching satin ribbon can do the same job with less bulk and cover up the offending marks.  Big puffy sleeves can be simply removed, or can be taken off, reduced to small cap sleeves and replaced, or cut down to whatever is allowed by the sleeve length and your desires. High, round necklines can be changed to lower, vees, sweetheart or square depending on what the original style is.  Plackets can be added for modesty panels using fabric from cutoff skirts or other removed items.

How about a complete Do-Over?

If the skirt is very voluminous and/or with a train, the top is not what you want, and your seamstress is creative, you can have her disassemble the entire dress.  Take the pieces to the dry cleaner and then back to her for re-cutting.  She can then make a whole new garment out of these pieces to suit you.

Dyes can make a Difference

If the color is all wrong, discuss having them dyed a darker color to suit.  Do not expect to dye this black – as you will be disappointed in the result.  Dark blues, greys, browns, teals, and purples are possibilities depending on the original colors.  Have her (if she is willing) or the dry cleaner try some test swatches to see how the fabric reacts to the dye before attempting to dye all the fabric or the entire garment.  Be aware that a dress with linings and different types of fabrics will not take dye the same way and you may wind up with a lot of different shades or even what appear to be different colors so this process can be time consuming and a bit costly.

Dressing Down

The majority of bridesmaid dresses are currently chiffon over one or two layers of lining fabric.  These can be ‘dressed down’ for office wear by adding fabric belts, clunky jewelry, casual shoes, a contrasting scarf around the neck or in the hair, mini sweaters and very light makeup.

Donate!

Finally, if it is just too much in terms of cost, or time and trouble, and you feel you haven’t found what to do with your old bridesmaid dress consider donating your dress to an organization that provides fancy dresses to girls for proms in low income areas such as www.donatemydress.org.