Mumu turned sundress--not as bad as it sounds

Mumu turned sundress--not as bad as it sounds

• 7.13.2010

Trust me, it's not as bad as it sounds.  I've been seeing a lot of cute retro-ey prints, simple dark colors with little roses or whatever, made into trendy and current sundresses. To me they look sooo 90's and kind of boring, unless they look like what I call "First season of Friends dresses," but with the right natural waistline and cute details, they can be really nice.

From ModCloth:

And some similar ideas from Anthro:

So when I saw this mumu at Goodwill Outlet, I thought it had potential!

It's almost vintage itself... no serging, little faded, vintage typeface on "Made in Hawaii" tag...

I'm not 100% sold on the print, or the retro 80s/90s print dress thing anyway, but I figured it was worth a shot when I spend $1.19/lb to buy the mumu that was my fabric.  I had a vintage early 1980s Butterick pattern that was a simple dress look that I thought might work, so I added some elastic thread ruching at the waist and will not wear feathered hair with it to update the look.  But I cut up the mumu and turned it into this!

It's an almost 100% recycled dress, since I did buy new navy buttons, the cheap kind on the card of 6.  I thought about using red but didn't have a fabric swatch with me to match the color... kind of wish I had anyway, though, to make them pop.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a tutorial on how I like to cut apart old vintage pieces and make them into dresses, like my pants-dress, men's shirt-dress and this mumu-dress!