DRESS RECONSTRUCTION | ALTERING AN OLD MERMAID GOWN

By Athina Angliongto - 10:43:00 AM



I have always been a certified kuripot. Not because I don’t have money (ugh, okay sometimes that’s the case) but because I know there are multiple ways to save money. When I planned my wedding last year, I honestly didn’t want to have a pre-nup/engagement as mentioned in my PREVIOUS POST. But I went with it anyway.

So of course, one of the main questions would be “What should I wear?”. For my pre-nup pictorial, I had a budget set out already, but I still wanted to save. Good enough, I was able to think of a brilliant idea.

DRESS RECONSTRUCTION – actually, I have been doing this since I was in high school. Dress reconstruction, or alteration, means making new wearable clothing out of an old outfit. I have done this with my mom’s old dresses before and that’s what I did with a gown I wore the previous year.

This is a Red Mermaid Cut Gown designed by Maizy Coleen when I competed in the Ms. Chinabank 2014 pageant. That gown was just hidden in my closet until I decided to reconstruct it and turned it into two new pieces of clothing.

What I had done was remove the bottom tulle part of the gown and had it made into a skirt (500 pesos for the alteration). The skirt was used in our Picnic Prenup photos wherein I paired it with a Navy Blue Blouse.


As for the rest of the dress, I asked my suki seamstress to add a chiffon flowy and longer skirt and make it a long gown (I only paid 500 pesos for the alteration). This was used in another prenup set which was shot in Malita, Davao del Sur.


There you have it - two pieces of clothing from an unused gown. I spent a total of P 1,000 to have it altered. That is a big chunk of savings versus spending for a new skirt and a whole new gown. Oh by the way, renting (decent) long gowns cost way more than P 1,000 so this way was definitely cheaper.


If you have old gowns lying around at home, I suggest you have it reconstructed too and have it made into new outfits that you can use in the future. It certainly worked for me.

Credits to Accredo Amor Productions for my Engagement Photos.

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