How to Cut Apart an Old Dress

Video Transcript

My name is Julia Barbee, and my clothing line is Frocky Jack Morgan. On behalf of Expert Village, this is a tutorial on recycling and deconstructing old clothes. So you might find a garment that you like parts of but you need to take it apart, and that’s what we’re going to do today. You might find a prom dress or a suit that you want to take apart. This happens to be a wedding dress, because that’s what I typically do. I like the shape of it, but I don’t like the sleeves, and I like the style but maybe not the embellishments. So we’re just going to rip it apart. So first of all, I think I’m going to take the sleeves off, and you could use a seam ripper if you wanted to, but I kind of like raw edges, so I typically just cut things. I’m going to cut the sleeves off and I might even leave some of the lining to kind of shred later. I just really like a raw look to my things. You might want something a little more clean and tailored, and you’re welcome to use a seam ripper if you prefer. And part of this process is divorcing yourself from the garment and not being too precious with it. I usually find that the braver I get, the better it is, so I’m pretty willing to rip whatever I don’t like off. And I might even just use brute force and rip it off without any scissors at all. I don’t like bows very much, so I usually take those off first. I typically don’t like machine made lace either, I like antique lace. So that is often the next thing to go. A lot of times if you don’t feel like cutting, ripping is a pretty efficient way to take things off. And I actually think it looks pretty cool sometimes. I guess you have to consider how fragile the garment is as well. Sometimes I bleach wedding dresses, and that can really weaken the fabric, so I might end up ripping something that I wish I hadn’t. So I’m not always this brutal, but sometimes it can be a little fun, get out some of your aggression.

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