New Paganoonoo design: the "Noel" dress

NEW UPCYCLING INSTRUCTIONS: NOEL DRESS

For those of you who do not already know me, I'm Michelle Paganini and I run an upcycled fashion design company, Paganoonoo.  

Being a Jill-of-all trades, I not only develop upcycled fashion designs and write patterns/instructions, I handle most other aspects of the business too.  

This means spending much of my time doing things other than designing (like writing blog entries.)

Don't get me wrong, I love, love, love what I do.  And, sometimes I need to stop doing administrative type activities and design something new to re-energize myself, regardless of what is on my to-do list.  

This is how the "Noel" design was developed.  One day I craved something new, comfortable (for me a dress), super cute and from my favorite garments for upcycling - men's shirts.

I went in the studio and started draping on my dress form, looking to make something different than my previous designs.  
No pictures taken along the way as I didn't know how it would turn out.   

I LOVE the results!  I find myself wanting to wear this dress every day.  It's comfortable, flattering, feminine.  I love the color blocking and the fact that I used pre-hemmed pieces for most of the color blocking.  
The hem is scalloped because the dress shirt bottoms are curved higher on the sides.  

With the longer pieces in the front about knee high some of the up-curves felt too short for me.

Adding a white sleeveless lace-hemmed summer dress underneath to act as a petticoat makes for an even overall hemline. Perfect!

One bit was really short so it was filled in with lace that's been in my stash since the movie Out of Africa was released, LOL

Super pleased with the results and compliments I received when wearing it out in public, it became clear that this design would be a great addition to the Paganoonoo collection. 

The process of developing written and illustrated upcycling is lengthy (outlined in this post), and begins with making enough prototypes to develop consistent and efficient methods for producing the same results.  


MORE!
See a red holiday version in this post.
See a silver New Years version in this post.






Happy upcycling!

Michelle

Start upcycling today
with already released
Paganoonoo upcycling instructions! 

 To link to other Paganoonoo Social Media
or join the mailing list (never shared!) click here.