Tons of _______ Sequins: an Experiment. Turning an Old Dress Into Something Fabulous (with Accessories)

I was commissioned by a friend to design her DJ’ing outfit. Her only requirement was that it incorporate some sequins.

Step 1: Inspiration

To me, sequins+dancing = glam, so I started looking for some inspiration from David, Ney and Freddie. Liberace was also a very glittery person. I didn’t know that before I started looking into all of this. What a weird dude.

I was also listening to a lot of Caetano at the time, specifically, the fur album. . .

I didn’t think I could design anything close to what those people wore, but, you know, inspiration. . .

Step 2: Ingredients

In the end, the ingredients used were:

- 1 old sequin dress
- 1 pair of tights
- 1 sequin tube-top
- 1 yard of fake fur

Step 3: Sequins

I started by cutting the dress along the back. It had a zipper that ran most of the way down, and the rest was just cut. I also removed the shoulder pads.

I then undid and removed the sleeves. I just cut them off, being careful to leave some of the sequined detail that was around the shoulder area, and to serge the seams to keep the sequins from falling out.

My original idea was to make some kind of cape-vest, but once someone pointed out these detailed parts to me, and I noticed the clasp on the back of the dress, I decided to go for a full-on cape.

I tucked in the shoulder flaps, sewed the sleeve holes shut, and reinforced the threads holding the clasp to the fabric. Cape !!

Step 4:

I then made what looked like a fur pillow case, and attached it to the back of the cape (what used to be the front of the dress). It’s somewhat large for a collar and can almost double as a hood.

London can be very cold in the winter, specially for Brazilians.

Step 5: Arm Warmers

I took the fabric from the sleeves and sewed them back into tubes. I then gave these tubes some thumb holes, and intuitively and iteratively shaped them into something that looked like gloves and arm warmers.

I also added some elastic bands around the open ends to prevent them from sliding down and bunching up towards the hands.

Step 6: Assembly and Testing

Quite possibly the most important part of any engineering project is stress testing. This was done by dancing to a mix of Queen, Bowie and Secos e Molhados for about 20 minutes. Nothing came undone.