Love that skirt, but it’s too short? Add length without it looking added-on (We’ll even add style!). Here’s how.
Being frum moms of growing teenagers (and who are we kidding, moms often need to lengthen clothing too!), we often need get super creative when adding length to a dress or skirt. Whether you want to either give new life to clothing that’s gotten too short…or nabbed a great deal and want to make it work. Or…perhaps one of you is a mom of a really tall teen and simply has difficulty finding enough clothing that’s the right length. There is so much you can do! Here are some ideas that might be helpful to you.
Note – Some clothing manufacturers send strips of fabric to stores. Love a dress but it’s too short? It doesn’t always pay to alter, but it doesn’t hurt to ask a store if the company has supplied matching fabric.
Have a basic white solid dress that’s too short? Use different colored ribbons to add some life to the dress. This dress was purchased for $50 so although the price of grosgrain ribbons can add up, at the end, the dress was still a great price after purchasing the ribbons and adding in the tailoring costs.
Mixed fabrics and layers are so much easier to lengthen creatively. Instead of adding another ruffle or layer at the bottom, consider adding a strip of fabric before the ruffle.
Using the same method in the black skirt above, the lace here was added between the ruffles. Using a similar texture lace (although it’s a different design, it still makes the addition seem seamless).
Sometimes it’s hard to find the perfect color. So you just find a fabric that works with the existing color, like shown here. The bottom of this dress is a grey material with a blue sparkle. It looks like the dress was designed this way.
Instead of adding one color ribbon to the bottom, we used a second thin color to edge it off and make it seem less added-on, and more part of the style.
Adding white cotton is easy and not an eyesore. Dresses that have a collar, a cuff made out of white material (usually cotton) do well with a white addition for length too. And matching white cotton is usually relatively easy.
When adding to a dress where the addition is not touching the original fabric, you get a bit more leeway with the color. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You can see in the closeup here how it’s not a perfect match, but it works really well, regardless.
|