On The Mend.

voltee ♦ January 28, 2013 ♦ 2 Comments

Item: Blouse Color/Fabric: Bluish/greenishness, silk Designer: Elie Tahari Where Purchased: Last Call Neiman Marcus Years Owned: 4

Tonight, I would like to get some feedback about a little project I’ve been working on. This blouse is something I picked up using one of my most favored shopping methods, “The Rescue.” The Rescue is dangerous. There’s no guarantee of a positive outcome. I could, in all likely-hood, end up ruining a nearly perfectly good piece of clothing.
But I almost never do.
Here’s what happens:
I find a beautiful garment that has a few minor flaws. Perhaps a ripped seam. Perhaps a gaping hole. Perhaps a few missing beads. Perhaps all buttons are missing.
And a few times, there is a mystery. Sometimes, the garment is a jumbled mess. There are straps crossed, and linings inverted, and it is unclear to most rational beings what, exactly the garment actually is. Dress? Capelet? Blouse? Snood?
Then I swoop in, the Nancy Drew of fashion, to save the day and the clothing!
Usually, I have great fun trying to mend what I found. And usually, I am beyond pleased with the result.
This blouse, however, has given me many problems.
I discovered it, neglected and abused, stuffed sadly into a rack of other fashion misfits at Last Call:Neiman Marcus (my favorite place to execute The Rescue. You can read another Rescue tale here).
It was a mystery piece- so abused that it was beyond recognition. The major flaw was that the left side was almost entirely tangled and trapped in the zipper. and it had a large tear in the chiffon overlay in the bodice.
But I loved the color, and am not one to shirk from a challenge. So it came into my happy home.
It took me a long, tedious time, to get the delicate silk out of the zipper. Then I tried just a few stitches in the bodice, but it just wouldn’t lay right.
And so, I made a regrettable error. I tried fabric glue.
To disastrous result.

It’s not ruined! I told myself. Surely, you can still wear it- the ties will cover up the awful fabric glue remnants!
Surely!
And so, I gave it a shot. One would think that I might try a kind venue, a show, or a small gathering, to test my handiwork. But, no. I dreamed big. I wore it on a shift at Next Boutique.
Working there is like being under a giant style microscope. A Stylescope!
I don’t know what I was thinking.
I felt so awkward and awful, like when I wore a raspberry beret to the first day of sixth grade.
The beret, though, was easy to take off. The blouse, I was stuck with.
Yes, the ties do cover the mended area. On Trixie. Who does not move or breathe.
When I moved, breathed, spoke above a dull whisper, the delicate chiffon shifted, revealing my fabric glue error in all its hideousness.
I know Tim Gunn would have told me to make it work. I just couldn’t. My self-esteem is a tight-rope walker with a broken pole.
Well. My shame was so great that I never wore it again.
Tonight, though, I decided to take one last stab at the rescue. Because I know that I have the power to save this lovely blouse, hidden somewhere deep within me!
I cut away the fabric blue, and stitched it all the way up. Like so:

I tried it on, and turned, and bent over, and danced a few steps. And, I think, I felt no waiver of confidence! What do you think? A successful Rescue at last?