One day back in early March I was strolling around Gare du Nord in Paris, waiting for a friend to get in from London. I wound up coming up on a shop selling reused goods, and in a bin on the street I found the most fabulous vintage duvet cover. I mean, this is the kind of fabric we all dream about, right? Now, it was freezing cold and I was living out of a 32 L backpack, but I HAD to have this fabric. And it HAD to be a sundress. I wore it with tights and a tan long sleeved shirt for a loooong time.
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So the duvet was €3. I bought thread and elastic at another street market in a town near Limoges for €1,80. So the dress cost about $7! Now here’s the tricky part: I had to sew it all by hand! I’d never sewn something like this by hand, and all those stitches across the bodice for the elastic…. Well, what else was I going to do?!
This dress has been a great souvenir. The materials are all from France, and I remember details of each purchase. I remember doing that green stitching on the skirt while on a train from Barcelona to Madrid. I got those awesomely comfortable shoes that look great with the dress in Munich. I now I can wear it in New Orleans!
The pockets match up with the skirt pattern, so they don’t stand out. They are the perfect size for holding a beer bottle, leaving you free to wave your hands up in the air if you happen to attend a student festival in Krakow… just in case!
These pictures were taken in September at the Old Spanish Fort on Bayou St. John in New Orleans.