Reimagining Vintage: A Dress Reborn
Three Upcycled Designs from a Single 1970s Garment
In a blink of an eye, November 2024 is ending soon. The Remake x KQED fashion show, happening on November 14th at San Francisco’s iconic Ferry Building, was a smash success. Representing textile upcycling movement in a sold-out event attracting 500 people was a big honor, and I hope to experience such fashionable and purposeful events in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’m grateful to the Remake Bay Area chapter for inviting me to be part of this fashion show.
For this issue, I’d like to shine a spotlight on three garments I showcased during the show. While the garments will look familiar to you, you might not realize that all three originated from one vintage dress.
The Remake’s Walk Your Values fashion show is a running series. To date, the New York chapter made it happened twice, the latest one during NYFW in September. The November 14th show marks the inaugural Walk Your Values show in the Bay Area, and I am really grateful to be part of this historic event.
To commemorate this celebration of sustainable fashion in the Bay Area, the Remake team created a lookbook, showcasing all outfits shown during the November 14th fashion show. So even if you couldn’t go to the in-person event, don’t despair - here’s the lookbook for your perusing pleasure!
It completely covers everyone in the production team, and it’s really awesome to see everyone getting acknowledged for their hard work and dedication to bring this initiative to life. So when we saw almost everyone in the lookbook gathered in-person at the same place and same time during the fashion show, it feels downright surreal.
I’d like to give special shout-outs to my three dresses, who supported me wholeheartedly during the model fitting sessions and the fashion show backstage: Meggie, the first ever Fafafoom Studio intern, as well as Mariette and Becca, whom I connected with via Conscious Fashion Collective (CFC).
Speaking of CFC, I am very thankful for the community Elizabeth and Stella managed to cultivate there. If not for the collective, I wouldn’t be able to meet Mariette and Becca easily, let alone enlist their help to make my participation in the Remake fashion show a success. Thank you, CFC!
Check out my Conscious Fashion Collective feature, titled “How Fashion can be a Medium for Climate Action.” Thank you Stella Hertantyo for the interview!
Now, let’s get to the main topic of this issue! Back in 2018, I received a beautiful 1970s wedding dress from my then-neighbor. She specifically wanted to give the dress to someone who would extend its lifespan.
We lost contact shortly afterwards, but I hope if she happened to stumble upon this newsletter, she’d recognize the dress she gave me, and is feeling some kind of happiness that her wish is respected.
It’s a custom shift dress with beautiful embellished sleeves and lace trims around the shoulders and neckline, designed to fit the 5’2” tall wearer. The bottom half of the dress had the same motif as the sleeves, with the hemline around the wearer’s ankles for easy mobility.
On November 14th, three outfits originated from this dress graced the runway:
So how did one 1970s wedding dress become three upcycled garments? Well, let me tell you.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Fafafoom Studio Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.