UPcycled Wedding Dress Competition

Thank you to all the creative ladies for entering the competition and thanks to you all for voting. The winners were announced at Dwell with the top three entries gracing the 'green' carpet.

Winner - Terri Anne McPherson

modelled by Aeron and our MC (and Aeron's dad Phil).

People's Choice - Janine Agett

modelled by Portia

Runner up (in both categories) - Sophie Salvesani

modelled by Kate

The stories behind the dresses:

In conjunction with Cassie of Cassandra's Closet, Bec of Cultiver (and Little Brown Dog) decided to run a little UPcycling competition for Dwell.

The premise - take one pre-loved wedding (or formal) dress, sourced from an op shop or rescued from the back of a cupboard and transform and reinvent it for a modern audience.

The winning entry will be chosen by a panel of local design and arts focussed folks and we're also offering a people's choice award which is where you come in -  we want your votes. You could make your choice based on the garment that most appeals to you or if you prefer you could judge each garment against the competition guidelines (below) and make your decision that way. When creating their garments entrants were asked to:

• Demonstrate practical skill and ingenuity - use a unique approach or process to turn the discarded dress into something fresh and wearable.
• Show sound design ideas.
• Create a garment that extends the life of the dress.

To vote you can either come in store, check out the dresses 'in the flesh' and leave your vote in the box at the counter or you could leave a comment below with your chosen winner. We will accept one vote only per person. VOTING CLOSES SATURDAY 25TH AUGUST.

#1 - Anita Gosden

Anita used her own wedding dress from 1991 to create her entry. First she unpicked the sleeves and dyed them with coffee and beetroot and made them into fingerless gloves. The tulle was dyed first with tea, but unhappy with the resulting colour Anita then over dyed with cochineal to get the whimsical pinky grey. The satin underskirt from the original dress was 'hacked off' and made into the bubble underskirt, trimmed with vintage lace. The bodice was trimmed with vintage pompom edging and three longer pieces of the dyed tulle were added to the back. To complete the piece a vintage necklace was sewn to the neckline with the matching earrings added to the gloves to hang just over the ring finger and finally 'sporadic bling' was stitched to the rest of the garment. 

#2 - Janine Aggett

The original dress was found at Red Cross. Janine selected it as she wanted a basic shell to work with. The first thing she did was to remove the diamonte's, then shorten the dress. 

Janine had accumulated a collection of vintage neckties and covered buttons over many years but never quite found the right project for their use. She had always wondered, where did they come from? And as soon as she saw the dress, a vision popped into her head. She wanted the ties and buttons to be the focus of this garment. Again this is why she wanted the shell of the dress to be basic - to draw the eye to focus upon the embellishment's, for the brain to ponder the history of the numerous fellows who sported these ties around their necks, and the fashions of the women who's buttons had survived the test of time.

#3 - Jacquie Keeble

The original garment was passed down to Jacquie from an Aunt. The Aunt had married in the 1940s and her outfit contained an exquisite piece of lace which Jacquie used as the main feature of the dress.

Sticking with a neutral colour palette Jacquie made a light weight skirt from cotton and chiffon and attached this to the lace bodice to create a contemporary fantasy gown, finished off with a floral headband and floral feature set to the side of the waist.

#4 - Terri-Ann McPherson

Terri found the original dress at the Fernvale IGA, which was used as a flood recovery centre in January 2011. Terri, who's family had been terribly effected by the flood, picked up the dress with the idea of using it for her own wedding. She later ended up buying a new wedding dress, so when she heard of the competition she decided she wanted to use this dress and give it a new look. 

The dress was dip dyed, top and bottom with 'bahama blue' dye. Terri originally intended to add a black belt with a large bow to the waist but after some playing around with ideas she decided instead to use pearls and beads from vintage necklaces which she hand-stitched onto the waist line. She also randomly sewed pearls and beads to the skirt and veil. And then, she started going through her vintage button collection and got very excited stitching buttons onto the dress to finish up with a garment which developed from a classical style to what Terri calls a 1950s 'outer space' dream.

#5 - Sophie Salvesani

Sophie found the original dress at the Lupus Op Shop, Indooroopilly. She selected it specifically as it fits her perfectly. To modernise this garment she first cut the dress to knee length, then trimmed it with lace from the bottom of the original dress. She then attached gathered black netting to the bottom of the skirt lining along with white netting from the original petticoat. Two black panels of lining material from a second hand skirt were added to either side of the dress and twelve eyelets were attached, then threaded with lace taken from the original dress.

To finish off the dress, Sophie removed the six roses from the shoulders and sewed black ribbon into four of them, then added two strips of black material to each shoulder and sewed a reworked rose into the centre of each. To complete the outfit, a second hand straw hat was decorated with a thrifted black hairpiece and two of the reworked roses and a draw string bag was constructed from dyed petticoat fabric and embellished with beading from the train.

#6 - Jen Bonnett

This dress was donated to Cultiver by Anita especially for the Wedding Dress Competition. Cultiver offered it up on facebook and Jen took up the challenge. The new garment is completely different from original, which was Jen's intention from the beginning as she was frustrated with the small size of the dress so created the new piece to suit her own sizing. 

Jen took the original dress apart at the waist, then unpicked the two panels of the skirt before tie dyeing them around stones and screws. Inspired by the traditional Japanese 'waves' or 'scallops' pattern the dyed pieces were cut into circles which were arranged and sewn onto a tie-waist skirt made from dyed curtain lace. To complete the outfit Jen cut and re-sewed a mens t-shirt, giving it a modern silhouette and embellishing it with lace and buttons taken from the original garment. The scarf accompanied the original garment and was also tie-dyed to become Jen's favorite part of the outfit picking up the brilliant blue of the dye and bringing the outfit together.

#7 - Thea White

Thea opted to transform a pre-loved formal dress which she found at the Hospice Bargain Centre. Originally floor length, she has shortened it to cocktail party length then removed one strap to create an asymmetrical bodice and added the black lace detail as either a scarf or a unique shoulder strap.