Zombie Dress Part 2

In the last part I made the zombie dress. In this one I destroy the dress.

I started by fading the dress in a bleach solution. It took about 30 minutes to get a slightly aged faded look:

 

The left is the original fabric and the right is the bleached fabric. My next step was to distress the fabric.  I didn't want to make too many holes because it's best to start out small so you don't over do it.

I used pinking shears to mangle the hem. I like pinking shears because they will control the fraying.  Since I'll be dancing and sweating in this dress I'll want to be able to wash it often, and I don't want it to fall apart more each time.

I also made a couple tears in the bottom of the skirt.  I don't want to expose too much skin - because exposed skin has to be covered with makeup - so I tried to limit the holes to the lower part of the skirt.

My favorite distressing tool is my apple corer - I've never actually used it to core an apple - I bought it to make the Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes.  It has a lovely serrated end that I dragged across the fabric to create little holes.

 

Next I tea-stained the dress in a combination of tea, an instant cappuccino pack, and some espresso grounds (I used what I had so I wouldn't have to go out, but I wouldn't recommend the espresso grounds since they never dissolve and you have to deal with them when rinsing afterward. An instant coffee or espresso would've been easier).

 

The tea-stain gives the dress an overall dingy look. One nice thing about making something ugly is that you don't have to worry about even coverage. Normally when dying you need to stir a lot to make sure the color is even. But because it's supposed to be dirty looking you don't have to stir too much because a mottled effect looks more like dirt. Dirt and dinginess happen inconsistantly.

The tea-stain is subtle too. This is after about an hour of boiling (it was actually dirtier looking than in the picture).

My next step was to add dinginess with regular Rit Dye.  I started with Cocoa Brown and dipped about 8" of the bottom of the skirt and the collar in.  The Cocoa Brown works fast, but also looks a lot like dried blood. Since I don't want to look like I died in a bloody massacre I followed up with a similar dip in Navy Blue and then an ink solution.

Note: I washed the dress in the sink with detergent after each step (bleaching, tea-staining, dyeing).

I love the dinginess on the bottom of the skirt. I think I might do a little more to stain the rest of the dress, especially the edges of the collar. I'd like to distress it and darken it some more.

I'm wearing my tutu from my Zombie Ballerina costume under the dress as a petticoat. It works pretty well, but I might see if I can find an actual one instead. I'll probably also dye some pantyhose so I don't have to put make up on my legs.

Once I have the dress finished and get all zombified I will post more pictures.