Hey! Hey you!
Don't look around, computer lady. I'm talking to you. (Oh wow, this is just like TRON!) Don't have that "oh hell no," I mean "oh heck no," look on your face, 'cause you know me.
That's right. You would have TOTALLY, like TO THE MAX, made me when you were in junior high school, but your sewing skills just weren't up to it. You were, like, too lame. You didn't think you'd be able to pull off all these buttons and flounces, so you just didn't try. Bet you're sorry now, huh? There could be tons of pictures of you wearing this dress, only in toothpaste green! That would be *awesome*!
Also, I'm pretty sure you also had one of these lace hair excrescences! Aren't they, just, too cool? Add an armful of rubber bracelets and we can hit the dance, no problem.
[Today's pattern — and sale — from Jen at MOMSPatterns, who is also having a sale. Friday through Monday at Midnight (EDT), May 31, 2010, save 20% off of your orders by using coupon code 'hotdog' when you check out! This story was also inspired by her, as she's heading to an 80's party this weekend …]
A Dress A Day 
This pattern gets an A+ for honesty: here are the drawings that make it look like it could be a cute, perky bride’s maid dress, but then here’s the acutal version made of polished cotton where the ruffles are limp and the neckline is poking into your throat.
Seriously, I would have totally made View C in high school. But not white, a coordinating color with the bottom. Groovy.
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“Excrescences”…?
I simply must use that in a sentence sometime today, or better yet, this week-end (I’m having some people over for dinner on Saturday night – this will be a good test to see if they’ll ever want to come back!). 😉
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We can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
Because your friends dont dance
And if they dont dance
Well they’re no friends of mine….
I never had a pattern get a song stuck in my head, until now 🙂
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I had a dress with ruffles exactly like that. The style was a little different (and it was store bought) but from the waist down, identical. I wore it with my earrings that looked like zipper pulls and a side ponytail with a ribbon made of all different colors of curly ribbon. Gag me with a spoon.
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This is not unlike the dress mom made me for my first communion, except it was v-neck, and sleeveless, I think. I DEFINITELY had a matching eyelet fluffy hair thingy. I’ll have to dig up a picture! 🙂
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Very vintage … fantastic.. we love vintage
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Y’know… rubber bracelets are sadly back in style with the teenie bopper set.
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Had to look up “excrescences”–and I’m glad I did! What a delightful (and useful!) word to know.
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Guilty as charged. I think I DID make that in high school– only worse! No buttons (you are sooooooo right about the button-hole intimidation factor– my mum’s old Singer’s button-hole attachment was/is TERRIFYING!) = looked even more like a nightgown.
I wore it with PRIDE (and pointy white flats or black Jellies!), though! 🙂
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Wait three years and you will start seeing these things again. In different fabric and just looking at the photo got my own wheels spinning. I don’t think the dress is so bad but then I am a child of the 80’s.
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I see someone mentioned a zipper earring in a comment above. Well, they’re coming back! I started wearing one of my cousin’s from the 80’s and now they’re popping up everywhere.
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You forgot BANANA hairclips!! It used to be my ambition to be able to wear one of those… they always fell out though cos my hair was not thick enough 😦
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In less than 24 hours, I’m met with Tron (not the new Tron, but the original Tron). Huh? Well yesterday, my partner and I were sifting through old movie posters (well not that old – from the 80s) in Bordeaux, France. What does he find and have to buy but a Tron poster in French.
Hmmm… coincidence? Perhaps not
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You 80s kids are simply going to have to go through the cringefest we 70s kids have been going through for the past 5 years or so. I’m sorry, but I remember maxi skirts (late elementary) and low-rider jeans (junior high) and Annie-Hall-inspired big sloppy shirts with tiny vests on top the first time around – they were ugly then, they’re ugly now.
So, some schadenfreude for me watching the next age cohort cringe….. Has anyone seen the Jennifer Garner movie “13 Going on 30”? 80s fashions….
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I made a similar dress in high school, although it zipped up the back instead of buttoning up the front. The fabric was a white polished cotton with large pale pastel flowers. Oh, the 80s were so much fun! I bet I still have the pattern around, although I can’t imagine why!
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A tiny little calico print, like in mustard yellow and tan, would give the blue version a strange, semi “Little House on the Prairie” effect. There was one religious mom at school who always tried to sew her daughter somewhat modern, but modest, clothes when I was in junior high. A lot of them came out looking like this.
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Yes, totally. I came across a pair of harem pants I made (and wore) in high school the other day. Whoa, nelly.
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The lace excrescence made my day. Next international dress day needs to feature excrescenses.
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I totally have that dress, in a strapless style, in my closet. I wore it to prom in 1990. Polished cotton with big pink roses.
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This picture is poking at something deep within my memory, but I can’t figure out what. I’m pretty sure I never actually had or wore this dress, but maybe I eyed a similar pattern when trying to come up with something to make for this year’s 4-H Fashion Revue.
Wait a minute … I am starting to remember a pink dress with buttons and a ruffle. Wow. How did you do that?
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I had a dress like this in light blue chambray. I wore pale pink tights and went on a date with my now husband in the outfit. I thought I looked so cute with my spiral curls in my hair. hahah
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HA! I totally had, like three of those dresses. And I wore them with ankle boots and two pairs of contrasting layered socks.
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Don’t make fun! I was super bitchin’ cute when I wore that dress when I was 7!
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Ha! I just have to comment. My mom made this dress for me to wear to my grade 8 graduation ceremony. In *ahem* toothpaste green. With ruffles at the neck and flutter sleeves. (I remember her muttering to herself, cursing my pattern choice while she was sewing…) I wore it with a curled under bob and fluffy bangs, AND set it off with perforated white pointy toe flats. 😀
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EPIC LOLZ!
Erin, thank you for this post–it, like, totally made my day-like, y’know?
This is my first time back to ADAD in many months (bad reader!), and I’m delighted to find the Pattern Heckling feature. Now I know my mom and I aren’t the only ones who get snarky about some of the pictures we see on pattern envelopes. 🙂
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