I am the queen of bridesmaid dress conversion,lol. I have made five or six costumes out of old dresses including the one in my little picture. It is easy. Hold the skirt up against you and decide where to cut it off. Now sew a casing and add elastic. There you have a new skirt and you didn't even have to hem it. If you ,open a seam and add a slit or too. If the edges are rough, sew on prestringed sequins and finish it off. Now procure a thick, stiff underwire bra (you need something solid to hold all the weight of the fabric and embelishments) Take apart the top of the dress and fiddle with it until you find a way to cover the bra with the pieces. smooth them over the cups first and hand sew onto the inside of the bra, don't worry about a smooth finish on the inside of bra as you will line it. Cover the straps in back too! I usually remove the bra straps and make a halter style strap out of scraps because it looks less braa-y if that makes sense. Now go into your hoard (I know you've got one) and get out all the trims, sequins, old broken earrings you've been saving etc. and start seeing where you could place them. Cover up any rough edges with trim. I use a lot of prestringed sequins for this. Now line with a similar colored fabric ( sometimes i use old t shirts as I like the cotton on my skin)and add a nice fringe and you've finished the bra. now cut a belt the shape you want out of a heavy fabric and further reinforce it with iron on interfacing. Cover that too with pieces left from the top (long sleeve dresses are better this way as they have more fabric. Don't worry if there is a seam here or ther e you can cover that with trim. Embellish like the bra, add fringe, line , sew on closures and you're done. The first one is hard and takes a lot of time, the more you do it the easier it gets. If you are lazy, buy a dress that has sequins or some sort of glittery top on it and just use that to cover the bra and you don't even have to sew on embelishments. To further reduce the cost of each costume I have taken to adding the fringe on a velcro strip so I can move it from one costume to the next. Good luck!

I love to repurpose stuff.

I bought two glitter velvet sheath gowns for $10 each. I cut the neck lower on one and edged the neck with chainette fringe. I used fabric from the other one to make two long gauntlets, headband, and belt with more chainette fringe. The whole thing cost under $50.

I cut the skirt off a cocktail dress and turned it into an over skirt just by adding a new waistband. Then I took part of the sequin covered top and used it as the back of a turkish vest.

Check out the costume goddess www.costumegoddess.com she has some good ideas.

Well here are some of the questions I ask myself when I'm in the thrift store and looking at fancy dresses

Will it fit me? If so, can I use this "as is" with only minor changes? Picture the dress dancing around the floor with a hip belt... Or split into skirt & top.. or with a keyhole neckline and bedlah bra.. perhaps with sleeves removed and beaded gauntlets..

If it won't fit, can I alter it? Things that are too small are harder to repurpose than things that are too big. Skirts can be split into two panels slit to the waist and worn over pants. Sleeves can be removed and used as gauntlets.

Does it have really cool trim or appliques? I've bought cheap clothes just for the trim and decorations.

Is the fabric really cool, and is there enough to re-use? A full skirt can provide enough fabric for pants, a slimmer skirt can yield a top, scraps can cover bras, belts and bands for heads, arms, wrists and ankles. Or even gauntlets.

i bought an 80's beaded dress for 12 bucks and have been working on this people.tribe.net/f90211ba-...95acda3310 bra and belt for a while.

i've also heard that evening gown style dresses (in a similar vein to a beladi dress, but it really is a fancy beaded evening gown) ave been gaining popularity. the Shira.net tribe is a picture of her in such a dress last i checked.