Tunic fix

 

 

Recently I bought a lot of 5 tunics on eBay for 10 dollars.

They were all in some state of disrepair, but only the blue one was so damaged that I didn't feel it was worth repairing.

The other four were subjected to varying amounts of tailoring, and I can now say I'm the proud owner of 4 beautiful 2.50$ tunics (one of them is long enough to be considered a dress)! While I've always enjoyed having a few extra-long shirts for wearing over leggings, I can now say that tunics are a staple in my wardrobe!

It's clear from the construction of these that they were probably cheaply produced, and somewhat the worse for wear (even after my repair job), but they are made of such luxury-looking materials and with such luxury-looking ornamentation, I rarely fail to get a compliment when wearing one. Today's tunic earned an "I love your dress...thing!" 

It was actually one of the simpler fixes on the list.

Some of the seams were frayed on the inside (probably should have been overlocked) and were coming open, so I had to fix those.

The fit wasn't that flattering, so I decided to take in the waist. Since the fabric is woven and not stretchy, I had to come up with a solution that would allow me to pull the already-small tunic over my head and then fix the waist to fit. I chose to do this with a simple ribbon tie.

Side-ties are a fixture in one-size-fits-all clothing, and seemed to be extremely popular a decade or two ago. Many of the fashion blogs I read deride these features as unflattering or simply outmoded, but I love them because they are easy to install and easy to adjust to fit you perfectly.

For this tunic, I kept things really simple by inserting a safety pin on the inside of the side seam so that only a 1/4-inch length of metal showed on the outside.

In the space between this metal strip and the fabric of the garment, I threaded a pink satin rope with beads on the ends. (I remember exactly where it came from—it was a decorative belt that came with a pair of shorts I bought sometime around my high school graduation!)

I then did the same to the other side, using the other end of the satin rope. 

Now I can pull the rope to adjust the waist and tie it to keep it in place!