DIY Fish Scale Dress

Today I bring you the DIY dress seen here!  Inspired from the amazing Antonio Berardi and my life long dream of being a mermaid, this dress reminds me of some sort of magical sea creature. The opalescent leather sequin creates a subtle shimmer and you can really do anything with this technique!

Supplies needed:

a plain dress

strips of leather

nail polish (I used just under 1 bottle)

Scissors and super glue

scrap paper for protecting various objects from super glue!

To create a leather sequin (also seen here) I took strips of leather, spread nail polish on the surface and let it dry.

Next I simply cut out tons of small rectangles and leaf like sequins. How many you need to cut depends on how intricate your design will be.  I found a simple white dress, and I actually turned it backwards before I started creating my design. The shape of the back was a more interesting contrast to the embellishment, but any shape dress will do!

 I thought about the pattern a little bit, but started glueing freehand and let the pattern develop as it went. If that isn’t your thing, draw an outline on a piece of paper before you begin! With a piece of protective paper placed (holy alliteration Batman!) in between the layers of fabric, I began super glueing the leather sequins to the dress. With super glue all you need is a few tiny dots, as the stuff is super powerful (I think I’ve accidentally glued myself to every object in my house now!)

Feel free to play around the sequins, overlapping, only glueing one end of the sequin allowing the other end to hang out in the wind, there is no wrong way to do it! I wore it here with my DIY Chanel cuff and I had so many great compliments (the most flattering was from a 6-year-old! That’s a win in my books!)

Cheers! And Happy DIY-ing!!

Alana

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