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Courtney Smith uses The Zip Yard’s Vintage restyling service

Top Fashion Stylist Courtney Smith has long been a customer of ours here at The Zip Yard.

She always has some eclectic and unique pieces to revamp, restyle or even mend (like Courtney’s favourite piece, a vintage animal print kimono which we regularly repair invisibly for her here in South Anne Street: Read about it Here

Courtney is a girl after our own hearts here at the Zip Yard as she is a lover of vintage and is forever looking for a bespoke piece that no one else has. But as Courtney and any of us that have shopped vintage before know, the styles of yesteryear can sometimes be incredibly hard to pull off. Think puffy 80’s sleeves, acres of extra voluminous fabric, huge boxy shoulder pads and awful detailing like brassy tacky buttons. Vintage can be gorgeous, but it’s rarely perfect off the peg (which is part of its charm) so you really need to have a good eye and most of all a great team of Restylers (ahem, that would be us!) to bring the cut of the garment up to date and make it a modern-vintage gem.

Courtney definitely has that eye for a great vintage piece and has a great vision for the potential an outfit can have after it has been redesigned in a new way. So when she came in to us in South Anne Street with this glorious lemon yellow 1980’s dress from vintage shop of the moment Folkster, we were immediately excited by its potential. Even though the piece was originally quite voluminous and swamped Courtney’s petite frame, the colour was amazing on her and her vision for what the dress could be was something we could all see. Plus we love a challenge!

After hearing what ideas Courtney had in mind we settled on creating a really cool two-piece outfit. We separated the dress into a high-waisted voluminous midi skirt with a cute narrow waistband made from excess fabric taken from the hem, and made the top into a sleeveless cropped blouse with a plunging open-lapel neckline. The result was a fab bespoke design that brought a vintage 80’s party dress to 2014 wedding guest attire. We don’t know where that dress began (wouldn’t we love if we could see a photo of it being worn back in the 1980’s?) but we certainly can see where it has ended up, with a new lease of life in a fashionista’s wardrobe… all thanks to Courtney Smith and The Zip Yard!

Come see us in The Zip Yard stores nationwide for a consultation on any vintage pieces you may have even if you have no clue what they can become. That’s what we are here for! We can advise you as to what alterations will make a vintage piece flattering for you and redesign a piece from start to finish and make it vintage-modern fabulous!