TRIED ON MY PROM DRESS AND IT GOT A LOT OF VIEWS SO NOW (OBVIOUSLY) I'M DAYDREAMING ABOUT BEING A WEDDING DRESS DESIGNER (AGAIN)

That title was a mouthful and a half wasn't it? Anyway, I posted a tiktok the other day (months ago) about the prom dress that I made when I was 16 (another one of my hyperfixations). It was taking up room at my parents house so they brought it over and I thought, hey, this would be a cool thing to try on for a tiktok! Anyway, the tiktok is currently 760k views which is the most views I've ever got on anything ever and its a bit overwhelming. I made a response video but before I did that I started writing this blog post and then promptly forgot about it. Now its been two months and I'm back to finish writing and perhaps even publish it- wow!

In the tiktok I recalled how a tutor at uni had laughed at me when I divulged the inside thoughts I had about wanting to be a wedding dress designer like Vivienne Westwood (I also expressed that in an ideal world I'd like to do McQueen-esque shows) I knew when I confessed to it that it was cringey (some people commented that its entirely normal to have cringey thoughts like this so thank you to those people. Is it like the fashion show version of when you pretend to be britney spears when you're home alone?) You see, my tutor asked where I saw myself in ten-fifteen years time and I gave an honest answer to which my tutor very much gave me the, 'ahhh, delusional 18 year old wants to be Vivienne Westwood' look and proceeded to tell me that I needed to calm down a bit and that, that wasn't realistic. They were probably right, but the brief interaction certainly made me feel awful. Afterwards I realised that to get by on the course I was going to have to let go of some of my precovieved ideas of who I wanted to be as a designer and focus on what would allow me to pass course, which was to design the same sorts of ready to wear collections as everyone else (because no sane person can research, design, sample, toile and sew five ball gowns in eight weeks) which quickly ended up with me losing interest in designing all together, and then I dropped out. I'm sure the undiagnosed ADHD probably had something to do with it too (not that I'm diagnosed - I'm on the dreaded 5 year waiting list) but by then I'd moved onto the next hyperfixation- being an 'influencer', whatever that means.

Of the 2336 comments (what), at least half of them were encouraging me to become a wedding dress designer out of spite lol. Its been really quite flattering! The other commentors want me to turn the back of the dress into a lace up corset back with modesty panel because the zip broke, which ideally is what I was planning to do anyway its just I've never had much luck with eyelets, they always end up falling out and leaving horrible tears in the fabric so I'm scared I'm going to ruin it. I'll have to practice first. My mom said she still has the rest of the fabric so shes going to bring it over so then I can make a modesty panel too, yay! 

I do still think about being a wedding dress designer sometimes. I've recently had my sewing machine serviced and after the tiktok got so much attention I moved it into the hallway so that now I have to look at it everytime I walk past. I even made a renaissance style corset pattern - its sat on the side of the machine waiting for me to cut it out to see if I got it right or not.

Since I posted the tiktok (sorry I know this is dragging now) I've spent the last two months fretting over whether or not I should start sewing again, thinking, 'oh god, now I have to make something really impressive!' or else, ':O I'm a wedding dress designer now and I have customers to make happy!' which is not true. I have not made a single thing. One very nice comment said 'you can pick it up again whether you share it with us or not.' which I think put things into persepctive. It probably didn't help that currently there is a ton of tiktok wedding dress designer drama going on - IYKYK. I certainly would never want to be in that position!

Anyway, I thought I'd post some photos of the dress. You may notice that this is after the zip popped open haha. I'm not sure when I'm going to fit sewing in between renovating the kitchen, writing a book and trying to do some painting (I haven't painted anything since march 2023) Oooh! Maybe I'll reopen my print store. Yes, that makes sense.