Make a Tie Dye Dress

Tie dye is a fresh addition to fashion this year (check out tie dye in the 2015 resort collections of designers like Alexander Wang and Michael Kors!). It's easy to get a fashion-forward tie dye look when you customize your garments with a one-of-a-kind tie dye treatment, using the Tulip One-Step Tie Dye kit. I bought a white cotton dress at Old Navy and gave it a graphic navy dye job, inspired by the Japanese art of Shibori.

In case you haven't tie dyed in awhile, it has become MUCH easier these days! Find out just how easy...

 

Shibori is a Japanese method of dyeing, that has inspired all of modern tie dye. It is traditionally done with indigo dye, which is different than modern dye used for tie dyeing. For this project, I'm using Tulip's One Step Dye in Navy to emulate the look of indigo without the laborious process.

Supplies Needed:

A white cotton dress

Tulip One-Step Tie Dye Kit in Moody Blues

A plastic shoebox bin or bucket

A plastic trash bag

Zip ties

1. Before you begin, launder your dress according to tag directions, but don't bother drying it.

2. Mix up your Tulip tie dye according to the package directions (fill the bottle to the line with warm, not hot, water, and shake shake shake until the dye powder is completely dissolved). Set it aside while you fold up your dress!

3. For the shibori-inspired folding technique I used on this dress, first fold the dress in half down the middle of the dress. Then fan fold the dress lengthwise so it becomes tall and skinny.

Next, fold the long skinny dress in a fan fold down the length of it so it looks like a rectangular packet. Bind it in a couple of places using zip ties pulled tightly.

4. Cover a plastic shoebox bin (or bucket) with a plastic trash bag. Saturate the dress with the mixed up dye. Cover all the white spots you see -- don't worry, there will be plenty of white space left when you unfold the packet!

5. Seal the saturated dress in the trash bag and set it aside for 12 hours or overnight.

6. The next morning, cut the zip ties, then rinse the dress out until the water runs clear (according to package directions), then launder alone.

Here's my dress, before and after tie dye. It came with a cotton slip that I detached after I tie dyed it. I really like the slip on its own:

The slip would make a great summer slip dress, bathing suit cover up, or just save it to wear it under the main dress.

So get ready to hit the resorts with your very own tie dye dress!