I’m not a huge designer brand kind of gal but I do appreciate some of the lovely fabrics, styles and embellishments that designer brands use. I’ve always had a soft spot for Dolce and Gabbana but I’ve recently learnt about some very unethical behaviour and comments they have shared which has turned me off actually buying them. During a recent internet browse, I stumbled upon this dress and I instantly fell in love with it. And then I saw the price. And the brand. Oh bugger. It was a simple summer dress, and about $2700 from Dolce and Gabbana and despite being designer, it was not worth anywhere near what they wanted to charge, at least, it was out of my budget for a simple summer dress. I wanted to grasp the last few days of summer and make my own version of this dress for a fraction of the cost so I set about beginning my challenge.

I want to note it is never ok to blatantly steal other people’s creative work, ideas or intellectual property. Despite Dolce and Gabbana’s lack of ethics, they still don’t deserve to be stolen from. This project is a chance for me to get creative and attempt to make a designer inspired dress within my budget and limitations. This idea is very popular on YouTube and social media as I’ve always enjoyed seeing people make designer or very expensive garments in their own way and within their own budgets. If you need an example of this, just search DIY Strawberry dress and you’ll be flooded with videos of people making the now iconic Lirika Matoshi Strawberry Dress. This isn’t my first garment recreation as I’ve made up vintage reproductions (here and here) before and I have also already sewn a Dolce and Gabbana inspired dress. In the same spirit, I hope to see how close I can make my own version of this dress and tweak it to my own preferences as I go.

The first thing I did was search for material. I knew I wanted some gerbera daisy fabric and although I found some pretty fabrics, the closest one was sold out online before I could get a few meters. I searched for fabric every two weeks for about 4 months before I found a seller on Aliexpress of all places. The fabric was super close to the original Dolce and Gabbana fabric with a few minor differences and was available in chiffon. I messaged the seller asking if they had the same design available in cotton and they did! So they put it on a sales listing for me and I purchased 4 meters very excitedly. I have bought fabric from aliexpress before but I know it can be quite hit or miss. I figured it was worth the gamble and I waited patiently for the fabric to arrive.

Whilst waiting for my fabric to arrive, I spent some time studying the original designer dress. It wasn’t overly fancy or complicated and it reminded me of a dress I recently made for a sewing pattern review. I went back to McCalls 7950 and realised that style C with a slightly altered skirt would be a perfect dupe with a few alterations. I needed a square neckline bodice, thick straps and a plain rectangle skirt with a ruffle edge. The original dress doesn’t have buttons down the front so I will be adjusting the bodice pieces to omit the front button panel and adding a zipper to the centre back instead. This seems to be the only big adjustment I’ll be making as the skirt will be made up of rectangles gathered together. I don’t think this will be an overly complicated dress to make and I’m excited to see how it turns out.

When my fabric arrived a few weeks later, I was pleasantly surprised at the feel, quality and brightness of the print. It looked just like the original … until I look closer. Hidden amongst the gerberas in fine print were the words ‘Dolce & Gabbana’. Oh no, had I just bought fake fabric? I knew the fabric looked similar but now I was worried that this was blatant stealing. There were differences between the original dress fabric and the one I bought so it wasn’t an exact copy but having the designer’s name on it made me nervous to continue with the project. I wasn’t quite sure what to do and after chatting with friends, they assured me if I said I wasn’t trying to make the exact dress and pass it off as an original, I should be fine. So once again, I am making a designer-inspired dress and of course adjusting it to suit me a little more. This also got me thinking, on my last few trips to KL, as I shop for fabric around Chow Kit, many of the fabric stores actually sell official designer fabric from top designer brands such as Fenti, Dolce and Gabbana and even Dior. These are all official vendors many with online stores so I wondered whether this seller, who also had other Dolce and Gabbana-inspired fabrics, was the same kind of deal. I’m not 100% sure at this point but I figured I’d just keep going. All up I had 4 meters of this fabric which should be more than enough for my project.

Sew, let’s get started. Using McCalls 7950 I adjusted the bodice front piece (10) to be placed on the folded edge of my fabric front the patterns marked centre line. As I wouldn’t be adding the front button placard, I didn’t need the bodice front piece to be as wide. The bodice front pieces (11) were cut normally as was the bodice side back pieces (2). For my bodice back piece (1), in order to add room for a zip, I added an extra 1/2 inch to the centre back edge which was more than enough for seam allowance and some later adjust ents. To make this dress a little more fun, I used some scrap orange gingham fabric as lining which gave my dress a fun hidden detail and a chance to save as much fabric for the skirt as possible. I also cut out my shoulder straps which were 4 inches wide and I predicted they would be about 1 1/2 inches when fully made up. For my skirt, I wanted to have one main skirt piece which I made from three fabric panels measuring the fabrics width and 22 inches long, and the ruffle piece which was made up of 6 panels of the fabrics width and 7 inches long. All up, the main skirt piece was about 180 inches/457 cm, and the ruffle turned out to be 360 inches/914 cm. In total, the skirt measured 27 inches long which is my ideal and preferred skirt length.

McCalls 7950 has always been a simple and straightforward pattern to make, the very soft princess seams are super easy to navigate and most of the sewing is done in straight lines. This is a great pattern for beginners and even with the adjustments I made to this pattern, it’s something anyone can do. I’m really glad I had a fun lining option as it added a fun little element to my dress. The only part of the bodice that took a little fiddling were the shoulder straps. The original straps I cut out were from the McCalls pattern (piece 4) and they were a bit too thin for my personal liking which is why I cut out my own at 4 inches in width and once I sewed them together and turned them inside out, they were around 1 1/2 inches wide which was a much better fit. I put my bodice on my mannequin as I adjusted the placement of the straps, tried to keep in mind that they would be sewn into the back of the bodice and overlapping the front with faux buttons holding them down. I wanted them to overlap the front of the bodice by about an inch with enough room for the straps to sit flush against my shoulders. These adjustments took the longest and I changed things around until I was happy; I also kept in my the actual floral pattern on the straps as I wanted the colours to look cohesive and not an awkward dark patch. After a bit of tinkering I sewed the back straps in and finished off my bodice by attaching my lining.

As the original dress I was inspired by had buttons on the end of the shoulder straps, I went on a bit of a button hunt. My own personal button collection is a bit lacking so I found some white and gold vintage buttons on eBay and waited patiently for them to arrive. Once they did, they were absolutely perfect for this project and I couldn’t be happier with them. With some quick hand sewing, the buttons and straps were sewn into place and the bodice was done meaning it was time to turn my attention to the skirt.

This skirt was going to have a lot of gathering so I knew I wanted to use my dental floss gathering method to make it as easy as possible. I started by overlocking the edges of all my skirt pieces to make sure they were sturdy and sealed. I began constructing my skirt by sewing my three main skirt panels together leaving me with a 4 and a half meter long panel, and then I began attaching all 6 panels of my ruffle piece together and I was left with a strip over 9 meters long. Using the seams between my skirt panels as a guide, I made sure to gather two ruffle panel sections into one main skirt panel. This helped me distribute the gathers out evenly and after a bit of fiddling and lots of pinning, I was ready to sew my ruffle to my skirt. There was a lot of sewing in this project so I made sure to keep an eye on the bobbin because no body likes to sew with air especially when you have so much fabric to work with. With the ruffle attached, I used more dental floss to gather the top of the main skirt and with more pinning and adjusting, I sewed it onto my bodice.

With my skirt attached, I was down to finishing off the hem and adding a zip. Having so much fabric in the ruffle, I pushed my ruffles edge through my over locker to serge the edge and then with great patience, folded the edge over and sewed down the hem. This took me quite some time as there was over 9 meters of fabric to get through but armed with some top notch tv viewing (Great British Bake Off anyone?), I got through it with no issues. Having other projects on the horizon with loads of gathers to sew and hem, I have once again started a hunt for a good gathering foot which would fit my Elna machine. So far the search has been fruitless but I’m sure I’ll find something out eventually. Once fully hemmed, and a decent tea break later, I added a zip to the back of the dress and she was done.

With a little patience and some very long sewing stretches, this dress came together and turned out better than I was expecting. Looking at the original inspiration, I love how mine has princess seams instead of darts and my own skirt variation. My skirt is a lot fuller and fluffier than the original which also makes it feel a little more my personal style. With the skirts fullness she is amazing to twirl in which certainly sets her apart from her designer counterpart. If I’m being honest, I’m still a little nervous about the fabric as I can’t guarantee that it wasn’t a blatant knock off. I did contact the original seller and they said it was authentic but you just never know online so please take that with a grain of salt. The bold and bright pattern on this dress would make her such a fun summer dress and although we are well into winter, she did have her fun moment whilst worn at Cooly Rocks On. She really came to life when worn with a petticoat and was even featured in a morning news segment where I got to swing dance in her.

When I looked at my dress and the designer dress side by side, I did notice that the print of the gerbera daisies was different in their layout, colours and size which made me feel better. I also noticed that the Dolce and Gabanna text wasn’t the same as the placement and colour was different and when I looked very closely at my own fabric, the text was actually spelt incorrectly. This makes me think that it’s not the exact fabric and instead just a similar dupe. This project turned out to have a bit more of a moral effect than I thought and I wonder if I had chosen a different fabric completely I would have had less issues. In saying that, I did want to find fabric that matched quite closely as I have done with similar projects in the past and when I originally found and bought this fabric, I never knew it had text on it. I’m not sure if I should link the store I bought this fabric from but if

The fit of this dress was ideal and so very comfortable. I found myself not having adjust anything and she looked very cute even when paired with a cardigan. As I’ve made this pattern before, I knew the fit would be pretty spot on and I’m glad I gave this pattern a few minor adjustments to make it a little more like the original inspiration. Setting myself a challenge of creating a designer dress replica was a lot of fun and has inspired me to do similar projects in the future. I have a few more designer inspired pieces of fabric in my stash which I’m sure will also be a lot of fun to sew into fun frocks but for now, this dress will wait for the warmer weather and bring a smile to my face every time I look at her.

Just incase someone has noticed, in these street photos of my designer Gerber dress, one of my shoulder strap buttons is missing. That’s because as I was getting changed into this dress for photos, I accidentally stood on the button and it broke. Obviously a vintage button cannot withstand the weight of a full grown pinup stomping on it so unfortunately we are minus one button at the time of taking these photos. I wanted to continue taking these photos whilst in Coolangatta because I was having so much fun but just wanted to highlight that just incase anyone was curious.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. All opinions and thoughts expressed are solely my own and not influenced in any way. There are no affiliate links and I do not benefit from any link clicks or purchases made.