If you've seen my LA vlog, you'll know I almost pulled two all-nighters consecutively before the vacation and it was because one night was spent on this dress and the other was spent on the other dress I wore for the trip. Questionable pre-vacation decisions yes, but at the same time part of me appreciated the hard deadline to actually get some new outfits made. This dress is based off a Chloe guipure lace and linen mini dress that was spotted for spring/summer.

I found my own delicate lace and paired it with matching white cotton and thin straps to create my own version. The original was about $4000 back when it was available and definitely an amazing source of inspiration, but I have to say I'm pretty happy with the price range I stayed in for materials (not all of us can casually drop bills on a summer beach dress seriously). I also used some spare fabric from my DIY matching set to create a summer feels-inducing low back.

Here are the steps and video tutorial, it's an easy one!

1. Cut out two long triangle shapes for the front, mine was 16" tall and 10" wide at the base. I didn't start tapering to the triangle tip until about 6" up from the base to help it fit better.
2. Sew the lace to the long edges of both triangles and cut off any excess
3. Attach the lace edges along the middle of the chest by using a zigzag stitch set to a stitch length of zero (fastest way to secure them!).
4. Sew the lace to the bottom edge of the front and cut off any excess
5. Cut a piece of lace the same width as one along the bottom edge of the front and attach them along the lace edges to create the front waistband eyelets
6. Cut the two halves for the flower design on the back of the dress and sew these to the sides of the front piece
7. Cut a large rectangle for the skirt, mine was 15" x 120" before sewing the two short ends together to form a circle
8. On the longest stitch length possible, sew two parallel lines along the top edge of the skirt circle
9. On one end of the parallel stitches, tie the inner strands together
10. On the opposite end of the parallel stitches, tie the outer strands together
11. Tug on the untied threads to begin bunching the skirt, keep bunching until it's the same diameter as the top piece
12. Pin and sew the skirt to the top piece all around, sew straight for the front but follow the flower design for the back
13. Hem the bottom edge of the skirt by folding twice and using a straight stitch
14. Cut four white cords and knot them together on both ends in pairs, mine were 13" each
15. Sew the knotted end of the cords to the triangle corners of the front piece, one knotted pair per corner
16. Sew the other knotted end of the cords to the tallest point in the back floral design, one knotted pair per side
17. Tie one more cord to connect the two inner straps, mine was 11" before tying.

This dress makes a few appearances in my LA vlog, where you can see more of how it looks. Honest confessions, in my photos wearing the dress I reduced the obviousness of my outstanding (-ly horrendous) sports bra tan because it was so distracting. But you can always say hello to the real deal of my completely unevenly-tanned back in videos (it says a friendly hello back to you!).