Emerald's Thread: Today's Dress: Harlequin

Look! A new dress! I bought this late 1940s/early 1950s dress on eBay. It was a bit of a gamble because I knew there were several stains on the front of the dress and on the front of matching bolero. The underarms also had unattractive yellowish marks. Since I had a £15 eBay voucher, I decided to bid for it and try to remove the stains. If it didn't work, I could always sew black grosgrain ribbon or rows of black ric rac around the arm holes to cover the yellowing and add black ric ric flowers to cover the stains on the front of the dress and the bolero like I did here.

It didn't come to that though. I soaked it some of that Vanish gel oxyclean stuff for two hours and the stains were almost completely faded. I rinsed out the dress and let it dry completely to check for fading before tackling the stain areas individually. With some gentle scrubbing, the faded marks came out completely. The black has faded slightly in the process but because the white is so bright now, the contrast remains and so it's not noticeable.