Name: melodie
Message: I have a dress that is a dark mauve color that I would like to dye ivory. It is made of 50% cotton, 50% polyester and some spandex. What should I use and will it even work. I'm trying to make the dress into a wedding dress.

Sorry, this will not work at all.

Dyeing from a dark color to a lighter one is called bleaching, or discharging. If you try to bleach or discharge a garment that contains spandex (which is polyurethane), you will destroy it. You should never attempt to lighten the color of any synthetic fabric, in fact. The polyester might not fall apart, but it would not lose its color. The stitching on clothing is almost always polyester, so at best you'd end up with a half-bleached dress (if the cotton lost its color) with full-color stitching. No good at all for a formal occasion, and not what you're looking for at all.

What you could do is go buy some fabric and a pattern you like, and get a seamstress to make the dress you want. Check your local fabric store to see if they have names of people who are willing to do this.


[actual date of this question was 6 November 2003]