A long-forgotten wedding dress from 1966 has been given a second chance after a vintage restoration specialist breathed new life into it.
It was then that her passion for vintage items was born.
One day, Ms. Bobbins participated in an online auction during which a vintage dress was auctioned off. She bought the piece for only $20, but it was damaged during shipping. Ms. Bobbins was offered a refund, however, she still wanted the dress.
“I thought, ‘You know what, if they’re just going to throw it away, I might as well take a look at this,’” she told The Epoch Times.
Her journey started there. She began restoring the dress and documenting her work on social media. She recalls seeing a bunch of local thrift stores putting vintage wedding dresses on Halloween racks, torn to shreds and turned into “zombie bride dresses.”
“My heart just sank. I ended up grabbing, like, an armful of them. I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with these. But I feel awful leaving these here to be destroyed ... [these] pieces of history,’” she said, adding that she later shared about it on her social media.
It wasn’t long before people began reaching out, asking if they could send her their vintage clothes, saying they didn’t want their wedding dresses to end up on Halloween racks. These people often have no one else to give their clothing to. Instead of throwing their pieces away, they want them to be given “a second chance.”
“They want a story told, they want to send a dress to someone who can appreciate it,” Ms. Bobbins said.
The Dress From 1966
In September of 2021, the seed was planted for what would become Ms. Bobbins’ most special restoration journey. It all began when a woman named Edna reached out to her through social media.Edna’s mother had a beautiful wedding dress from 1966 that was put into a garbage bag upon her father’s passing. The gown was forgotten about and unacknowledged.
“It was a sadness in the family,” Ms. Bobbins said.
Edna and her family discussed it, thinking over whether to give Ms. Bobbins the dress. They kept following Ms. Bobbins’ work on social media, but it was quite a while before they decided.
“It took them 10 months before they finally chose to send it my way,” Ms. Bobbins said.
She received the garment in July of 2022.
Edna became emotional upon seeing the dress in Ms. Bobbin’s home. Her words reflected what she felt.
“We are in awe,” she told Ms. Bobbins. “I can’t stop crying on seeing my mom’s dress with you. I know it is in great and loving hands. And I hope it goes to a good place. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I can’t wait to see more in the final outcome.”
Ms. Bobbins, however, found the dress a bit intimidating. It was extremely heavy. Swirls of brown rust ran through the fabric. The garment had also suffered water damage; there was visible mold. The dress was definitely not what Ms. Bobbins was used to working with.
Restoring the Gown
Ms. Bobbins calmed herself and gave the dress a thorough look. She then sat down and came up with a “game plan” for the restoration process.“The first thing I knew I needed to do was get rid of the smell,” Ms. Bobbins said, “because it had a very strong mold smell, almost as most items would if they’d experienced water damage.”
She researched ways to remove the smell without removing the satin sheen of the dress. White vinegar seemed to be a solution, but she couldn’t start using that, because it could create more stains. She realized she'd have to tackle some of the heavier stains before she addressed the smell.
“I decided to start washing it,” Ms. Bobbins said.
And for three weeks, she did just that.
As she worked, she shared the process on social media. One of her followers saw the potential in the dress. She “instantly fell in love” before Ms. Bobbins had done anything to it. The woman would go on to buy the garment, but an unexpected twist would soon land it in Ms. Bobbins’ hands again.
The restoration process was intensive and long. Some days, Ms. Bobbins would work on it for six hours straight.
She would hand-wash the dress for 20 minutes, then let it sit for 20 minutes more, and then wash it again. This would happen over several hours, after which she would rinse the whole dress out and dry it. Then she’d have to wait 24 hours before touching it again. She used several kinds of detergents. From the beginning to the end of the restoration process, the dress underwent about 10 washes.
Soon, much of the yellow color was gone. It was time to address the smell.
Ms. Bobbins soaked the dress in a vinegar solution for two hours, eliminating the unpleasant odor. The dress was looking quite nice at this point except for some large stains that refused to be cleaned. The stains proved to be one of the biggest challenges in the restoration process.
“I tried everything I knew how to do,” Ms. Bobbins said. “I tried to use peroxide, baking soda. I tried using bleach, I tried using every method I could think to use.”
The stains, however, were stubborn.
“I just felt hopeless. I was devastated,” she said.
Edna’s family provided Ms. Bobbins with a source of motivation. They kept in contact with her as she tackled the dress.
“They were so excited to see the progress with this gown,” she said.
Ms. Bobbins had also been documenting her journey with the dress on social media, and her followers encouraged her to finish the restoration. The woman who had her heart set on buying the finished gown was also a source of encouragement.
“They wanted to see the results,” she said. “Everybody was willing to offer their advice, their resources. Personally, I’m neurodivergent. And it can be really hard for me sometimes to stay motivated on a specific thing. But when I had so many people who were just genuinely invested—it just kept me going.”
Since the stains appeared to be irremovable, Ms. Bobbins thought of other ways to finish the restoration. She considered sewing lace or embroidery on the dress to cover the stains. Whatever she did, she wanted to make sure the garment was wearable. She had put much work into the dress, and she wanted to ensure that it would be suitable for a new owner to use.
“Within a couple of applications, it completely removed the stain that not even bleach could remove,” she said.
Ms. Bobbins pressed and steamed the dress. In total, the restoration process took between 60 and 70 hours. She finished the project in 2022, the same year she began. After viewing the before-and-after photos, she was amazed.
The woman who'd been following her, confident that the dress would one day be hers, bought it as soon as it was listed for sale. The restoration of the dress boosted Ms. Bobbins’ social media growth. She gained many new followers, all of whom flooded her platforms with messages of love and support.
Edna, too, was delighted to see the finished product. Her mother was in shock as they watched the video displaying the finished product. When the video showed the dress on a mannequin, her mother asked to pause the video, after which she stared at the screen. Edna said her mom looked as though she was staring at a picture of her father.
Ms. Bobbins remains in contact with Edna’s family to this day. They have all been blessed by the restoration of the dress. It may have ended up in the garbage, she says, were it not for the family’s choice to have it restored.
“This is why I do this,” Ms. Bobbins said. “It is a celebration of this item that meant so much to the family.”
Love for Old American Clothing
Ms. Bobbins livestreams her work, telling her followers about her methods and processes—and she is passionate about old American clothing.“The fabrics that they were using back then far surpass a lot of the fabrics that we’re using today,” she said.
She believes that clothing that is loved and passed down is superior to fast fashion.
She said: “That’s something really special. I’m taking this thing that was once so coveted, and now it’s just—it’s been through life! Like a lot of us have been, it’s been through life, things have happened to it. But I get to put in that work, and on the other side, it gets to be loved for what it is and what its intended purpose was to be. That’s something incredible.
“It’s encouraging others to look back and look at what it is that they can maintain and bring into their own future generations. And I think that’s really important.”
“Pretty much every piece I have on there, I’ve worked on myself to make it shiny and like-new, and each one of these pieces are beautiful. And a lot of them have great stories,” she said.
The woman who bought the 1966 dress from Ms. Bobbins ended up not going through with her wedding. She has decided to ship the dress back to Ms. Bobbins, who will soon put it up for sale once again. It’s her hope that the dress will go into good hands and have another chance.
