Free People Dress Dupe

August 31, 2023August 31, 2023

Do you often find yourself searching online for fun fashion inspo to help get you out of a “funk?” Ya, me too. Thrift stores are my favorite place to go when I want to copy a look that inspired me. Let me show you how I recreated a pricey dress TWICE for a fraction of the cost!

The Wallpaper Dress….

I recently came across this super cute wallpaper maxi dress by Free People. I absolutely loved it but I didn’t love the price tag. So I looked around and found it on PoshMark for $128 which was still more than I wanted to pay, but it wasn’t my size either. As a frugal gal, making one similar seemed like my best option. So off to the thrift store I went.

My Thrifted Finds for my Two Dupes….

First, I found this blue tiered floral skirt for $2.99. It was made out of this really soft, super lightweight, 100% cotton fabric. It had a side zipper opening to get it on and off. I also found this fun pleated, leopard skirt with an elastic waist for $4.99. It was brand new with the tags still on. So I got both the skirts. Finding skirts was easy. T-shirts…. Not so much.

It took me probably over one hour at two different thrift stores searching through all the racks to find the perfect t-shirts. I settled on this gray one for the blue skirt. It cost me $3.99 and the fact that it says “New York” like the Free People inspo was just an added bonus. I didn’t even realize it until I got home. For the leopard skirt I wanted something similar to a concert t-shirt. When I found this Johnny Cash t-shirt for $2.99 I knew this was a combo meant to be.

Changing things Up…. a Little.

Something I didn’t like about the Free People dress was where the shirt and the dress were attached. It seemed a bit awkward being right above the bustline.

I tried on both my shirts and decided to cut them both below the bust and still leave some of the fun graphics. I also cut them slightly lower in the back than the front so they had a high-low look. You can see that in the picture below. I used my French Curve ruler to get the nice rounded edges.

The blue skirt had a drop yoke and side zipper. I removed the zipper and sewed that part closed. Then I cut the drop yoke off ½ inch above where it was attached to the gathered part. This would account for seam allowance and keep the gathering in place.

I then sewed it to the t-shirt right sides together using ½ inch seam allowance. That’s it! That’s all I did for the blue one. I did a little more to the leopard one but nothing major.

Changing Things up a Little more…

The leopard skirt had some really tiny pleat-like gathers at the top that I did NOT want to mess up. So I cut the elastic right to the point where it was attached to the skirt. So there was a ¼ inch thin strip of elastic at the top of the skirt. It worked kind of like the ½ inch drop yoke of the blue skirt did to keep the pleated gathers uniform. Then I just attached it to the shirt to the skirt just like I did with the other dress.

I also changed the neckline by cutting off the ribbing and doing a facing like I’ve done on a few other things I’ve made.

Lastly I rolled the sleeves and stitched them in place so I wouldn’t have to worry about them coming unrolled. I might do this on the gray shirt too, but as of now I haven’t.

The LOVE is Real!

I love both of these dresses so much! They are such original and fun additions to my wardrobe. They are super comfy and totally gave me the exact vibe I was looking for. So for $15 and about 30 minutes of my time, I got two amazing dresses. It’s a total win! What about you? Have you ever thought of sewing a shirt to a skirt in a similar way?