Dress Form surgery!

Awhile ago I found a video on Youtube that explained how to make your own dress form!  Cool, right?  That’s what I thought.  So I bought a ton of duct tape and Steven helped me wrap myself in it.  (Yes, I spent an afternoon being wrapped in duct tape, so that I could make my own clothes).

The real dress forms you can buy are often really pricey, so even though it would be nice to have a real one, one day, this duct tape body form does a really good job, and it’s exactly my size!  (Well, now after the surgery I performed on it, it isJ)

When I finished making this body form a few months ago I realized, much to my dismay that the waist, hips and bust of the form were several inches larger than my actual body size, and because I had spent so much time on it, I didn’t want to try and fix it.

Here she is.... before the surgery!

Then today, (maybe because I spent the weekend watching Grey’s Anatomy DVD’s) I realized that the fix wouldn’t actually be as hard as I thought.  I just needed to perform a little plastic surgery on it, and maybe a little liposuction.  The problem was that I had stuffed the form WAY too full with paper, and since it was taped around my body it was  automatically a bit larger to begin with, not to mention, while I was being wrapped I was taking super deep breaths so that that the tape wouldn’t be too tight on me (which made it a bit looser I’m sure). 

The simple surgery involved cutting off the base, taking out some stuffing, and cutting out a strip up the back of the form, and re-taping it back together.  I measured as I did it this time, and was very careful not to over stuff.  If the body form is a little smaller than your body, that’s better because you can pad the outside if need be.  Mine is almost exactly my body size now (maybe slightly smaller).

This is before I cut off the bottom, but I remade the bottom the same in the end.  I cut out the shape onto thin sheets of corkboard, cut out a circle for the wooden pole, and then taped/hotglued it to the bottom.

I cut the bottom off.....

Taking out the stuffing.......



A look inside....

I cut a strip out of the back, and taped it back together.



After surgery... and just my size!  Can you tell from all the left over paper, how much I overstuffed?  Don't make the same mistake as me, and measure as you make it :)

The new body form wearing a dress I made a while ago!  Fits perfectly. This is a dress I made out of a very large, floor length skirt from the thrift store, and an old pattern I got from another thrift store for 25 cents!  The zipper and boning for this dress came from another thrift store find that I was using for material. 


There are MANY different youtube videos that you can find just by typing in "Duct Tape Body Form".  I watched many different ones, and then changed a few things to make it just the way I wanted.  A couple of the things I did differently were that I made really short arms.  A lot of the body form tutorials on Youtube show much longer arms, but I was trying to make mine look as much like a real body form as possible.  This is also the reason I chose to use tan coloured duct tape, as opposed to the silver on the outside.  I used the regular silver coloured duct tape, but then just covered the outside layer in the tan colour.  I used newspaper to stuff mine, but some videos use a spray expanding foam, or material.  I used newspaper because it's light, and I had it on hand.  Also, I wore a garbage bag, and then I cut and taped another plastic bag around my neck, tops of my arms and hips.  The LAST thing you want to do is tape directly to your skin!

Good luck if you try making this!  It's really inexpensive, and easy to make.

Have fun!
~Becca