A woman has stunned the internet by showing how she turned a thrifted dress into the perfect wedding guest outfit, which had her feeling like a "million bucks."
With just three days to go before the wedding, Ashley Vu, 24, had nothing in her closet that she wanted to wear. She was running out of options, but while wandering around her local thrift shop, she came across a red satin dress that offered plenty of potential.
Vu, from Philadelphia, told Newsweek that she thought the dress "was ugly" initially. However, it only cost $10, and it looked like it was her size, so she wanted to see if she could transform it into something that's more her style.
"It was not my style, but I just thought that, if it fits me, no one has to know I think it's ugly," Vu said. "It looked like it would fit me when I saw it in the store, so I just picked it up as it was the only dress in my size."
The floor length red dress featured gold gems that went all around the bust and the back. But as soon as Vu bought it, she knew she wanted to remove those embellishments.
She shared a video on Instagram (@little.things.thrift) showing how she took the secondhand garment and turned it into "a $500 thrifted dress (without sewing)." The clip went viral with more than 3.2 million views and 66,600 likes on Instagram in just a matter of days.
The caption layered over the video suggests that she thrifted the dress for $5, but upon reflection, Vu realized it was actually $10. A complete steal, nonetheless.
"I immediately knew that I was going to take the gems off as they felt ugly, so I needed to remove them from the dress," Vu told Newsweek. "The only difficult part was when I heated up the gems and it made them harder to remove, which my boyfriend says is because I reactivated the glue.
She continued: "The dress wasn't perfect as it had some very minor and unnoticeable holes. The glue was difficult to remove too, and I had to get tweezers and remove the threads and glue pieces. But from afar, it wasn't noticeable to people at the wedding or on social media."
Redesigning the dress took around two days to complete, and Vu was "so floored" with the finished look. She told Newsweek that she "felt like a million bucks" when she was wearing it. Indeed, Vu even paired it with a velvet shawl, which gave it added drama.
Since sharing this thrifted treasure on social media, Vu has been amazed by the viral response. She never imagined it would capture so much attention on Instagram, but she adds that she's "so grateful" people followed along to see how she transformed it.
With over 290 comments on the Instagram video so far, many people praised Vu's vision to take the dress from thrift shop to red carpet perfection.
One comment reads: "Crazy how just taking those beads off made it looks so beautiful and expensive."
Another Instagram user wrote: "It looks amazing. I was afraid that it was getting ruined by exposing all that glue but it looks like you got it all off!"
Although not everyone agreed, as one commenter added: "Am I the only one who also loved the jeweled version?"
Do you have any viral videos or pictures that you want to share? We want to see the best ones! Send them in to life@newsweek.com and they could appear on our site.
English (US) ·