It’s a dress fit for a princess!
This teen designed, sewed and hand-painted her own graduation ballgown, and her stunning creation has been going viral.
Ciara Gan, 17, who lives in Taguig city in the Philippines, shared photos of the incredible gown on Twitter.
Gan designed the dress and sewed it with the help of her mom, Maricel Gan. Back in January, they had asked someone else to help make the gown, but it didn’t turn out the way they wanted — so they decided to start again from scratch, and do it all themselves.
“For the whole of March, my mom and I made (and) sewed each panel of the skirt one by one,” Gan told TODAY Style in an email. “It took me about a whole month to make the whole thing.”
The gown is made of 13 yards of emerald satin fabric, as well as crinoline and rigilene boning to help keep its shape.
Gan spent five days painting the flowers on by hand, using acrylic paints because she didn’t have any fabric paint. She also embellished the dress with Swarovski crystals.
“I really wanted my dress to reflect my personality, thus the lilies and bright colors,” Gan said. “My dress tells a very personal story about the things I hold close to my heart — lilies, the color green, painting, and creating new things.”
Amazingly, this is only the second sewing project Gan has ever attempted.
“The last time was prom during my junior year, where I had to redo my dress’s whole skirt in two days and stick over 200 crystals on it!” she said.
The teen said that one of the best parts of making the dress was doing it with her mom.
“My mom and I are best friends. We work on DIY projects together all the time,” she told TODAY. “Just seeing how supportive my mom is fills me with gratitude. Moments like these make me realize how lucky I am to have her in my life! I know it probably would’ve been easier to ask someone to sew it for us, but we loved the challenge.
“Working with her on this was so much more comfortable than working with any seamstress because I could tell her frankly how I wanted the dress to be like,” Gan added.
Gan’s Twitter post about the dress has racked up more than 387,000 likes, and people have been asking her if she takes commissions.
The teen said she is definitely open to working on more projects, and she posted another tweet advertising her art and design skills.
“I know I have a lot more to learn and I’d like to grab every opportunity I can,” she told TODAY.
Gan said she is eager to work on more sewing challenges after have such a great time making this dress.
“The whole process was so rewarding afterwards because I was able to wear one of my own creations,” she said.