To infinite dress and beyond

So I have a slight obsession with infomercials.  I must have seen that Food Saver ad a gazillion times but I just love the way that machine sucks out all the air out of everything.  You can keep fish for up to 6 months goddamnit – that’s pretty amazing right?  Now an infomercial dress?  That’s a whole different story altogether!  However did it come about?  Gosh darnit, aren’t you just dying to find out! 

Some of you may know of the Infinite Dress, invented by Lynda Silvestry, but I was completely clueless until a colleague today tried to order one for his sister.  Then I went on the website and realised it was an infomercial dress (on Pitch TV channel 647 on Sky if you must know…)!  Why had I not seen this??  Instead of poring over Power juicer and Super Chopper ads, I could have been discovering over 100 ways to wear this ‘lifesaver’ of a dress.  According to it’s ‘Hall of Fame’ it has a very venerable history and apparently caused a bit of stir when it debuted in 1976.  Hey, if you’re still not convinced, you better believe those ever so convincing testimonials and the completely non-ironic before and after pics. 

Made of ‘luxurious’ acetate/lycra mix, this multifunctioning dress comes in black (the only colour I would recommend buying if you are to enter into infomercial-dress territory), red and purple and in four sizes.  You can be demure, go Grecian, have a beautiful back, twist tails, enhance your bosom, hide bad hair days and many many more with this one dress.  Now isn’t that a heck of a deal?? 

So much so, that they’re charging UK customers £69.99 (plus P+P of course) whilst over-chargings US people who have to pay $169.  Odd non?  Could it be that UK customers are not yet aware of the iconic legend of the Infinite Dress and need a wee discount to convince them….

Ok, in all seriouness, this is actually an interesting concept and yes, I am a little put off by the overall cheapness of the site and the dubious Page 3-esque modelling the different dresses above but in reality, this could be a useful little dress and hey, 70 quid ain’t so unreasonable.  It’s Infinite for god’s sake! 

22 comments

  1. i love this. though i convinced i would be one to buy it and then get frusterated attempting to move the fabric around to create a decent top only to give up and whine. does it come with a how-to guide? haha.

  3. i found the 70s/80s vintage maxi version of this the other day but it was in rough-ish shape but was a lovely dove grey. and i have a vintage pattern for it. not that there is much to it. but it is neato.

  4. haha oh just cringe when I see the instructional video and the lady demonstrating wearing the red version.

  5. i feel like the idea of the infinite dress is good in concept, and i’d almost go for it for the million different styled dresses for just 160 US. but then i wonder how many styles would i actually wear? i can pick out one, maybe two from the pictures. i also wonder how the fit is…? which to me is the most important aspect to consider in a dress.

  6. This sort of pattern has actually been going around for a long time, I think it’s fascinating. A bunch of people were discussing it on Craftster (http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=102791.0), and Rostitchery made one, with a diagram and tutorial (http://rowena.typepad.com/rostitchery/2006/06/one_seam_conver.html)
    It needs to be made out of a stretch material, obviously, so that would help with a lot of fit issues. If you were to make it yourself, it would certainly be less than $160. If you used remnants you could probably make it for less than $15.

  8. I bought a similar dress for $20 from Target! I didn’t realize it was such a “legend”

  10. Gemma: It looks like the easiest thing ever, it’s only a couple of pieces to cut out, and one seam. Her version has a circle skirt on the bottom, but you obviously don’t have to, it could be any shape you want!

  13. I own a real infinite dress in sky blue. It has the infinite label. I have lost the book on how to style it and will order another so I can learn to style it again. I can only remember about 4 styles. Its very stretchy. Cool in the summer heat. I do love it. Mine is over 12 years old and still holding up fine.

  14. Uh… yeah there’s such a thing as an exchange rate,
    69.99 GBP
    Great Britain Pound
    1 GBP = 1.9914 USD = 139.3816 USD
    United States Dollar
    1 USD = 0.5021 GBP
    But there’s really no need for ANYONE to pay this much dinero, on either side of the pond- seriously, if you can lay a pattern on a folded piece of stretchy fabric, cut around it, and either sew one straight line or get someone to sew that line for you, that’s pretty much the extent of it. Head over to that craftster thread, the girls on there have made dozens!!

  15. Uh… yeah there’s such a thing as an exchange rate,
    69.99 GBP
    Great Britain Pound
    1 GBP = 1.9914 USD = 139.3816 USD
    United States Dollar
    1 USD = 0.5021 GBP
    But there’s really no need for ANYONE to pay this much dinero, on either side of the pond- seriously, if you can lay a pattern on a folded piece of stretchy fabric, cut around it, and either sew one straight line or get someone to sew that line for you, that’s pretty much the extent of it. Head over to that craftster thread, the girls on there have made dozens!!

  17. This should be fun – I went to the fabric district today with a friend and she bought two really good stretchy bits of fabric, 3 yards each – for a total of $4.50!
    She’s going to try the pattern, she’s way braver and more clever than me : )

  18. Hah- Graveyard Mall is at it again- I just bought 2 (a package deal with red and black) for $19.99. At $10 each, it’s worth a shot to see if these will make a versatile wardrobe for my vacation this summer.

  20. Ashley-the ones you ordered from graveyard mall, did they come with instructions? How do you like it? Thanks.

  21. I just bought a red one off eBay for $4.50! (It was listed as new w/o tags). If it’s flattering, I will definitely use it as a pattern to re-create it in other colors. If ever get married–this would be a great option for the bridesmaids.

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