vintage/faded silk chiffon?

[alonewiththemoon]

Sort of a long shot, but I thought it might be worth asking here:

I'm looking for pieces of vintage/faded black chiffon, preferably silk, to use in costuming to match an overskirt that I recycled out of a 1940s silk nightgown/lingerie piece that was completely unraveling at the seams (I'm wearing the overskirt in my profile pic, but I doubt you can really see it with the black background).  Size and shape of the fabric pieces/garment are not that important as I'm likely to be chopping them up anyway, though some pieces that are at least 36" long would be nice.  Doesn't have to be actually vintage, either--that dress that sat in the sun for too long or went in the washing machine a few too many times would be just fine too, as are tattered edges and seams.

I'm scouring ebay/the internet, but the thing is that while I am certainly willing to pay for my old fabric, I don't want to pay a lot of money to chop up a perfectly fine vintage garment (I can see some of you shuddering now! :-) and people don't seem to sell their junk.  If it comes down to it, I may end up buying new chiffon and leaving it outside for a couple of months...

Comments

[tisana.livejournal.com]

Well, I might suggest trying Goodwill, Salvation Army, Garment District, and maybe even Craigslist and Freecycle, if you haven't already. You might also try, with new chiffon, that Rit dye-fading thingie. There may be other ways to make something fade faster that don't involve making it weaker, as bleach does.

[alonewiththemoon]

Oh, I hadn't thought of that RIT stuff! Thanks!

[sbazzy.livejournal.com]

how has the chiffon faded? is it that reddening thing that happens with a lot of vintage dress linings, especially under the arms?

[alonewiththemoon]

This is just the skirt part of the dress, but the underarm part did have some of that reddening going on. The skirt is more just an ashy black--it has slight brown undertones, but you'd still call it black. If you are familiar with artists' paints, it's kind of like that color called Mars black.

[sbazzy.livejournal.com]

ah, ok. i was wondering if it could've been from gas fading:

"Some changes in fabric colour are actually due to a phenomenon called gas fading and occurs when certain dyes are used on lining fabrics and the garment is stored in a house with gas central heating or gas fires. A chemical reaction occurs from the presence of deposits from the gas usage and the dyes in the lining cause the dye to degrade particularly in the underarm region, but often all over the lining. So some black, navy and other dark linings like bottle green develop a reddish brown tinge."

*this doesn't happen with just lining fabrics, either.