I went to the Twice concert in my city this past weekend and had an amazing and magical time seeing the queens of k-pop live! A lot of stars had to align for me to make it, but I’m so glad everything worked out, it was absolutely worth it. Here is my Instagram summary because lazy.
Went to my first ever K-pop concert, Twice “This is For” Dallas day 1! They did the 2 songs they did in K-pop Demon Hunters, Strategy and Takedown, plus many of my favorites. I didn’t get the best seats but what I could see was so cool. The ladies were stunning in every angle, so talented and charming. And of course the show was so well run with a band and back up dancers and a light show, 99% of the time right into my eyeballs. Seeing all the light sticks glow in the crowd like stars made tears come up in my eyes.
I am so glad I snagged a ticket and the train ride was $6 and much better than driving in the freezing cold and paying $50-$100 to park even further away. (Of course I made up for that by paying venue prices for meh food)
My outfit was cute and I looked great for once but I didn’t take photos you just have to trust me.
Anyway I don’t know if I’ll get to another kpop concert, this was my bucket list event. I really only like girl groups but I haven’t decided if I like any other groups songs as much as I like Twice songs. (Unless Orange Caramel get back together lol.) If this is my last concert, I’m glad it was Twice!
Now here is my cute outfit that I wore that I didn’t take photos of. (Well, I took outfit photos after the concert but it was for my memories, not for showing online because you know what happens online.) I decided it was the perfect time to wear a Liz Lisa dress I got in 2024 that I finally finished resewing to fit me, because obviously I want to look cute and fashionable but also not turn into a popsicle in the below freezing temperatures that night.
The left outfit is with the headband if I didn’t need to stay warm, the right outfit with the Liz Lisa cardigan and Misako beret is what I wore under my ski parka to stay warm. This is a layered jacket one piece short-sleeve dress, yes, it’s all sewn into one dress, it’s not a separate jacket and dress. Underneath is a regular collared white shirt, and not picture are pink leggings and socks and Liz Lisa platform sneakers. My purse is a My Melody x Maison de Fleurs pouch so I didn’t have to spend too long in security for a big bag, and I decorated with Twice fanmade keychains from Mochironstore and an official Twice mascot keychain from a gacha machine and an ancient Lizmelo My Melody bag chain. Also not pictured are matching pink bijou Liz Lisa ribbons clips, Liz Lisa pearl “T” hairclip (T for my name and also for Twice lol), and Liz Lisa ribbon earrings and pleather bracelet. I was a walking advertisement for Liz Lisa hahah. Actually, Twice merch is royal blue on this tour but I didn’t have much royal blue stuff besides my ski parka so pink it is!
Now I want to go into how I tailored this dress to fit me, because it was originally a dress, shown on this mannequin pic from the website below. From the back view you can see the jacket is sewn as part of the dress and you need to zip yourself into the whole ensemble. As you can imagine, the tiny plastic invisible zipper does not easily go through several layers of fabric (poly lining and thick tweed) and gets stuck at the bunching at the elasticized waistband. Maybe why it was only 75 dollars instead of 110 like these dresses usually are. The second problem is I’m not the ideal size, so if I had been somewhat thinner, I probably could have gotten the invisible zipper up with just a little struggle. On the other hand, back center zippers are difficult even when loose, I’m just not that flexible.
To fix these issues, I decided to rip out the invisible zipper and replace it with a regular zipper to give myself an extra 3/4 inch of room, and I cut off the jacket from the inner dress so I didn’t have to pull the zipper through so many layers of fabric.
I sewed the jacket center back seam together with machine, also sewing the white collar back edges together by hand. The front of the jacket is connected at the collar edges, so I cut that apart so I can put on the jacket normally. Also the sleeves were just a little too tight, so I moved the gold buttons to the very far edge of the cuff and sewed them back down, which gave me 1.5 inches of extra bicep room and I could even comfortably wear a blouse underneath if I needed to.
The dress gave me problems so I procrastinated on fixing it for about 7 months lol. First of all, I hate sewing zippers even on my new machine with a zipper foot and I did mess up sewing this zipper twice, although the worst of it was hidden by the jacket. Secondly, the back of the dress (which is sleeveless) is not the tweed fabric, it’s a white poly synthetic lining fabric, very flimsy and slippery, needing reinforcements and just not fun to sew. Thirdly, I had to finish a bunch of edges that were left raw after I separated the jacket from the dress. But I finally sewed the zipper in, added hook and eye at the top, and finished the raw collar edges with cotton muslin facing. Then I had to finish the sleeve holes, but I didn’t like how the dress gaped on me because I didn’t have the right body shape to fill it out. After much deliberation, I decided to adjust the bodice to fit me by taking in the princess seams on each side by almost an inch, hiking up the shoulder seams by a fraction, and cutting the sleeve holes slightly deeper for a smooth intentionally sleeveless silhouette instead of the hack job it looked like at first. I finished the sleeve hole edges with double fold white bias tape by hand just in case I wanted to redo it because the whites didn’t match. However I doubt I’ll wear the dress without the jacket since the back is plain white lining fabric and would look very silly.
And because I’m crazy, I cut out a pocket from a white sheet and sewed it into the right side seam so I can bring more stuff into the stadium and have a place to keep my phone. None of the jacket or skirt pockets are real, they’re just flaps with buttons on them, useless!
Despite the messy zipper and bias tape not looking professional, I’m actually really happy with the result with the jacket on, since it hides most of the bad sewing and no one should be looking at my butt anyway where the zipper fail started. Everything looks cleaner without the zipper obvious on the back of the jacket, and the sleeves and bust fit me well now, overally super flattering on me! While it was a lot of work destroying the original sewing, I felt like it was worth the effort because I would not have been able to wear the dress at all otherwise, and I doubt I could sell it to someone else unless they’re really tiny. At least I got to wear it once, that’s all I ask for. Or maybe… I’ll wear it twice! Hahah, get it?
Anyway this is your sign that if you have a piece of clothing you love that almost fits and you can do some sewing, try to fix it as best as you can so you can wear it at least once. If it works, you did not waste your money or time and got clothes that makes you look and feel great, but if it didn’t work, at least you learned something for next time. Obviously I wouldn’t do this for a very rare expensive item, save it for something you got on sale or thrifted. I’m just a very confident person and have the crafter’s audacity to rework brand name clothing.