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“You Can’t Just Slap Some Fabric Together And Call It A Dress”: 50 Designs So Bad They Deserved To Be Shamed In This Facebook Group (New Pics)
If I learned anything from the countless episodes of Project Runway I watched as a child, it’s that fashion is all about taking risks. Sometimes designs flop, but that’s arguably better than being bland and quickly forgotten. So it seems like many designers have decided to err on the side of outrageous design, and no one knows that better than the members of You Can’t Just Slap Some Fabric Together And Call It A Dress.
Contrary to what the name of this Facebook group says, apparently, you can! But you’re likely to be mocked for it online. Below, we’ve gathered pics of some of the most comically bad dress designs that deserve to be shamed, so feel free to channel your inner Tim Gunn and be sure to upvote all of your favorites (or those that you can’t believe anyone actually wore).
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#2
Daniel Atkins 1 year ago
Somewhere there is and older gentleman wondering how she got her pant up so high and wants tips on how he can do the same.
Famous fashion designer Vera Wang once said, “I want people to see the dress, but focus on the woman." Perhaps that’s why she’s been so successful, because her designs aim to highlight the wearer rather than distract from everything else around them.
Clearly, not all designers have the same mindset, though, or You Can’t Just Slap Some Fabric Together And Call It A Dress wouldn’t have any content. This Facebook group has been around since April, 2020, and it has already amassed an impressive 61k members. The concept of the group is simple, as the rules state that it’s for “dress shaming only”, and the members stay active sharing all of the fashion atrocities they come across from all over the internet.
In a previous Bored Panda article featuring You Can’t Just Slap Some Fabric Together And Call It A Dress, we reached out to the group’s creator, Mary Waldron, and she was kind enough to have a chat with us and provide some insight into how the group began in the first place. “The group name was actually inspired by a comment on a post in the group, ‘That’s it, I’m wedding dress shaming,’" Mary previously told Bored Panda.
#5
Clay S. 1 year ago
Is that mushrooms? The beginning stages of the "the last of us " apocalypse?
Heather Daugherty 1 year ago
she looks like a topiary teapot. how long does she have to hold her arms like that?
Echidna learns extreme ironing 1 year ago
Looks like she shelled out quite a bit for that dress
Stephanie Barr 1 year ago
See, I don't wear clothes after my cats barf on them. Not without washing them first. She must have a lot of cats.
StrangeOne 1 year ago
"Ma'am?... I really think you should get that fungal infection checked."
Jane Cortez 1 year ago
I think it’s very clever camouflage to evade paparazzi…. All she has to do is run into some bushes and then hold her arms straight up together to block her head!!!
Barbara Kelly 1 year ago
The knee on the left side of this picture looks like it's laughing. I am, too.
Nitka Tsar 1 year ago
…. Soooo….. who had to sit beside her and did they have enough room to sit?
Scout Finch 1 year ago
Hey, my doctor told me to get out and enjoy nature. I'm just taking it with me.
Marja Berisa 1 year ago
The shoes are awful too - way too small. Her toes are going overboard :-)
Unstable Mushroom (they/them) 1 year ago (edited)
I think it’s supposed to be mushrooms? Maybe?
Daniel Atkins 1 year ago
Did she walk there is no way she arrived at the award show in any sort of transportation.
#6
"The group was originally just a wedding dress shaming group called ‘You Can’t Slap On A White Skirt and Call it a Wedding Dress,' but over time, as more and more people joined, I decided to allow other types of dresses,” Mary explained. Then in May, 2021, after Mary and the admin team decided the group needed a more inclusive name, You Can’t Just Slap Some Fabric Together And Call It A Dress was officially born.
But this dress-shaming group has been popular since the beginning. “I noticed the group gaining more popularity about 6-7 months after I created it, and it was honestly out of nowhere,” Mary previously told Bored Panda. “I never expected it to be such a big group, but honestly, I should have because at the time, shaming groups were a big trend on Facebook.”
"Looking back, I think the thing about shaming groups in general that brings people together and really resonates with them is the idea that there are things so bad out there that they feel compelled to share them with everyone for a good laugh,” she continued. “Just like when a group of kids in school will see a teacher with a really bad tie and make a few jokes. To me, it’s that same concept, just on a much larger scale, that really makes these groups what they are."
Mary also previously shared with Bored Panda what makes a dress truly terrible, in her opinion. “The dresses I tend to really gawk at are the ones that look like they could fall off, tear, or just completely malfunction at any given moment,” she explained. “But outside of the group, I try to keep an open mind when it comes to fashion because a person’s taste is as unique as their own. At the end of the day, if a dress makes you feel happy when you wear it, then you wear it relentlessly because your body is your own to dress how you want to,” she added.
If you tend to think all of the outfits featured on runways look ridiculous, you’re not alone. Renaud Petit wrote a piece for Medium breaking down why fashion shows are filled with unwearable garments, and he explains that those bizarre pieces we see on models aren’t ever going to end up in boutiques or in department stores. But they can be a great way for designers to express their creativity. “Designers are artists and they wish to express something through their designs,” Petit writes. “As you can easily imagine, a basic T-shirt or a pair of trousers are not deep enough to be turned into powerful artistic supports (unless you decide to write a strong statement on them but that is called ‘punk’ and has been done before and done again a million times). Many of them thus need to be able to create their own sculptures, real artworks that play the role of canvas.”
#15
Daniel Atkins 1 year ago
Did she come out of a tv and because I looked at it. I need to pass it on or she will come after me?
Petit goes on to explain that the looks featured in fashion shows are typically more of a “mood board” for what the actual collection will look like than they are pieces that should be sold on shelves. “This is actually why it is called ‘a show’ and why it is not simply a range of products displayed on still mannequins,” he writes. “It is some kind of dance in a carefully chosen venue, with finely-worked décor and music. The garments you see can be compared to costumes. The audience needs to interpret the moves and costumes to understand what the story is about in a ballet. This is basically the same with a Fashion show.”
“Runway pieces are like muses, they make for some kind of base on which the actual collection will rely on,” Petit continues, in defense of absurd pieces on runways. “Presenting such exaggerated pieces also makes it easier for us to understand what were the real inspirations behind the collection. They sometimes are used to subtly introduce new hints on what the designer wants to do for future seasons. After the show and if the public liked it, an idea may survive and be found in upcoming collections. There is thus another reason why Fashion shows are so weird-looking: they display several ideas from the designer in order to guide them and set the guidelines for future collections.”
#19
RafCo (he/him/ele) 1 year ago
Give my six year old a pair of scissors and your sweater, she'll do this for you. Then she'll claim she has no idea what happened. We have to hide all the scissors in the house.
Robin Givhan also wrote an article for The Washington Post explaining that there’s a good reason for fashion to be so weird. “Is weird fashion simply clothing struggling to be taken seriously as art? Perhaps, if the definition of art is an expression of creativity that aims to provoke an emotional response. But fashion is not the same as a painting or sculpture or ballet. Fashion is a commodity — it has to be worn, it has to live outside of a gallery or theater,” Givhan writes. “It doesn’t have to be worn by everyone. It doesn’t have to be appropriate for the office or the mall or a White House state dinner. You and your cul-de-sac neighbors don’t have to like it. The point is that you react to it.”
“If fashion makes you laugh, good. It means that it has jarred you from complacency. It means it has caught your attention. Now, think about why you laughed. Then ask why. Ask why, again. That’s the starting point of a conversation,” Givhan goes on to write. And I have to say, the photos on this list have certainly gotten a reaction out of me. So even if you hate every single dress here, that’s totally fine. That doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t fashionable… Many of them just also happen to be tasteless.
Is there any chance you would ever wear any of these dresses, pandas? I’m all for a bold choice myself, but I think I’ve got to leave these for the runway models and celebrities who have more money than brains. Keep upvoting the looks you find most atrocious, or so ugly that they’re brilliant, and let us know how you feel about this “high fashion” in the comments below. Then, if you’re interested in checking out even more of these wild dresses, you can find Bored Panda’s most recent article featuring You Can’t Just Slap Some Fabric Together And Call It A Dress right here!
#29
Daniel Atkins 1 year ago
Does that mean after the ceremony they celebrate by climbing lamp posts?
#30
McKenzie LeValley 1 year ago
DESIGNER:what should we do with this extra fabric HER: PUT IT ON MY HEAD DESIGNER: what? HER:DO IT
#39
#49
Brittany Grawe 1 year ago
Why is this here? Yes, it needed to be tailored better, but this is is beautiful.
Add New Image
What do you think ?
Druklet 1 year ago (edited)
Do some of these look ridiculous to me? Yes. Is the fashion industry on the whole wasteful, evil, over-priced? Yes. But, as Petit said, fashion as an art-form is often not given the respect it deserves. Maybe some of these look a bit crazy and silly, but the work and creativity that will have gone into some of those outfits is amazing. A lot of these were fun, experimental and interesting. Wouldn't it be so boring if everyone just always dressed 'pretty' and 'nice'? I would recommend HauteLeMode on youtube for breakdowns on some of these outfits.
Kat Min 1 year ago
I donÄt understand the point of this thread. Fashion can and should b art and art is not suppsoed to be pleasant and non-objectionable. It is supposed to challenge us - and many of these pieces do. Ok, some just look a bit rubbish. Probably from design students who do not have the budget to creat a truly expesnive version of that. But most of these are cool, in some way or other.
Jolie McCleave 1 year ago
The attention to detail and engineering of these are remarkable! If you're someone that doesn't sew, you have no idea of the effort put in to these and the artistry it takes to create them!
HarperTheCentaur (they/them) 1 year ago
You guys are missing the point. There's practical fashion, which is things people actually wear and buy, and there's art fashion, which is what most of this is. And a lot of them are actually really good as art fashion. The point of art fashion is not really to look "good", it's visual interest. Drama, experimentalism, et cetera; the things about them that look "off" and unfashionable are what make them interesting to look at. Do some of them take it too far? Yes, of course. There's good art and bad art. But most of these are actually really well-done in terms of accomplishing what they set out to do.
Apatheist Account2 1 year ago
As someone once said, the definition of fashion: something so awful that we have to change it every six months.
Snow_White 1 year ago
Most of these are beautiful ideas executed to perfection. This is an artist's vision and there seems to be a lot of people on here who know nothing about art or fashion judging and ripping someone's hard work to shreds. Just because you don't understand the vision, doesn't mean a design deserves to be ridiculed.
Gabriela Cink 1 year ago
This reminds me that guy who made ridiculous outfit and tried to infiltrate to fashion week. And he was successful. He almost died from laugher... :D
Hearthstone Blitzen 1 year ago
i didnt realize this was only dresses so i thought it was ‘weird fashion in general’ and i thought for sure hazza would b here but i’m happy he wasnt bc he always looks great 🙃😉
DA LEADER OF DE SCREAMIN FROGS 1 year ago
i sorta disagree with the title... ive slaped fabric together before and it looked good 😅
Celtic Pirate Queen 1 year ago
I realize the models don't have a choice and a few of these weren't awful, but for the most part they all look ridiculous or downright stupid.
Lisa Bateman 1 year ago
Whoopie looks great. As for the others, some are OK, mostly they're dire and hilarious 😂
Cathy Jo Baker 1 year ago
I'm trying to decide what the reaction would be if I wore any of those to work (I'm a high school teacher)
Snow_White 1 year ago
What are you talking about?! Are you a professional in fashion by any chance, that you know about skills and talent needed to construct most of these designs?
Load More Replies... Druklet 1 year ago (edited)
Do some of these look ridiculous to me? Yes. Is the fashion industry on the whole wasteful, evil, over-priced? Yes. But, as Petit said, fashion as an art-form is often not given the respect it deserves. Maybe some of these look a bit crazy and silly, but the work and creativity that will have gone into some of those outfits is amazing. A lot of these were fun, experimental and interesting. Wouldn't it be so boring if everyone just always dressed 'pretty' and 'nice'? I would recommend HauteLeMode on youtube for breakdowns on some of these outfits.
Kat Min 1 year ago
I donÄt understand the point of this thread. Fashion can and should b art and art is not suppsoed to be pleasant and non-objectionable. It is supposed to challenge us - and many of these pieces do. Ok, some just look a bit rubbish. Probably from design students who do not have the budget to creat a truly expesnive version of that. But most of these are cool, in some way or other.
Jolie McCleave 1 year ago
The attention to detail and engineering of these are remarkable! If you're someone that doesn't sew, you have no idea of the effort put in to these and the artistry it takes to create them!
HarperTheCentaur (they/them) 1 year ago
You guys are missing the point. There's practical fashion, which is things people actually wear and buy, and there's art fashion, which is what most of this is. And a lot of them are actually really good as art fashion. The point of art fashion is not really to look "good", it's visual interest. Drama, experimentalism, et cetera; the things about them that look "off" and unfashionable are what make them interesting to look at. Do some of them take it too far? Yes, of course. There's good art and bad art. But most of these are actually really well-done in terms of accomplishing what they set out to do.
Apatheist Account2 1 year ago
As someone once said, the definition of fashion: something so awful that we have to change it every six months.
Snow_White 1 year ago
Most of these are beautiful ideas executed to perfection. This is an artist's vision and there seems to be a lot of people on here who know nothing about art or fashion judging and ripping someone's hard work to shreds. Just because you don't understand the vision, doesn't mean a design deserves to be ridiculed.
Gabriela Cink 1 year ago
This reminds me that guy who made ridiculous outfit and tried to infiltrate to fashion week. And he was successful. He almost died from laugher... :D
Hearthstone Blitzen 1 year ago
i didnt realize this was only dresses so i thought it was ‘weird fashion in general’ and i thought for sure hazza would b here but i’m happy he wasnt bc he always looks great 🙃😉
DA LEADER OF DE SCREAMIN FROGS 1 year ago
i sorta disagree with the title... ive slaped fabric together before and it looked good 😅
Celtic Pirate Queen 1 year ago
I realize the models don't have a choice and a few of these weren't awful, but for the most part they all look ridiculous or downright stupid.
Lisa Bateman 1 year ago
Whoopie looks great. As for the others, some are OK, mostly they're dire and hilarious 😂
Cathy Jo Baker 1 year ago
I'm trying to decide what the reaction would be if I wore any of those to work (I'm a high school teacher)
Snow_White 1 year ago
What are you talking about?! Are you a professional in fashion by any chance, that you know about skills and talent needed to construct most of these designs?
Load More Replies... You May Like 30 Times Designers Created Something Without Realizing It Will Have To Be Cleaned (Best Of All Time) This FB Group Has Been The Hub For Roasting Awful Dresses, Here Are 50 Of Them (Best Of All Time) ‘Ends Humour’: 50 Spot-On Posts That May Leave You Chuckling At The Ridiculousness Of It All (New Pics)
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