Grateful dead dress
Paris Hilton Grateful Dead dress
I often get asked about the Grateful Dead dress I made that Paris Hilton wore 20 years ago. This was a very special dress for me, and it was the perfect storm: a combination of all the traumatic events that were happening in my life at the time and my ability to deal with those events by creating beautiful wearable art.
How did this amazing dress come about, you ask?
In high school I lived for thrift shopping and back then (1988-1995)
thrift shopping was considered something only poor people did…Unlike today where thrift shopping and recycling are so popular!! My family had no money and I worked a dozen odd jobs that kept me busy and out of trouble…which made my hobby shop such a passion and excitement because I could buy things cheap that no one else could have a kid in my class.
I deconstructed and reconstructed everything I bought, which sparked my love for sewing, beading, embroidery, all things handmade and completely unique. It was my passion for repurposing Grateful Dead shirts that really made me the fashionista and businesswoman I am today.
I used to take my station wagon to the thrift store every few days after school and buy every vintage beaded couture dress, amazing costume jewelry, crazy printed 60s and 70s styles, and every Grateful Dead shirt I could find. In the early 1990s, there were some really good Dead shirts for sale at every local thrift store in Southern California, because where I lived, the Grateful Dead came through town regularly.
I’ve always thought the Grateful Dead artwork and graphics were the band’s best t-shirts. I love tie-dye patterns and how each piece looked “as unique as you”. I loved the look of the Grateful Dead skeleton
(which I later found out was called “Stealie”)
and all the cool, psychedelic artwork. Their music wasn’t my favorite at the time, but the vibe and cool factor of the unconventional, carefree Dead Head lifestyle was.
It had a large eye in the center of the steal and the dancing bears, turtles and dancing skeletons circled around the steal. It was a perfectly worn 2XL, ultra thin, with the right amount of wear in all the important places. The bright tie dye had faded so much that it had these beautiful neon pinks and fluorescent yellows that were so strikingly beautiful and spoke to my creative soul. It was perfect!
I imagine the previous owner wore it to all the shows at Irvine Meadows, Glen Helen and the Great Western Forum. I don’t remember the actual price, but I do remember it being incredibly cheap, less than $5, and I’ll never forget the feeling when I found it. My heart was beating like crazy and it was such an exciting moment! I couldn’t believe I brought it home..
I knew I was going to do something crazy with it!!
As a proud collector of all my second hand purchases,
I sat on this amazing t-shirt for five years and wore it often to get inspiration for what it would become. It was a conversation starter for guys much older than me who would come up to me and ask me how many shows I’d been to or what my favorite song was.
It wasn’t until the spring of 2003, when I was going through a traumatic phase in my life and career, that I realized what I wanted to create with this t-shirt. After I discovered that my business partner had stolen millions of dollars from our company and I lost the legal right to use my birth name in commerce, I fell into a deep, dark depression that only my craft could help me out of.For weeks I spent every moments at the beach with beading and embroidery on this t-shirt.
This quickly became a dress as I sewed the top, my very first lace bra, that my mom bought me at K-Mart when I was 16. It was the most perfect red and very worn and matched the t-shirt beautifully. I was very inspired by Dolce & Gabbana at the time, so the look was: “Column dress with playful hem meets sexy, loose top.
I put neon pink lace between the lace bra and t-shirt to match the tie-dye.” pattern and parts of the stole cut out and replaced with lace to create a sexy peek-a-boo effect. I removed the tie-dye from the t-shirts and created an illusion with the mesh underneath and the hand-dyed silk fabric underneath to make it look like the tie-dye was draped over the skirt. Every inch of the t-shirt’s screen print has been hand decorated with flowers and embroidered with butterflies to really complete the ‘Meghan look’.
Pieces of striking vintage fabrics were sewn between the skirt layers to add depth and dimension to the tie-dye pattern. Almost every stitch was hand sewn and you could see the craftsmanship in every detail. The back had a hand-stitched invisible zipper that highlighted the couture quality of this unique dress. This dress was truly a work of art and to this day I believe it is one of my
“greatest” masterpieces.
It was the catalyst that inspired so many other individual,
ingenious clothing ideas that I still implement in some way today.
I created unique couture pieces throughout the summer, and by the end of the summer I had a whole collection. A friend of mine was hosting a spring fashion event for press, buyers and stylists at the Standard Hotel in Hollywood and asked if I would show this new collection. All this hyper creativity had brought me out of my depression and mental state and I was able to gain clarity. When I could no longer use my real name at the ripe old age of 27, I renamed myself “Fabulous” and Meghan Fabulous was born.
Being featured on Standard was a great experience and great exposure. Even though I didn’t make any direct sales from my work, I had a lot of tastemakers and people in the industry that I really looked up to who appreciated my work and told me how much they loved it.She wanted her ASAP for part of the project Paris was working on and how could I say no!!
I only had one restriction: my Grateful Dead dress could only be rented. I really couldn’t part with it!! “Of course!”
Then the Moment happened. Paris wore my Grateful Dead dress to the VH1, Big in ’04 awards show to accept the “That’s Hot Award”. It was like my life had been restored. The next day my phone was ringing with press, stylists and buyers asking what I had to offer.
It was the restart of my career.
Even though my new business was in its infancy,
I ruined it with Paris. Weeks later, when I still hadn’t gotten the dress back, I asked her stylist to send it back. It was a really special part and meant so much to me. Grilling. And I could forget about all the other nice clothes she had and wanted to wear too. I was angry and couldn’t see through the fog how valuable this moment was to my career. I was young, green and trapped in my own head. Sure, I was given a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t get it back, but I didn’t care.
Fast forward to 2024. It’s always easy to say afterwards! It was a moment for me and it took me many years to be grateful to Paris Hilton for wearing my creation and making me realize what it was really about. I could always make another dress and it reminded me and appreciated my roots and how far I had come. Thanks to that Grateful Dead dress, I had a legitimate business.
Love and appreciation for the Grateful Dead led me to my soulmate. This true love helped me get a licensing deal to make more Grateful Dead apparel! These clothes brought me so much closer to the music and the people that make up this incredible community of Dead Heads. The circle is closed!
Yes, I really regret being a whiny child and asking for the dress back.
That moment taught me more about business than any
Ivy League school ever could. And most of all, I am extremely grateful for the love and appreciation it has taught me for the greatest and most incredible band in rock’n’roll history, the Grateful Dead.
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