THAT COAT AGAIN

You may remember the saga of my Italian coat... the one that faded to oblivion because I left it on my coat stand the winter I was pregnant with Amaia. Ever since, I have been staring at it considering binning it but not being able to bring myself to. Having exhausted all possible professional colouring services, I had been toying with trying to dye it myself but the label did say dry-clean only.

This week I had finally had enough - I was going to bin it anyway, so if I failed all I would have lost was £10 of dye. I ordered the nearest colour I could find, a somewhat darker shade of purple, and threw it in the washing machine along with a couple of the girls' t-shirts and trousers. After two hours I opened up. The t-shirts and trousers were a beautiful dark purple, but the coat had actually faded a little - the dye simply hadn't taken at all. It didn't seem to have shrunk any, so I was back to square one. I took it out and hung it on a hanger to dry while I thought up a plan B.

As it dried though, it suddenly became apparent that the coat had never been colourfast and the rest of the coat had now faded to exactly the same shade as the strip that had faded in the light... my coat was the same shade all over! Though it is one or two tones lighter than the original model I now have a completely wearable pinkish purple coat. I can't believe a coat that originally had a £400 label on it was so poorly dyed... But I am more than happy it was! Bloody genius! I am one happy bunny!