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Make graceful and lasting change

27 dresses


Cindy Tonkin - June 2, 2025

Once I’d made 5 dresses, 9 dresses, 6 dresses it was only a short walk and a little inspiration to do one with 27 dresses.

So here is 27 dresses.

I’ve begun altering old hard back business books which I no longer need on my bookshelf. This one is Dan Pink’s Drive, which i loved, but no longer need on my shelf.

I gutted the book entirely, and then took a pile of pages from the book, wrapping them and gluing them, and carving out a niche. I used an old watercolour work (in my quest to get rid of an ever-changing pile of old works living under my bed.

All I knew when I started was that I wanted to alter this book, and that adding a niche (and 300 gsm concertina) would be a way to make not too many pages for me to fill it up (that’s the big issue when it’s a 300 page book – that’s too many to change easily! I get bored with lack of progress). I also have a heap of these books, the same size, so a little library of altered books in nice hardcovers appeals to me.

The niche isn’t very deep, just deep enough for the envelope i made from offcuts of the same work i used to reline the book. I had already cut the tiny dresses for another book (yet to surface – my art desk leaks tiny dresses at the moment, on top of all the other projects I’m playing with – fixing a chair, rat proofing my house, making some pinafore tops to wear in winter).

When you open the book the envelope tumbles out of the niche, which i think is lovely – it makes you notice it, even though it’s tiny. The six dresses inside the pocket can then come out if you want them to.

The windows in the watercolour paper happened more or less accidentally – it was feeling a little heavy. I now love how it looks like tiny shop windows. I kept going with the windows to make sure I had an uneven number on every page. And they added up to 21 (plus 6 in the niche) at the end, which coincides with the film name 27 dresses.

Here is a video of the final book.

And here are some photos of the product in progress.

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