- A TikToker walked viewers through the process of dying a white dress pink to wear to a wedding.
- After a failed attempt, she managed to complete the process just hours before the event, she said.
- Spectators were involved in her race to completion, sharing fabric dyeing tips along the way.
Wearing white to someone else’s wedding is considered a massive fashion faux pas, and one TikToker recently tackled the issue with a creative attempt to avoid sparking controversy as a wedding guest, even if it meant rushing, the perfect one putting outfits together.
On July 8, Tynan Fortune, a fashion content creator with 25,000 followers, shared a video of a white dress with a sheer pink trim and pink flowers that she said she had previously tried to wear to a wedding in May.
Fortune said in the video that after trying on the dress, she received feedback that it was probably too white to be acceptable for the wedding.
“I didn’t want to make a scene,” Fortune said, explaining that she decided not to wear the dress to the May nuptials, instead that she was adapting it to wear at an upcoming wedding the next day.
The TikToker filmed herself using Rit brand pink dye and a disposable bowl to try to change the color of the dress to make it appear less white. She mentioned that she had never done a DIY experiment like this before, and after her first attempt at dyeing and washing the dress, she found that the color had bled out of the fabric and her dress looked almost exactly as it did before .
Fortune continued to share live updates on her situation in a later post, saying that although the wedding would be the next day, she would go to the store and buy another dye from the same brand, made specifically for synthetic materials, so you could try again.
In another post, she filmed herself trying out some options for a backup outfit to wear when things aren’t going well, and asked viewers to help her decide which one to wear.
Commenters who kept up with the Fortune saga began sharing some of their own tips for dying fabrics, such as soaking them in plain water with a little dish soap first. While Rit’s website doesn’t state that this step is necessary, it does recommend adding a teaspoon of dish soap to the paint.
The second time she attempted to dye the dress, Fortune said she took advice from the commentators on board and felt the fabric took the color much better this time, even if she had to rush a few steps , because she only had a few hours until she had to be ready.
In a final video to wrap up the series, Fortune filmed her wearing the finished dress, which appeared to have turned a pink hue, along with all the accessories she wore to the wedding.
“Thank you for the overwhelmingly positive, kind and encouraging comments. I know I did it wrong. I hope this experience was both a success story and a cautionary tale,” she said.
The Fortune series, which has garnered more than 19 million total views, is the flip side of stories about people choosing to wear white dresses as wedding guests that often go mega viral and spark controversy.
In April, a heated debate over wedding etiquette erupted on TikTok after a TikToker said a guest wore a white wedding dress to her friend’s wedding, leading some commenters to say they would kick a person out for wearing that on their own special day would do.
In March, another TikToker faced criticism when people thought an outfit she described as the ideal wedding guest dress was too pale and white when it was actually a pale green color.
The commentators on the Fortune videos were equally passionate, but in a good way. Many said they were happy to see the positive results of the process, although there were some hiccups along the way, and praised her for putting so much effort into matching the color of the dress and saying that her approach “considerate” be the bride.
Tynan Fortune did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
For more stories like this, check out Insider’s Digital Culture team’s coverage here.