As I scrolled through websites while doing some online shopping, a white jumpsuit caught my eye.
‘It’s perfect,’ I thought to myself, clicking ‘buy’ and entering my payment details.
My best friend, Mia, 18, and I had tickets to Ripon horse races and we were after glamorous get up for the occasion.
When my outfit arrived in the post a few days later, I couldn’t wait to try it on.
Twirling around in front of my bedroom mirror, I was pleased with my purchase.
On the day of the races, Mia and I were both so excited.
We spent the day placing bets and knocking back glasses of bubbly.
‘Come on!’ I cried at a horse as it thundered passed us on the track.
We were having a great time, until a rowdy racegoer at the bar bumped into me as I was queuing to get a drink.
‘Oh I am so sorry,’ she said, but it was too late.
She split a glass of red wine all down my gleaming white outfit.
‘Oh god,’ Mia gasped, catching sight of my ruined get up.
‘I look a right state,’ I cried, heading the ladies’ bathroom.
‘What am I going to do?’ I asked Mia, splashing the stain with tap water.
It was no good – my jumpsuit was completely ruined.
‘I’m going to have to stay in the loos all day,’ I sighed. ‘Or worse – go home.’
But then Mia had a light bulb moment.
‘We’re going to have to improvise,’ she smiled.
She dragged me off to the free bar and instructed me to grab as many glasses of red wine as I could find.
We headed back to the bathroom – armed with five glasses of booze.
‘Go with me on this,’ she grinned, ushering me into a toilet cubicle and demanding I strip off and pass her the garment.
Plonking it in the sink, she then threw the glasses of wine all over the rest of my outfit.
‘I reckon we give it 10 minutes,’ she said.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked, bursting into fits of giggles.
Eventually Mia scooped the jumpsuit out of the sink and wrung it out, drying it under the hand dryer before I clambered back into it.
Still a tad damp, I had to stand under the hand dryer in it for a good 20 minutes and let the hot air do the job.
‘Ta-da!’ Mia said, showing me my reflection in the mirror.
‘Oh,’ I smiled. ‘It actually doesn’t look too bad.’
Instead of the one patch of very-obvious wine spillage, we had created a tie-dye affect in a magical swirling pattern.
‘It looks amazing,’ Mia assured me. ‘You could have bought it like that for all anyone knows.’
She was right and the new style gave me the confidence to head back out to the race track and enjoy the rest of the day.
‘The only thing is I do smell like a vineyard,’ I laughed.
But I refused to let the unfortunate incident stop me from having fun.
Making our way back out to the paddocks, I held my head high.
In all the commotion, we’d ended up missing a race I’d put a bet on as we were so busy sorting out my disaster – but I was just relieved Mia’s quick-thinking had managed to save the day.
As we strolled to the enclosure, a lady turned to me and said: ‘Oooo I love your outfit.’
‘Thanks, it’s bespoke,’ I laughed – trying to see the funny side of the palaver.
‘It is pretty unique,’ Mia grinned.
We were both pretty pleased with how it had turned out.
Mia tweeted the before and after pictures and her post went viral – attracting thousands of likes and retweets.
Before we knew it, strangers all over the world had seen it and were commenting on and admiring our creation.
Pretty Little Thing – the company who made the original jumpsuit – were so impressed when they spotted the pictures they even later brought out a tie-dye version.
‘We’re style icons,’ I beamed, showing Mia.
‘I can’t believe it!’ she gasped. ‘Who’d have thought our design would become a trend?’
Mia Williamson, 18, a bartender, said: ‘Our intuition just kicked in.
‘It was a free bar so I said to Eleanor: ‘Let’s go and get as much red wine as we can and we’ll sort it out in the toilet’.
‘We got in there and she stripped off in the cubicle while I found a plug for the sink.
‘I just poured all the wine in one go and hoped for the best.
‘We pulled it out the sink and it just happened to turn into this magical, glorious pattern.
‘Quite a few people were complimenting her on the outfit afterwards.
‘It looks like a unique piece.’