It might just be my eyes - but - it looks as though the edges of the pleats, which should be along the straight grain - are not, so the effect is of the pattern going off one way and the pleats the other.

If the pleats are cut out at the back then there is no hope as the holes will be slanting, so even if the pleats are taken apart pressed flat and reformed, you could have holes where you need fabric.

I think that some things are beyond recovery - and that is one of them.

It might be possible to make it better, by doing several times more work to make something which is still bad than it would have required to make something decent.

I have sometimes worked all night to make alterations, repairs or to create a garment from scratch, and come the dawn there was something wonderful - straw into gold as you might say, but some things are just not possible no matter how much fairy dust is scattered.......

Anne the Pleater :ootd: