Need Advice on Dying/Painting Fabric

I bought a doll dress that is extremely faded, but otherwise in good shape. It's been sun-bleached to almost white, and it should be a pretty sky blue color. There is attached white trim, and an attached petticoat that I can't/won't remove. I'm pretty sure the dress fabric is cotton. I want to get it back to blue, but am not sure exactly how to do that. I've done some fabric dying in the past, but I can't do that with this dress because of the white trims.
So, I'm wondering if anyone has ever used a fabric pen or fabric paint, and what sort of results you had? I don't want the fabric to be stiff when I'm finished, and I still want the whites to be white. I know I could use a wax resist on the white trim, but we're talking doll dress so the trim is pretty small and it would be hard to paint the wax on it.
Any ideas, or am I stuck with a white Alice in Wonderland dress?
Thanks for any suggestions!

The only thing I can think of that might work to dye the dress is silk screen printing ink, since it is a thick gel dye that could be painted on and it stays where it is applied, it shouldn't bleed onto the white trim. I haven't silk screened in a long time, but I seem to remember you are supposed to wash the fabric after screening printing, and that takes out any stiffness from the ink, so that could be a problem with bleeding on to the white trim.

If you don't want to take the dress apart, I'd recommend leaving it white. (Even in you took it apart, there's no guarantee that the fabric would take the dye evenly, especially if the fabric is old.)

How about contacting a seamstress who could take the dress apart and replace the faded fabric with new blue fabric? Shouldn't be that difficult, you'd just use the old fabric as a pattern...

I silk screened many eons ago (in high school art class); I don't think I want to use that type of ink.
I'm actually not a bad seamstress, and taking the old dress apart to use as a pattern would be something I could do. I was hoping to keep the dress as original as possible (complete with the identifying tag), but I may not have many options.
I suppose I could try to dye/paint it and, if that didn't work, disassemble it for use as a pattern.
I would really, really like to keep the dress intact and color it,tho. Unfortunately, that just may not be possible.
Thanks for the suggestions.

take trim off, dye dress blue, put trim back on?

Sorry, when you talked about the petticoat, I just assumed you didn't sew. It would look like new if you replaced the blue fabric, you could sew the tag back in and put it all back together.

I love sewing doll clothes, and kids' clothes, because it goes really fast since they are so small. (I really appreciated how easy it was to make my little girl's costumes after sewing a Darth Vader costume for my 6'2" husband - the cape alone took 5 meters - it was SO bulky after sewing little clothes, and each seam took forever to sew!)

take trim off, dye dress blue, put trim back on?

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I thought of removing the trim, but it's so small! I measured the 2 rows at the bottom of the skirt, and each is only 1/8"; then there's the tiny lace trim at the bottom of the sleeves, and the white Peter Pan collar. I don't think I'm a good enough seamstress to remove it and replace it properly.

I love sewing doll clothes, and kids' clothes, because it goes really fast since they are so small. (I really appreciated how easy it was to make my little girl's costumes after sewing a Darth Vader costume for my 6'2" husband - the cape alone took 5 meters - it was SO bulky after sewing little clothes, and each seam took forever to sew!)

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I understand about sewing a cape for your husband; my DH is 6'3" and #280.
Finding a bathrobe to fit him, that's long enough to suit him, is almost impossible. I'm not sure just how large a meter is, but it takes 5 yards of fabric to make him a robe. And you're right, those seams take forever!

I'm still hoping to find a way to dye/paint the dress but if I can't come up with something, I may have to leave it white after all.

I wonder if there are any seamstresses near you that could do it for you? It is an odd request but many of them are used to and more able to work with itty bitty details such as the trim? I would check a few out and see what they say. I can't imagine it would cost a whole lot either

There used to be 2 ladies in my town who specialized in doll clothes; each was a fantastic seamstress with incredible attention to detail. Unfortunately, both have passed away. Guess it wouldn't hurt to check the yellow pages.