Today’s Boston Globe has a very amusing story about the Birkin, a handbag whose legendary exclusiveness is firmly quashed in the story.
And if you like Posh’s Roland Mouret dress Burda WOF did a pretty good knock-off.
Erica’s version is really hot!
I was on a sewing forum this week and read a post from a woman very frustrated because she needed to buy clothes for a job interview, and couldn’t find anything appropriate for her age and in her size.
Why do we have so much choice yet it is so hard to find flattering clothes?
Shopping used to be a pastime for me, but as I’ve gotten older, had kids and became jaded and cynical, I’ve had to develop a system for shopping, and it’s this:
Right now I’m looking for dark wash trouser jeans – stay tuned; the hunt is on!
Hats.
Georgene’s post made me think of them, because I adore that cute little trilby on the right. When I was younger, I loved nothing more than playing with my grandmother’s collection of hats on a rainy afternoon, and every time I see a vintage pattern I long for the chance to wear one.
What happened to our relationship with hats?
My theory as to why woman no longer wear them boils down to this: we no longer wear hairstyles that accommodate a hat, that is, a style smooth at the back of the head with curls around the face. Bangs do not work with hats (ask me how I know this.) These days our hairstyle is our “head ornament” and I think our increasingly casual lives jsut don’t give us that many opportunities to wear them, and so we don’t know how to wear them anymore. These days when I see a woman in a hat she is just SO selfconscious and aware of what’s on her head. It reminds of me seeing my Episcopal dad in a Yarmulke at my cousin’s Bar Mitzvah.
So where can we wear hats these days? Well…
Church. Our African-American sisters in particular really know how to rock this and I salute them for keeping the flame burning, but for the most part hats at church are a thing of the past where I live.
The Kentucky Derby. Not an event I’m likely to attend in the near future.
Weddings. Well, many of them are evening events now, and hats are kind of a daytime thing if you ask me.
Meeting Queen Elizabeth or the Pope. Same as the Kentucky Derby.
Not a long list. Plus, a hat is meant to seen, and since most of us drive everywhere, where would we wear hats on a daily basis? The mall? Costco? I can’t envision it.
BUT
Great hats do exist….. like here….and here…and here. First Lady of France Carla Bruni needs to work on her hat wardrobe a bit; it’s hard to believe she looks more matronly than the Queen, who is twice her age and still wore a better hat. Carla should be channeling Jackie Kennedy.
Maybe when my daughters get married I’ll have a chance to wear one. Hopefully they will have day weddings.
Sigh
“It is in paintings or in family albums that traces of true fashion can be found.” - Coco Chanel*
I love old photos and yesterday my mother emailed me this gem. These are my grandparents, Anthony and Adele Vestcyk. I have never seen this photo before and it was a total eye opener.
My grandmother had a keen interest in fashion, and even though she lived her entire life within 20 miles from where she was born and had only a fourth grade education, she nonetheless had supreme confidence in her sense of style. Look at what she’s wearing: knickers (!) a sporty blouse, and very nice shoes. My mother tells me my grandmother was a huge fan of Coco Chanel (me too) and I certainly detect the influence of Mademoiselle beaming like a laser all the way from 1920’s Paris to a coal mining town in Pennsylvania. Like Chanel, Della Vestcyk was a woman who dressed to please herself.
My grandfather looks far more dapper than I remember; look at his straw boater, slim trousers, and I think that’s a pocket watch chain on his right side.
This photo is also remarkable because I can’t ever recall seeing my grandparents express any affection towards each other. When I was little they were clearly devoted to each other in a kind of prickly way, and they had a solid marriage, but my memory is of two people orbiting each other in their house and pretty much living their own lives. But here they look very happy together, and their relationship was more complex than I could ever imagine.
* Page 377, Chanel and Her World, by Edmonde Charles-Roux (The Vendome Press, copyright 1981 & 2005)
Every day (actually, several times a day) I read Linda Grant’s blog The Thoughtful Dresser, and her blog is so ingrained in me that I need to read her posts as much as I need my morning coffee. Today she did a post that sums up, brilliantly, what is wrong with fashion, and also why we all sew (not that she meant to, but she nailed it nonetheless.)
Go. Read. You will so agree with what she’s says!
In a recent raid on Barnes and Noble I found a new publication called “Sew Somerset” - found in with the sewing, quilting, and craft magazines. It was like a window on a whole new world…The cover tag line says ‘the art of creative sewing with mixed-media’. There is a whole slew of ways of mixing paper and fabric and bits of stuff into art, which I have really never explored. It definitely got me thinking, as you can probably guess I do have lots of bits and pieces of cloth, buttons, lace, and trinkets. It closely resembles collage, but goes beyond that into book making, Artist Trading Cards, etc…
I have done a bit of patchwork and appliqué over the years, like this top with the front pieced together with stretch velvet swatches…
Or this patchworked cardigan made from printed stretch velvet swatches…
I have even embellished cardigans with bits of lace and ribbon like this piece.
But nothing like the sewn bits of memory and fancy I found in this magazine. There is a Somerset Studio website, mainly geared towards selling their main product: rubber stamps (there’s a reason the parent company is called Stampington) They produce the magazine Belle Armoire and have a new publication called Altered Couture coming out this month, with lots of tips and tricks for re-fashioning already made garments. Their web page with rules for art submission gives the background on all of their publications for those interested. I am looking forward to seeing what Altered Couture looks like.
I particularly loved the “Sewing Book” on pg 30 of the Sew Somerset magazine: an altered book by Caterina Giglio. She started with an Eddie Bauer catalog and glued and gessoed the pages to make a book. She then proceeded to sew and glue images, buttons, lace, fabric scraps, pattern pieces to make a highly evocative and personal piece of art to express her relationship to sewing and to honor her grandmothers who taught her so much. She is part of a group called Creative Underground in Ft. Collins CO. I found their website and see they have many books and useful products for sale. Well worth a visit!
I made a covered folder a few years ago that reminds me of this kind of sewn mixed media. Covered in stretch lace and embellished with ribbons and scraps of stretch velvet, I felt like I should transfer the technique to a jacket or some other garment. This sewn mixed media magazine got me to thinking that maybe I could play with the scraps and bits for its own sake, and it never need be applied to a garment at all. Hmmm
TECHNICAL DRAWING?
I recently had a few promos from the Big 4 pattern companies in my in-box. You probably got them too, if you have ever clicked on to a pattern company’s website. I love looking at patterns online, whether checking out the current crop of vintage on eBay, or the newest additions at the Big 4 or the Independants.
One of the ways pattern companies attempt to differentiate themselves is by the look of the envelope. Fashion drawings, photos, line drawings, stylized drawings, often you can tell at a glance who’s who and what’s what by the look of the envelope.
Here’s a quiz: quick, do you know what a Built-By-Wendy envelope drawing looks like? Simplicity, on their website, shows photos, but click on the item and you are taken to view of the envelope.
How about Loes Hinse and her ubiquitous model? (Is that her daughter?) What about Folkwear? I bet you can recognize that anywhere. And we have all heard the complaints about KwikSew’s uninspiring drawings. Fortunately for us, most companies include a line drawing somewhere on the envelope to help understand the style.
Face it, to make an informed decision about a pattern purchase, we all want the maximum amount of visuals, along with the lowdown on body measurements, fit info, yardage requirements, suggested fabrics. In the day of the $15-20 pattern, a bad pattern choice can be very annoying. The less information available, the less likely I am going to buy that pattern.
OR ILLUSTRATION?
With so many choices available now on where to buy patterns, and what pattern to select, how to discern what to buy? There’s a minimum that I expect, but you know what? I bought a Marfy pattern from Italy, paid serious money for it, and not only are there no markings on the pattern tissue, and no seam allowances, there is not even a picture of any description on the envelope. For that I had to download and print out the drawing from the website. I guess in Italy, you would have purchased that season’s catalog. (I’ll post my Marfy pattern sewing experience another day)
Contrast my Marfy experience, where I was well informed what to expect before ordering, with recent experiences, well-documented, with HotPatterns. There was a lot of ranting in on-line forums about inadequate sewing instructions, with no pictures, not to mention issues with fitting that most had with the early releases of that pattern line. Mixed in with those complaints were the comments about the disconnect between the drawings and the final sewn product. Somehow, those fashion illustrations, even though accompanied by a technical drawing of sorts, were not enough of an indication of what the envelope contained.
It seems though, that sewing enthusiasts are being heard. Kayla Kennington recently updated her website with of garments made with her patterns. There are some beautiful examples of the pattern in different fabrics. I like to think of these as ’serving suggestions’ - sew it up the same way, or get inspired to make it your own way.
Technical drawing? or illustration? photo? or all 3? Which is most important for you in your pattern purchase decision?
PHOTO
Shout out to my Dear Daughter for her fashion illustration. (Mostly she is into Japanese manga and anime, but I got her to help out on a project recently.) Thanks to Irena for her Adobe Illustrator line drawing.
I just got back from reading a post on Pattern Review about Wal-Mart scaling back fabric departments and Hancock’s Chapter 11 filing (I know, this is not news from either company and the sewing forums have been buzzing about this for months.)
It’s fascinating to see that while interest in sewing is increasing, the traditional retail outlets for patterns and fabrics are decreasing. What does this mean? Is this really a result of retailers either speaking only to shareholders (Wal-Mart), or being unable to manage their business(Hancocks)?
Personally - I think the internet has a lot to do with it. Most of my favorite fabric stores are now virtual and internet based, and the best internet fabric sources work because of the expertise, trust and personality the owners communicate to their customers. And I suspect that as soon as pattern companies figure out how to deliver downloadable patterns in a way that won’t require me to tape together 48 sheets of 8.5 x 11 inch paper we might see where retail pattern trends are headed.
In the end I really believe that access to fabric and patterns is not going away - we’re just in the midst of a sewing revolution right now, and the future state is still out there.
I think this is an exciting time to be sewing!
Diva Ann and I yak on the phone every day, and she called me last night. She needed emotional support because her DH (who is a prince, really he is) accidentally washed and ran through the dryer her dark green silk velvet Hot Patterns Patchouli Dress. Evidently it shrunk down several sizes and was covered with balls of nasty white dryer lint. Ann wears this dress all the time - trust me, I’ve seen it in person and it’s just perfection on her. It’s also a favorite when she has a singing gig, because it just works , you know? Now, her DH is wonderful guy, and I’m quite sure he’s already made good on this grievous mistake. But now poor An has a huge hole in her wardrobe!
And I can SO relate to her attachment to that dress - I have a outfit like that - my Hot Patterns Plain & Simple Shirtdress in a funky brown and blue 70’s print corduroy. This dress is my reliable I-don’t-have-time to-think-about-what-to-wear Monday morning outfit. I just add a pair of tall brown high heeled boots and brown tights or brown fishnets (depending on how cold it is) - and every time I wear it I feel GREAT. And I get lots of compliments. And it’s sooo easy - I just put on that dress and - voila! - fashion happens!
I feel the same way about Simplicity 4954, which is a Chanel style jacket that I put a lot of handwork into. It always works, every time.
So - what is your killer sewing project that is just so YOU that you when you wear it you’re Wonder Woman?
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