Which vintage?

Well, it's been a bit quiet here this past week. I've been on a mini-holiday and not a lot of people seemed interested in that crazy trouser pattern. 

Those trousers are finished but I've been wearing them on Saturday (our first day in the Ardennes) so they are in the laundry now. I'll show them off later.

In the mean time, I hope some of you can help me with this:

A few weeks ago, a friend and I went to a 'vintage clothes by the kilo' sale. I bought just a few things and this dress was one of them.

I picked it out because of the fabric: Rather nice raw silk. 

The shape is both simple and not so simple: An A-line smock with a lightly quilted, pointed yoke and sort-of-raglan sleeves with pleats.  

On its own, it didn't look right on me but I liked the look with a belt (no picture of that unfortunately, I didn't feel like trying self-timer pictures today). 

The sleeve pleats have been carefully made but their placement seems to defy gravity a bit too much. Both on the hanger and on my shoulders, some are drawn open and false pleats form lower down.

The collar looks to me like it is made as high stand but it shows clear signs of having been folded down. Whether in wearing or on display isn't clear. 

In general, the dress shows very few signs of wear. No stains, no wear on the fabric under the arms or at the collar. Not even on the self fabric loops or domed buttons. 

This is the label: Frances Henaghan, 100% silk, made in Hong Kong, 6. 

The inside seam allowances are finished with a narrow three thread lock stitch. The yoke is faced with self fabric, the quilting lines weren't stitched through it. 

The sleeves are finished with a facing which has been hand-stitched in place. 

And did I mention it has pockets? In-seam ones, at the sides. Set low enough so I can still use them when I wear the dress with a belt.

All of this detail is original to this dress. One thing isn't though.

The hem. This off-white silk dress, on which all details are made in self fabric and stitching has a hem of narrow white nylon lace.

A strip of lace which was just stitched to the raw edge of the fabric... It's fraying. This doesn't look like the work from the same person who made the rest of the dress. 

I think it has been shortened.

So now, I'm left wondering. How old is this dress? What was its purpose? Why was it shortened? 

The body shape is almost like that of night gown. The sleeves and collar are too formal for that. So is the material. 

The remaining length is just below the knee for me. Of course, I can't tell how long it has been. It may have been a long dress. A long, off-white dress. A fairly informal wedding gown maybe?

And as for how old it is... I'm thinking 1970's. There was this trend for old-fashioned romance back then, wasn't there? All buttoned up, with high necklines and puffy sleeves, Laura Ashley style... 

Do you have any idea?  

Those hips!

I decided to squeeze in one more dress before I start with real spring sewing. 

This dress. 
Don't you think it's just my kind of dress? Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm a devoted fan of stick out pockets. And of hip-enhancing design features in general. I've made regular pockets with flaps on the hip, several kinds of stick-out pockets, in skirts, a coat and dresses and even the occasional design with crazy wide draped shapes in that area...
I love wearing all those things I don't think it would be a bit much to add one more. After all, this one will be entirely different again.

And that made me think... 
As a teenager, when I was starting to get interested in fashion, I quickly learned that the family pear shape (yes, it's a family thing. I have a sister, a mother, two aunts and the pictures of my grandmother in her younger years to prove it) was a bit of an obstacle. No dress ever fitted properly and I was lucky that the rise on trousers and skirts was getting lower just then.
When I started sewing for myself on a regular basis, that helped. But still, fit was an important reason to sign up for pattern making lessons. Pattern making combined with an increasing interest in vintage fashion settled it: I love my hips.

Over the past few years, I had the opportunity to find out how a random selection of other women in this country feel about this subject.
A twenty-year-old who was doing work experience with designer-friend M while I was helping to get the collection finished that she preferred "a bit of a belly" over "a fat ass"... I did point out that, if nothing else, there are medical reasons to disagree with that.
She was hardly alone with that opinion though. When working in bridal stores, I often had to change the way I held a dress around a shopping bride-to-be. I would usually make a point of drawing in the dresses at the waist, to get as ideal a shape as possible from them. At least, I would until the customer started complaining the dress made her hips look fat. 
It was hard to believe for me, but many a modern woman prefers her torso to look like an as-thin-as-possible rectangle...

It kind of makes sense to blame fashion. After all, ever since the mid-1990's the ideal body has been "thin". Every once in a while, fashion glossies will mention that "curves are back" but usually that just means some designers have used corset-like details and a model with a B cup has been spotted on the runways. 
You don't have to be a fashion history geek to know that fashionable "ideal" silhouettes changed a lot more over the decades before that. 
Clothing technology, global manufacturing, branding and the way we shop has changed enormously over that time but the ideal body shape... Not so much.
And what's more: Bodies have changed. It's tempting to think that individual body shape is a given but that's only partly true. What you wear can influence your shape too. Especially if you wear it while growing up. How many women under 30 do you know who don't have a 'hip dent' at the point where the waistband of low-rise jeans hits? And how many over 35 who do? 

Whether it's for fashion, out of convenience or simply because there doesn't seem to be another option many of us are messing up our hips. 
It's not as bad as squeezing in your ribcage which was also fashionable for a long time but still... 
I guess what I'm curious about is this: It's that obvious someone like me, a seamstress who loves 1950's looks would be willing to embrace a body shape that isn't in tune with 'normal' fashion but how about you? 

Creating options

Thank you all so much for commenting on the previous post! You've taught me things I didn't know, given me new insight, shared great stories and occasionally told me not to be silly... I'm grateful for all of it.


Although I should really answer all comments in turn, I will use this post to summerize and give some further explanation about the event.
First of all: the wedding itself. It starts in the afternoon and continues with a party in a small restaurant at the beach (all of those are rather casual locations). Secondly, the Dutch are notoriously casual dressers. Apperently, wedding guests in jeans are not uncommon here. Even though I don't consider that an excuse not to make an effort, it is something to keep in mind. Full evening attire would definately be considered 'over the top'. 
And third, several of you suggested asking the bride about her idea on colours. I haven't yet but as I know this couple, they are usually casual dressers who wear a lot of black themselves (the groom to be is the drummer in the heavy metal band E plays in...). I know she will wear a formal ivory white wedding gown and he will wear a suit, but I can't imagine the two of them obsessing over the guests' choice of outfit.


All that being said, I did try to find other, non-black fabric yesterday. In colour(s) which wouldn't MISmatch E's outfit (which is still difficult. Some commenters suggested blue might work with his shirt. Well, lighter shades clash with the shirt, darker ones with the suit...). I did find two types of fabric in the same blue-ish, silver-y grey: thin polyesther satin (which I didn't buy because I really don't like that stuff) and cotton jersey. 
I bought the jersey, with the thought that I could always dye it if the colour really doesn't work for me. 


Oh, and I really like the idea of using an 'opposite' colour, I am still looking for such a thing (not so sure about orange though, I may have good experience wearing it, but just after the wedding, the European Football/Soccer Championship will start, and orange happens to be Holland's national colour at things like that...) 


So, without further ado, these are my options so far (both still lacking hems and other finishing touches):

The black cotton voile dress. Here worn with my usual belt, a (too short) crinoline petticoat and my molded leather necklace. Not so much a bad look, but maybe a bit too goth for the occasion?

Here it is without petticoat and with that ribbon. As said, I'm not really a fan of the ribbon. It doesn't stay in place very well either.

And here is the jersey dress. The colour looks much better/less bad on me than expected. However you can tell I'm not used to dealing with plain, light coloured fabrics... I've made this skirt shape for knit dresses before but never seemed quite so in-your-face... 
E says it's OK, I like the top but am not entirely sure about the bottom (of course, chopping it up and using it as a top could be an option).


What do you think, seeing the options 'in the flesh'?

Cover up

Can I ask you something?

What do you think of capes?

I'm having some trouble deciding what to make this week. Dutch spring weather is unreliable at the best of times. We've had some nice days but today, it was gray and cold-ish once more... And there's no telling what next week or even next month will be like. Of course, I don't have to be able to wear anything I make straight away, but still, I like to.

It made me think I could use another light jacket for the slightly warmer in-between weather. So far, I have a tweed blazer and the leather and wool jacket I made last year. Those are both fitted, so I'd like a different kind of shape. Which brings me to the question posed above...

Mind you, I have owned a cape before. It was black, almost floor length and made of crushed velvet. In my goth days, I loved it but now, I'm thinking about something different altogether.

A cute little one, in colour. More like something Joan or Peggy would wear.

And, luckily, I recently bought this:

This is booklet number 5 (I found 1 through 6) of an 'easy drafting' series from the 1960's. The fact that they're numbered suggests that no. 1 really was the first issue and 'everything so far' is listed in no. 6 which sort of suggests that this was a short-lived experiment. The subscribtion used to come with a set of sized slopers which, obviously, wasn't sold alongside these booklets (I saw a set of sized slopers for sale recently but those were from a later date and produced by a different company. So, I didn't think they'd be a match and didn't bid). That is a shame but I think I can work around that and just use my own slopers.

In booklet no.5 there's this darling little cape:

I'm thinking about making a hybrid of the versions shown: I rather like the wide neckline but would prefer my buttons at the front. I could use that warmly coloured plaid wool I bought recently...

Or, I could look one page further, at this very cute cape/jacket cross-over:

I'm not sure about those pockets but having sleeves, no matter how short and wide, could make this a little more practical.

I guess there are two real questions here:

1. No matter how cute or period-accurate these two capes are, aren't they just a bit too costume-y for 2012?

And 2. Are capes ever any use in real life? I know they won't exactly keep me warm while cycling, but in order to be any good to me, they'd at least have to do a half-way decent job when I'm walking around outside.

Oh, and a non-official question no. 3: which one do you like best?

And the answer is...

Wow, I should have known you guys would be good at this sort of thing. I should have asked for the exact year, just to make it a bit of a sport.

Marie-Noelle, Jenny Wren, redsilvia, Tanit-Isis, Readythreadsew and AlisonMM, you are all absolutely right: this picture is from the 1930's. From 1935, to be precise.

And indeed, I put it on the blog as a guess-the-decade topic because the outfits on their own could easily be mistaken for 1970's styles. You know: flares, funky decoration, bare skin and no bras...

But all of you were too smart to fall for that.

Congratulations, everyone!

P.S. Thank you all for your kind comments to yesterday's post.

Guess the decade

I've never done a post like this before, but I usually love them at other blogs (most notably at Couture Allure).

This week I bought this book:

That is 'Fashion Photography' in Dutch. It's basically one of those 'fashion photography through the ages collections' (I was going to write 'through the decades' but it actually starts before 1900. Other than that, it is pretty much all of the 20th century).

Although it misses some of the usual suspects (in fact, it misses pictures of creations from the biggest names altogether), like Dovima wearing Dior's 'Bar' suit, it includes other, lesser known and equally fascinating pieces of fashion history. Some of which are interesting and might be difficult to date without the strict 'by the decade' order of the book and the information with each picture.

Case in point:

Can you tell me from which decade this picture comes (apologies for the crease down the middle. it's a thick book)? I'll reveal the answer on Monday. Winners get the right to boast about their superior knowledge of fashion ;)

I'm still here!

Oh dear, quite a bit more that a week came and went without a blog post... I really didn't mean to do that. I've been here all the time, but work has been crazy and I'm really looking forward to a holiday now. But I'll have to wait a bit longer.

Because of the work situation, not a lot of sewing has been going on lately. I've only just started on a new top.

I find that among sewing interesting things like dresses and a jumpsuit and useful things like trousers, tops tend to get less attention than they deserve in my sewing life. All this year, when sewing tops, I've tried to move outside my comfort zone. No black, no fully fitted shapes.

This is the latest experiment I'm working on. A sleeveless wrap blouse with a huge collar. I'll tell you more about the design and its details later.

Right now, I need to make a choice: flat front or with gathers?

I made the gathered one because I wasn't quite sure I liked the flat one, but now that it's done and I've seen both, I think I prefer the first...

(Don't get me wrong, I think the gathers would work well for a lot of people, but I consider it a strength of my figure that I don't have tummy fat to conceal)

Your insight would be very welcome...

Quick jacket update

I've started!!

And here's the proof. This is the center back piece with the horsehair back stay. I've cut the horsehair with half-width seam allowances and without the darts. The shoulderdart (which I think can look quite cool moved to the center back seam like this) has been cut open at its wide bit, pressed flat and hand-stitched (I don't know the name of this stitch in English, in Dutch it is called flanelsteek).

I wanted to get started last night, but I remembered that the only bit of horsehair in my stash was fusible. Yes, there is such a thing as fusible horsehair. I tried it out on a tiny scrap and it fuses really well and the end result gets quite stiff. Because I really want to try out the whole padstitching thing in this jacket, I didn't want to use it. So, I had to wait until today and go out and buy non-fusible horsehair.

One question for the experienced tailors among you: Normally, I cut the undercollar on the biais to let it ease into the shape of the upper collar. And when using woven fusible interfacing, I match that. Now, I want to shape that undercollar with horsehair and padstitching, so what do I do?

I know RTW jackets often have felt undercollars (which makes the whole grainline issue irrelevant anyway) but I have never taken one of those jackets apart so I don't know how those are shaped.

Oh, and by the way, do you really have to use silk thread for padstitching?

Unfortunately, I have a lot of other things to do today (it's my day off now, because I'll be working Saturday), like laundry, cleaning the house and some computer as well, so I don't think there will be any huge progress today.

Back in the game: another jacket muslin

Well... What to say about this one? I would really like your opinion this time. I think the jacket body is about right by now. But, this is a muslin with the styling in place. And that's where I need your opinion: completely mental or kind of cool?

There is some strange pulling of the sleeve at the front. I know why and I will fix it, so please ignore that. I'm not so sure what to think about this look. Before, I liked the banded sleeve, but I felt it could be pushed a bit further. So I did.

This result does look a bit like those Balmain sleeves from winter 2009, which makes me wonder whether it looks too much like some fashionable one-day fly.

I also went with a peaked lapel because it's the sharper look, which I thought would go better with the crazy shoulder than it's tamer cousin. I did take out a little dart on the fold line before drafting the collar and that seems to have worked. And I added back vents.

The pocket flaps are just pinned-on bits of fabric now but I plan to make bound pockets with flaps, using the usual jacket trick of cutting the bit below the pocket on the center front (hard to explain that properly, I'll record the process for you later).

Considering jackets

Next to my ill-considered plans for a 60's dress, one or two suits were also among my more immediate sewing plans for 2011. Which leads me to this post.

The first suit I want to make should become my ultimate black suit (for the second, I've got brown-grey fabric and I'm considering side buttoned trousers and a vaguely victorian inspired jacket). I've got some very nice black wool suiting in my stash and I want to make two or three pieces which can be mixed together and with other items in my wardrobe.

I've made jackets before and have experimented a bit with different shapes. I also have a vintage jacket which I like. I want to be classic and still 'me'. And, considering the way I wear jackets (if I do so) in my everyday life, it should also look good when worn open. And I kind of want it to work with the different trouser shapes in my wardrobe, but more about that in a later post...

With these criteria in mind, I would like to ask your opinion. I'm going to run some option past you and would like to know which of those, which combination or which other one I should consider for my ultimate black jacket.

First: my lovely tweed jacket. The second jacket I made to a self-drafted pattern (the first had some strange issues and is black, so I'm not including it here). I really like it, but the result is somewhat 'Edwardian'. I'm also not so sure it looks good when worn open.

Second: A green tweed double breasted jacket. The basic shape is the same as that of the grey tweed one. I made this (in a cheap fabric and with less interfacing) purely to see whether or not double breasted jackets looked good on me. This one sees a lot of wear as a late spring/early autumn coat. The higher neckline caused by it being double breasted makes it suitable for that. It should get a collegue for that role, but I don't think it's an 'ultimate jacket' option. Even if it's just because it looks a bit funny when worn open.

Third: I made a completely different, 'flattened' version of my sloper after working for a bit with a designer who wanted all her patterns 'slim fit' (her words, not mine. I was just trying to keep her from eliminating too much ease and curve). There is a linen one, and this. I think it looks pretty bad in these pictures and I have to say the fabric didn't exactly cooperate as I had expected. However, this one was designed with 'wearing open' in mind. It gets worn more than the tweed (also because it's thinner). I'm annoyed by it's obvious flaws but often end up wearing it anyway because it's straight shape looks more 'normal'. I don't usually care, but sometimes it is important to look just like a normal person...

Fourth: I didn't make this jacket. I found it at the vintage selling market-stall. It is a rather straight cut which, on me, is fitted at shoulder and hip and just hangs loose between those. I like it. The shape seems modern and a bit androgenous. And it looks good worn open.

I had half-and-half decided to draft a pattern like this one for my new jacket when I got back to thinking about colour. Would this work as well in black? I'm not so sure...

Of course, when I make my jacket, there will be muslins and style and fit tweaks, but each of these has a different basic shape. It's not a lot of work to change the length, or the exact outline of the collar, drafting an entire new shape is. Which is why I want to start with a clear goal in mind.

In the new jacket, there may also be more extensive tailoring than in any of the above, but I'm still mentally debating the merits of different techniques.

I will follow up on this with a post on jackets and trouser shapes but until then, can you help me out?

Outfits, outfits, outfits

Finally some proper light today! I took advantage of it by taking some pictures of some fairly recent creations as worn by me (some of those I've never worn combined like this, but I'm sure I will). Click on the pictures to make them bigger (yes, these are a bit bigger). My apologies for all the similar poses and self-timer faces.

It seems that contrary to what I thought, blogger does not enlarge the pictures when clicked (I'd swear I've seen and used that feature on other blogger-blogs...) so I have uploaded them a size bigger.

First up: flared trousers and jacket in charcoal grey wool, here worn as a suit with a ruffly top underneath. The top was made of fabric left over from my flowy white shirt. It's a simple sleeveless number, decorated with three rows of circular ruffles.

Then: the same jacket with the belt pleated trousers and the heart t-shirt for a very different looking suit.

Number three: the last item I made in the charcoal grey wool, the skirt, worn with the grey jersey cardigan and a very old refashioned t-shirt (it used to be a band t-shirt belonging to my boyfriend, but he let me have it and cut it to my size two years ago. I like it's faded look and love to wear it with neat tailored pieces)

Four: Karin asked for it, and I had been thinking about it myself as well. The green skirt with the orange top. It actually looks fine in the picture, but in reality, it doesn't really work. The green is really eye-poppingly bright (the camera's sensors don't seem to be able to cope with that) and the orange is a bit muted in comparison.

And finally, this is something I'm not so sure about. I've made this skirt two years ago, and I still love it. The top, however is a different story. I bought the fabric at the spring fabric market last year, having fallen in love with that flowy, almost art nouveau style, print. However, it is also quite shiny, which always scared me a bit. The size of the print (and the weight of the fabric) meant it had to be made into something unstructured.

I made this about a month ago and it has been on my ironing board ever since, unable to leave the sewing room. Originally, I put elastic at the bottom, thinking it would be nice as one of those loose fitting tops I could wear with fitted trousers. But that just made the whole thing look like a tracksuit top... Not a good look at all. Playing around with it, I realized it might look a lot better tucked in. I am actually fairly happy with this look and it might also work with my high waisted tweed skirt, although I'm not sure it would work with trousers...

I'm going back to sewing now. So many plans, so little time. I'm working on a Chanel-like jacket, but I'll have to put that on hold for now untill I can get the right notions for it. So I'll go and make a pattern for another knit top. Or a skirt. Or a dress...

trying a new shape

I would like to ask you to give your honest opinion about this.

I've been looking at belt pleated trousers in high fashion magazines for a while now, and the idea slowly warmed to me. So I decided to try and make a pair for myself. As usual, I drafted my own pattern (some of the belt pleated trousers I liked in magazines had lower waistbands, but I kind of liked the high waist in the muslin). I'm reasonably satisfied with it, if I wanted to make this again my only change would be to make the pocket entry a little deeper than it is now.

For fabric, I used the same thin wool as for the flared trousers.

What I'm not so sure about, is the look. It doesn't help that it seems like it just doesn't go with just about anything in my wardrobe (proportion-wise, that is) but that isn't even the whole point. I've been trying it on while I was working on it and afterwards and my own reaction varied from: "Wow, this is cool" to "this is just weird".

My boyfriend, who is usually quite helpful at a point like this because he is utterly unbiased by any knowledge of the latest fashion, only had to offer one very helpful (not) comment: "it's 80's". Now, normally, that makes something just wrong in my book. I did the 80's first time around. In this case, I'm not so sure. I was a child in the 80's so although I did wear leggings by the end of the decade (meaning that I 'did' that 80's staple first time around), I'm pretty sure I didn't have trousers like these at any point. And even if I did, would it really matter? What comes around, goes around, and in fashion, the weels only seem to turn faster and faster...

I hope you can see my point. I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on this and I should really give these the wear-out-of-the-house test this week.