A Touch Of Trend

The topic on No Signposts in the Sea yesterday was On Style Rut and The Need to Update. The posting questioned how to be comfortable in your clothing without settling so deeply into a style rut that you look horrendously outdated. The author wrote...

When I love a piece of clothing, I don't care if it's old fashioned. When I like a particular cut, I don't mind at all if it's a little dated, as long as I like it. Rationally speaking, this is a good thing. Personal style is supposed to be personal and comfortable for the person who wears it. But I also don't want to become a walking example of a time machine non-cool (Or do I? Actually, a part of me probably does.)

This posting resonated with me. I recognized the thing that I've come up against in looking for - working with - my style. There's both comfort and the boredom factor in doing the same old, same old, over again and there's the potential to be horrendously outdated. Many factors come into play with clothing that allow one unique and eccentric look to be enviable and another to be scary. Two of them are confidence and ability. Some people are just better at mixing garments up and putting them together and wearing outfits with their head held high. That would be the direction I lean in - as in working toward becoming even better and better at dressing this way.

Valerie wrote - Who wouldn't buy high end good quality designer clothing if they could?

The community I live in doesn't have any high end stores of this nature. We have higher end but not high high end. The nearest city with shops like this is Vancouver, BC, Canada and I'm not interested enough to make the drive. My current income doesn't stretch to the level of prices I mentioned yesterday however, even if it did, I doubt I'd pay that because it's not in my nature. Right now, I would buy a designer garment second hand at a really good price... maybe... depending on the really good price. If the thousand dollar skirt was now going for hundreds, that would still be too much for me. I think there are a lot of people - both wealthy and not wealthy - who just aren't interested.

Erica B wrote - I love high end clothing. I love to go into the store and examine the pieces and try them on. They set the standard. Isn't it what we as home seamstresses try to achieve (along with great fit)?

I thought about this comment a lot yesterday and asked myself is this a standard I'm trying to achieve? For me, the statement high end clothing sets the standard needs to be more defined. Are we talking about the sewing skills? If so, I've seen expensive clothing that was crappily sewn. Are we talking about the design skills? Just as with art, those are hugely subjective based on our preferences. What one person sees as amazing, another thinks is truly ugly.

Possibly because of where I live, but more likely because of my personality, what's currently in is not of huge importance to me. It's not that I'm unaware. Adding a touch of trend keeps me from being completely outdated however, I don't want to be a carbon copy and look like everyone else. That's hard to do when the stores are full of the latest and that's all you can buy, easier if you're a thrifter like No Signposts, and completely doable when you sew.

If something is obviously in - as in everyone is wearing it - I'm more likely to lean away from it. If it's a style that I really like - for example the current trend toward wide legged jeans and chunky jewelry - I may purchase quite a few pieces but I won't necessarily wear them a lot now or discard them when the trend moves on. I'll wear them when I want to because they're me. If I'm going to wear something that is considered out of style, I try to wear it far enough away from the trend that I look individual as opposed to outdated. That's if it's terribly trendy. This isn't such a big problem for me because I tend toward clean lines and shapes and somewhat classic styles. Either way, I have always preferred to be unique as opposed to a carbon copy and I'll often make a decision away from a trend for that reason.

A few years ago, when I first got back into sewing fashions, I wanted to be very stylish and attempted to become more aware of what was in and who was who and who was wearing what. I spent quite a bit of time with the friend I told you about earlier who is extremely passionate about fashion. I looked at how she educated herself and how she shopped, stored her clothing, and rotated garments. I looked at the number of magazines she subscribed to and how she read them devouring every page and her method for developing her dressing plan seasons in advance. I looked at the time, money, and energy invested. It was exhausting and didn't resonate with me at all. It wasn't fun to worry about whether this or that style was in and for how long and should I sew it or not and... and... and... I chose to go in a different direction.

To put it in a sentence, my goal is to sew (or buy) clothing that I enjoy, that suits both my figure type and my personality, using the fabrics and notions that appeal to me, with the highest quality and best technical ability that I can afford/achieve while always striving to do better.





Here's another video done by Ari Seth Cohen of Advanced Style featuring Debra Rapoport. She's a huge thrifter. I'm not... BUT... if I was going to go in one direction or the other... this would be the direction. When I think about the women that admire and how they dress, they all have in common uniqueness, individuality, a general lack of concern for trends, and thrifting.




After errands yesterday, I had about an hour to sew before work and finally got back to the jeans. This striped denim has been in my stash for a good ten years. The stripes look like a running stitch. They're the same gold color of top stitching on jeans and are placed about one inch apart. When I cut out the pattern, I matched the selvages carefully, made sure the fold exactly followed a stripe and that everything was square. I then placed the straight of grain line on a stripe, pinned, and cut out. It never occurred to me that the stripes on the jean front would need to align with the stripes on the pockets which makes it very nice that...




... they lined up exactly. What a fluke that was. YES YES. I had some yardage left so I would have been able to cut more pockets only they were perfect the first time without trying. How rarely does that happen?




Because my waist is so much smaller than my hips and especially in the back, my pattern has a dart below the back yoke. Look at how the dart was exactly the right width to keep the stripes on the yoke aligned with the stripes on the leg. Again, a total fluke. I'm not sure how the pocket will turn out. That's one piece I hadn't cut out yet. I'm not working today. I'd like to get these finished and wear them tomorrow. We'll see.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - individuality of thought and interest, purpose and passion. What a boring - lopsided - world it would be if we were all identical.