Just like the real thing

 In the past few days, in no particular order, I've:

• Put the wraps on my final assignments for the semester.
  
• Emailed lots of lovely people about how much their role in my studies has meant to me.
• Sunken back into the warm embrace of home, especially the lovely sewing room my mom has been assembling for me since I've been away!
• Recovered from a snuffy nose and scratchy throat.
  
• Mended the clasp on a skirt that was underloved as it is, even though it fits my waist in a terrifyingly perfect manner.
• Sewn a shirt! Even with the "Jiffy" marking on the package, I was shocked at how quickly this Simplicity 6890 tunic came together. I had just barely enough of both fabrics to eep this baby out and was forced to use the thick, brick-red bodice fabric to line the neck, which proved quite bulky. However, I liked how it peeked out over the pale edge and did some topstitching to keep it all down. 1975 is proud of me.
  

• DISCOVERED A LED ZEPPELIN SONG THAT MOVED ME. Listen, I appreciate Robert Plant like anyone else - he seems like a really humble, down-to-earth guy. But I was never impressed by his vocals on the Zeppie songs you always hear (why call them Zep when Zeppie exists?) and was physically shocked to learn years back that "Sea of Love" was, well, the "Immigrant Song" guy. Bless my heart for having a blind spot in my discography, I guess. I just never paid too much attention, because hearing "Hey, Hey, What Can I Do" over the vintage mall PA the other day made me do a double take. 1975 is, once again, proud of me.
• Dropped my already-on-its-last-legs sun-yellow iron face down on my orange shag rug, making me and my mom accidentally run ourselves ragged after an already long day for a new one because the closest place to our house only had ones that weighed two tons.
• Finished another dress, just in time for attending the Philly Vintage Flea. She's Simplicity 8805 from 1970 and how I finished her in three days I have no idea. It involved these absurd two-part darts in the front and some slightly terrifying front facing to achieve its low cut. I was genuinely concerned it was going to be too small for a big part of it, despite it literally being an extremely reliable size. Well, it fits me perfectly, and I got many a compliment on it, and everyone who commented loved that I made it myself. The collar being amazing, however, is likely one of the only things that is certain in life. She'll definitely get a more proper showcase later!

As for the Vintage Flea, it was a fascinating experience observing the current state of ~vintage fashion~ outside of my little bubble of cute women sewing their own clothes and buying nothing made after 1978. When I shop for anything I'm surprisingly really good at tuning out other people, unless they're yelling at their poor children for no reason (which always makes my blood boil) or something. It means that I don't get to see people look at me weird, but it also means I'm unbothered and efficient. It was, however, impossible for me to ignore the presence of young, lanky men in oversized gray denim pants, mostly because multiple of them had really bad senses of moving out of the way of people like normal people do. They were likely very focused on 'looking cool', and I was, too, given that the specific pair of tights I wore turn any outfit into Static City, no matter how much cold water you run under your dress.

The clothes, too, were very concerned with image, mostly of the oversized-shirt-and baggy-pants variety, which is just not my thing. I did, however, get a real kick out of seeing a shirt for the original run of the Broadway musical of Tommy, my favorite album. Certain aspects of the Broadway version make me want to give Pete Townshend a stern talking to, but I still enjoyed the chance to see its revival this summer on the Great White Way itself (everyone involved was very talented and passionate) and have been carrying the tote bag I got at the merch stand everywhere I go since. A photo op was in order.

I was half expecting the convention hall to be filled entirely with these sort of stands, though there was plenty of amazingly lovely stands run by kind people whose wares appealed more to my frivolous, girlish interests. Seeing the plethora of stands catered to hip, sexy, nineties and oh's clothes was also very fascinating, especially that I, personally, could never imagine spending $30 on a skirt from the mall that just happened to be from 1998. It was, interestingly enough, these stands that seemed the most egregious on their prices for true vintage - a $200 Gunne Sax on the wall and what have you. Otherwise, the prices at the stands I checked out were actually very fair.

It's also eyeopening seeing how being able to make my own dresses turns me off from actually buying them, despite my love for them - I'm picky with clothes as it is, but having the power to make them myself sees me passing up everything I see! Why would I buy something that doesn't click with me - or anything, for that matter, when I can make something similar myself and have it be all mine? I did, however, make some great purchases and ran into some wonderful people (thanks, Ming Lu, for sharing my photo!). A textual roundup since it's all in the wash right now:

From Dopamine Queen: some lovely hand pressed badges; a nice pale linen frock with a light chestnut waistband (from the cheap pile); a peacock-perfect dress shirt from Dollhouse (from the cheap pile - how?!); a black top with flowery black sleeves and silver and white trim on the collar and wrists (from the cheap pile); a spectacular blue velvet jacket trimmed with crisp white lace that ties in the front.

From Bright Side: a prairie romp-ready skirt from The Red Eye; a sturdy button up in navy and rusted red stripe that came out of the five dollar bin and fits me perfectly to an agonizing degree.

From Totally Vintage: a little hat that just became part of my outfit at some point; the coziest crochet wrap.

From Vintage Jewelry Addicts: the most perfect off-white string of pearls.

Hopefully I got all those credits right from the sea of business cards I now own! Overall, I'm ever so satisfied and am now going to lock myself in my sewing room to make even more dresses until I have to visit my extended family for Christmas Eve, and then hole up again. It was fun while it lasted, outside world.

A Smattering of Essence

Given that I'm currently trapped in a hellish limbo state where my final week of classes for the semester stands between me and my sewing machine, I figured I'd start off my blog in a state of virus-like nostalgic reflection. I also chose not to start at the beginning. Not at the first dress I ever made - a soft turquoise shift number that wound up being the size above mine in the multi-size pack that surely cost too much (all patterns do nowadays, don't they?). Definitely not at the pink polka dot pajama shorts I made in middle school home ec. Rather, I figured I'd start at the dress that served as my first thesis statement, if you will, in my journey as a seamstress, back when I had bangs and a failed Goldie Hawn haircut.

This baby sprung from what might already be one of my all-time favorite patterns everrrr, McCall's 9556 from 1968. A true relic of the summer of love's muddy runoff, with plenty of room for experimentation among styles and three (three!) sleeve variations. For this first go around I chose the mutton ones - or are they balloon sleeves? The back claims they're mutton, but every fashion resource you'll find will say otherwise. Regardless, it's a bit glorious, especially with the lovely square-ish neck, one of numerous gifted to me by Andrea of Lunaria and Sol.

The bodice - green with red, almost fractal flowers arranged across - and skirt - warm brown with a subtle, geometric floral pattern - both came from a slightly disastrous fabric fair, hosted inside a flat brick building in a industrial mall nearby my home. In what seemed to be a belated holdover from the COVID daze, only a certain amount of people - I believe ten? A dozen? - were allowed in at a time, leaving the rest to wait in line outside. While annoying, this would have been decent to experience if the fair hadn’t taken place in the middle of a searing heat wave. The poor little girl passing out paper cups of water spoke for all of us with her solemn presence.

We finally made it in to discover that there were many more people than the originally proposed limit inside the multi-room and decently roomy expanse of the fair - go figure. I did find some good fabric, though, and finding those two pieces was enough for me to work out the dress in my mind. The sleeve fabric - creamy off-white and lightweight - would come a short bit later in the fabric section of a semi-local thrift store, where I also got some more patterns.

This dress would mark my first ever ~pattern mod~, or what have you, given that I chopped the flimsy paper sheet in half to make it. Why wait for a pattern with an actual empire waist when you have fabric scissors? It initially annoyed me that the seam connecting the two parts was slightly uneven, and I even considered covering it with ribbon. With time I've grown to not even notice it.

 

Only when I was part way through constructing the dress, with its mini-skirt, distinct bodice and billowing sleeves, was I reminded of a notable dress Pattie Boyd once sported. It's sort of become the thing of legend for young women getting into old clothes, given Pattie's having been hitched to two of the world's biggest musicians, and the garment itself's outrageous-ness that seemingly goes against every design standard of the current day. (I've actually seen multiple tries at recreating it online!) Obviously my dress is much more muted than your average psych-garment. I had in mind something much more grounded - a playful sort of pastoral type thing. The kind of thing you'd wear to tread around foresty farmlands on a hot spring's day, picking dandelions or...whatever one does when let loose on foresty farmlands. It was about an essence less than any one action, anyway - something intangible, something to be felt inside as opposed to by touch.

That's the thing about this dress to me: it didn't have one set 'muse', so to speak. Whenever I design a piece of clothing, especially in the sketching phase, I often try to imagine an ideal model. In many ways, she is myself, yet she isn't necessarily myself literally - different hair, a different height. In more concrete terms, she is a facet. She is someone with as much depth as external beauty. Much of the latter in a person relies on the former; to me, they go hand in hand. Yet she, this nebulous 'she', remains a fragment; she isn't real, even if I'm thinking of another person specifically who would, hypothetically, do the garment justice.

'Hypothetically' is the key word. Who can truly know another person, no matter how much time you spend with them, no matter how many photos you spy, quips you read? If this dress were designed explicitly for another, would there be some small detail she'd change if given the opportunity - even something as simple as adjusting the length or a different color for the buttons? Making clothes is less a matter of being literal and exact than it is a manner of making a grander statement - of capturing concepts to the best of one's ability, making something tangible from a loose idea - an 'essence', as I described it. To make clothing that is infused with such an essence - the ability to communicate an entire lifestyle with a single garment, with all its complexities. To me, that is a pretty special thing - to not try to be one specific thing, to try and exist within a continuum, one that permits variation and experimentation.

That was the mindset, the homegrown essence, behind this one. It's an essence I think gets lost in the hustle-bustle of our daily lives, not to mention the consumerism that latches itself onto even the most simplistic attempts at trajectory. But that's a tome for another post - what's important here is that I had an idea in mind and I wanted to encapsulate it, and I think I did a pretty good job at doing so. So good, in fact, that I have a dress with very similar aspirations from the same pattern all cut out and ready to be sewn. (I've also had a sketch for one in those far-out flounced sleeves prepared for quite a bit, though that one is to end up a bit more city than countryside, and the one I have in the works is about maximum countryside.)

Reflecting on this dress, I deeply admire it and will always enjoy wearing it. Its construction is,  admittedly, imperfect, but it's honest and sturdy. Despite its earthy aspirations, it's proven itself to be quite versatile - even in winter, when those farmland fields seem far-off and almost intimidating. I plan to keep on wearing it - and keep on taking its message to heart.