In the last blog, I tried to analyse some of my favourite and most-worn makes to see if I could pin down exactly what makes them winners!
‘Sewing Wins, but why?‘, you can read the post here.
After all of my rambling, I didn’t actually get around to drawing any conclusions, so here are some rambly conclusions.
Conclusions, very long(sorry)
Dress it up or down, casual or fancy
I’m not really an athleisure person, and I do like to have slightly elevated casual clothes (rather than me-made sweatpants), so that my sewing wins can be fancyish or casual depending on the other pieces makes perfect sense. I would wear all my favourite makes with my fancy shoes or with sneakers, and I could imagine that I might wear lipstick, or not, with all of them and not feel odd.
Comfortable, bralette suitable
They are all garments that are comfortable and all of them were Banksia Bralette suitable (which means all of me was comfortable). I have a few garments in my wardrobe that don’t work with the straps of the Banksia, or which have a bust dart so expect your bust to be somewhere specific. I only wear these garments out of the house to something specific, and then I change out of them as soon as I get home. The garments that are comfortable enough to stay in all day are my favourites.
Fabrics that didn’t dictate fanciness
Most of the pieces had fabrics that didn’t necessarily read as fancy or casual to me, they can be either. The t-shirts I like feel elevated rather than super casual thanks to fabric/print/colour. The pink linen Waikerie Shirt feels like it can be relaxed or casual. Silk noil is a favourite fabric for this exact reason, and I’d like to get more of it (in optimal colours) into my wardrobe.
Easy to put in colour combinations
All of my favourite pieces were easy to pair with other colours in my wardrobe- I felt like I wrote ‘this goes with pink and plum and the other random colours I like’ on most of them. I don’t like feeling pigeonholed, or like there are limited options for what I can wear something with. Colour flexibility also means that the garment can be easier to pair with future sewing projects.
Not super femme/played down femme with colours
Some of them were ‘feminine shapes’ that I thwarted with ‘un-feminine colours’, and some of them were ‘feminine colours’ paired with a utilitarian and boxy design. I’m not really sure how to describe this in a way that doesn’t feel gross.. I probably wouldn’t wear the brown gathered Waikerie in pink, the Glebe Pants don’t make me feel like I’m making a super feminine statement.. Basically, it was interesting to see how I had totally accidentally played with the fabric and patterns and ended up with a happy middle-ground for myself. Also an un-hacked Waikerie in that brown linen might have felt boring and maybe drab.
Want to see other posts about colour schemes or wardrobe planning?
Interesting observation about femme level there.. I finally got rid of a shirt that should have been a winner, beautiful flower print on gorgeous blue background, good hand to the fabric, and it fit me well. But it fit a little too closely, and it had rather poofy sleeves. The upshot is that I felt like I was back in grade school, and took it off more often than not. I think I can wear girly prints, but only in boxy architectural clothes. Or I can wear poofy stuff, but only in out there angular prints. Not both at once.
That said I think you demonstrate very well the power of unusual color combos in a stylistically coherent wardrobe. But you don’t mention explicitly the virtues of a great haircut and fabulous glasses as support act 🤩
I’m definitely a huge fan of the fabric and garment not being from the same category. Femme vs. not, professional vs. casual.
Part of last year’s sewing binge was to make dungarees (sew house 7) in pinstripe, which satistfied my “I need serious clothes for work, but not too serious…”