First the ridiculous…

Art is meant for galleries and museums, as far as the “art” in ”art-to-wear” is concerned, only couture embodies true art in fashion.   I really question the wearability of [...]]]> I did mean to blog about the rest of the new Vogue patterns, and they seem to fall clearly into Fashion Tribes this time. 

First the ridiculous…

Art is a Man’s Name

Art is meant for galleries and museums, as far as the “art” in ”art-to-wear” is concerned, only couture embodies true art in fashion.   I really question the wearability of this stuff, and I’ll argue that most American women can’t wear designs like these, because truthfully, only skinny people can wear baggy clothes.  Every single one of these patterns reminds of the typical Brookline-Cambridge art-to-wear enthusiast.    She is a chunky baby boomer who is a tenured professor in Women’s Studies married to a tenured economics professor who hasn’t had a real world job since the first Bush administration.   She favors lots of oversize funky jewelry.   Hair is a brassy Pat Field red.   Despite the outlandish clothes and accessories she always wears sensible low heeled shoes, Naturalizer or Easy Spirit.

Yes the white outfit on the left is Ralph Rucci, but it’s also a bit Star Trek.  This might look good if you’re going to a party on a boat but this is so memorable it almost can’t be worn more than once.  As for the Issey Miyake on the right; he is masterful in his couture, but he hasn’t done anything good for Vogue Patterns in quite some time.  This thing looks like drapery.

Party like its 2005

I guess Vogue didn’t get this memo either that the Duro and all of its  many iterations are passé.   The dress on the right is DKNY and I’m beginning to believe this acronym now stands for “Donna Karan is Never a Yes”.

Miss Kitty’s Bordello

Why aren’t these in the lingerie section?  Good luck wearing them if you’re over a B-cup, especially the one with the boob ruffle.

Step Away from the Caftan

Every time I see a Koos Van Den Akker pattern I have the same reaction: good luck finding fabrics that work.  I grant you, his designs are interesting in an intellectual way, but it is SO difficult to coordinate fabrics like this when they are not custom manufactured for the design.   Run-of-the- mill quilting cottons are not the same thing, this design needs authentic ethnic  fabrics like true batiks,  Japanese chirimen cottons or true mud cloth.  And don’t make it from polar fleece or sweatshirt knit!

Let’s do the Time Warp

 The two on the left look like housework and/or maternity clothes. The top on the right is 1/2 of a mid 1980′s fast food uniform.  That’s all I have to say about these. 

Now the Sublime

V8574 (left) is great for poolside or shopping in hot weather and v8570 (middle) is a great summery dress that looks good on women of any age as long as you’re lithe enough to wear it. V1107 (right) is the other Ralph Rucci, I love this pattern, and can’t wait to open up the envelope to find out why it requires almost 5 years of fabric!  In my stash I have some dotted silk that is just perfect.   

Every one of these designs is just fine without the bow.  The bows add nothing.  The bows are on the back for v1102 (left) and v8573 (right).

This is a beautiful dress; a very Yves St. Laurent or Laura Bennet design.  For the full effect though this needs to be made from silk jersey and success hinges on finding a great closure for the front, fortunately M&J Trimming has lots of them and in fact the closure on the dress mostly likely came from M&J because they have one that is identical. The waist needs to be stabilized with an inner belt because a heavy rhinestone closure will distort silk jersey.  The pattern envelope notes this and given Ann’s recent experience with Vogue we can only hope this crucial construction detail has not been omitted from the instructions.

This is very cute  in the sleeveless version but  kind of dowdy and “I Love Lucy” in the sleeved version.  I think McCall’s 5801 is a better full skirt sleeved shirtwaist.

Yesterday I was able to get about ¾ of the way done.   The lining is in and all that is left are the sleeves, hem and buttons/buttonholes.  Here you can see the pattern pinned and matched at center front; on the upper bodice   it turned out out I didn’t have enough [...]]]>

Yesterday I was able to get about ¾ of the way done.   The lining is in and all that is left are the sleeves, hem and buttons/buttonholes.  Here you can see the pattern pinned and matched at center front; on the upper bodice   it turned out out I didn’t have enough fabric to vertically carry the pattern repeat up to the bodice, so instead I did a separate placement there and matched it.  Another reason for that decision is there are four darts in the bodice and the pattern repeats would get really chopped up if I had done that.

Buttons will be an interesting challenge and I’m mulling over doing inconspicuous fabric covered buttons that match each underlying fabric color or something showier, such as these black and white examples from M&J Trimming.

I also need to take a [...]]]> …and ditching my old blog ”Obesssed With Embellishment”… really because the focus was too narrow.   My new one is called CoudreMODE which means something akin to “sewn fashion” in French except that it’s not grammtically correct French and I just made it up.  My new blog is our blog roll under Diva Blogs.

I also need to take a break from the Rucci dress and after this seemingly endless winter I’m craving something colorful for spring, so I did some stash shopping and a spring trench coat is in the works; you can see it now on CoureMODE.   You can also read about my spring snoop shopping and my new vintage industrial machine.