Today’s Wardrobe Architect section focuses on proportions and silhouettes. Sarai (the author) recommends using a service called Polyvore which I hadn’t come across before to pull together silhouettes of favourite shapes to refer to for wardrobe/sewing planning and perhaps building a capsule wardrobe. I think this step is probably one I need to take a little time over as the process of using Polyvore – while useful – is, for me quite slow. I think this is probably because I’m not terribly aware of fashion and my starting point is my own wardrobe, which includes many beloved items from seasons past which I’m sometimes having trouble matching with their database, which is geared towards things that are in shops right now.
That said, what a fab site! For someone who’s into fashion, this is amazing, and for a sartorially-challenged fashion ignoramus like me, how useful to have somewhere that shows styles that are trending right now without having to touch a fashion magazine! (although… crochet swimwear is trending?? Really????) I love that it compiles a tidy flatlay of the outfit items you’ve picked out, and allows you to include things like graphic backgrounds, borders, text in different fonts, even items that will simulate a magazine layout. I’ve just put together a few rough silhouettes for now, but I can see already how useful this could be, although for things like shoes (which I rarely buy) and jewellery (which is mostly vintage or at least several years old) it’s a little frustrating to to only be able to use approximations rather than, say, uploading a photo of an actual item I already own, but I can see why they don’t want to pollute the database.
So I think that’ll be a slow but useful process. Already I’m seeing some trends happening: if one thing is slim-fitting (top or bottom) then the other part tends to be looser or bigger in some way (beetle skirt/slim tee and bootcut jeans/box tee) but the pink top layout shows that I am also happy with both being semi-fitted. I suspect this reflects a certain self-consciousness about my hourglassness. Or maybe just recognising that if I’m wearing something that makes me look bigger in one area, then I actually need something slimmer fitting elsewhere to show that I’m not a completely shapeless blob. Yeah. That could be it.
I’m also finding that jewellery is playing more of a part in how I’m thinking about these outfits. Maybe it’s because the items I’m choosing out of the database are plainer than what I have? When I wear the beetle skirt outfit, the top I’m wearing is usually a plain colour – orange or watermelon or green, plus with the print I don’t feel such a need to add jewellery to it and often I forget the watch, but I’m finding I’m drawn to how it would look with these outfits. All these things I’ve never thought about!!
You’ll notice that I’ve made a silhouette which involves the Nita Wrap Skirt – it’s nearly finished! I cut it out yesterday afternoon, only planning to do the very start of the sewing, but with Djelibeybi stuck in Munich with a crazed gunman on the loose and then his flight cancelled, I ended up sewing until about 1.30am (in tandem with watching Easy A and Clueless – teen movies are a godsend at a time like that!) and it’s very nearly done! Unfortunately, while my stitching in the ditch was pretty much perfect, I realised before the end of the first front panel that – presumably because I pressed up the seam allowance a little high – it wasn’t actually catching any of the back of the wasitband in, so I’ve abandoned that and will now be sewing this in by hand. Le sigh. But after that, there’s just press studs to attach and the hemming to do, and the hem looks pretty even to me, so I might not even have to wait for Djelibeybi’s return to do that. Really liking the look of it in the Ikea fabric, although I’m a little concerned about revealingness when I sit down, especially without tights on, but I’ll see how that goes.