Future, past

This Youtube video is rather wonderful - 1930s predictions of what we would be wearing in the year 2000. Some of it looks quite modern, I think - the sheer culottes, maybe, and the attached phone is near the truth. I wouldn't wear any of it.

Objects of desire: all-in-one dress

I'm strangely fascinated with this pattern, currently available for £8.89, Buy It Now, on Ebay. If you look at the auction, you can see that the dress is all one piece: the skirt wraps round from the back and buttons at the front waist. The edges are finished with bias binding. This must be incredibly easy to make and such a useful garment to own: very good for the beach or swimming. A whole lot of hemming and binding, though (I hate edges). I like the idea of it in a dark indigo heavy cotton/denim, with lime green bias binding.

I'm also wondering how I could convert this pattern, or another pattern, to make a wrap-around/apron style denim pinafore dress (I told you I liked work clothes). I want one shaped like a big apron, which wraps round the back and ties at the front. My mother had one like this left over from the seventies, but I don't know what happened to it. I might try drafting my own pattern: how much room for dreadful mistakes would there be with such a simple shape? (Hmm. Touch wood...)

From Brother of the more famous Jack, by Barbara Trapido

I was dressed that day in an outsize purple football jersey which I had worn to my interview with Jacob. I wore it, as was then the fashion, well over half way up my thighs. Pulled over one eye I had a small crocheted string hat which I had made myself. I had a great love affair with clothes. They are consumingly important to me and I often pull off a successful Voguey look. Once when crossing Tottenham Court Road a team of Japanese photographers began to click their shutters. I was more than chuffed that they should have risked the traffic for my image. I like crafty clothes especially. I like shepherd smocks and intricate knitting. I can knit prodigious landscapes into my jerseys. I can do corded piping in seams and beaded embroidery. I like to make quilted cuffs and bodices.

Objects of desire: Old Town Clothing

Look at this page. Doesn't it make you want one of everything on there, in various colours and patterns to mix and match forever? (Maybe just one coat and one jacket - I'll have this one and this one, thanks.) The perfect eccentric old spinster wardrobe, for when you're running your own smallholding and sculpting/composing on the side, in an ancient farmhouse on the North Sea coast. (Incidentally, I much prefer line drawings to photos. You can really see from a line drawing how something is shaped and where the seams are, and therefore how it will fit and fall in the flesh; it's a shame that internet clothes retailers don't take a leaf out of the books of the pattern companies and give line drawings as well as photos, which often don't show shapes and details, or are terribly posed.)

Go further in and look at the photos of items (made up in different colours and fabrics) and you'll be as covetous as I am. I have a real weakness for working clothes and the WW2 utility clothes aesthetic (a very nice friend once described my style as 'spirit of the Blitz' which was a wonderful compliment), and these are perfect examples of that: I imagine that, made up in a suitably sturdy tweed, you could wear this to dig for victory as well as to your secretarial job at the Ministry of Food. They're pricy-ish, but not more than the top end of the high street (ie. more than I can afford) - but for choosing your own fabric, and that kind of workmanship... hmm, I reckon they'd last you a lifetime.

Old Town are based in Holt in Norfolk, which incidentally has some very fine charity shops. Charity shops like they used to be, before running vintage eBay stores (read: trawling charity shops and marking their stuff up by 600%) became a cottage industry.

From Adorned in dreams: fashion and modernity, by Elizabeth Wilson

Chanel created the 'poor look', the sweaters, jersey dresses and little suits that subverted the whole idea of fashion as display; although her trenchcoats and 'little nothing' black dresses might be made of the finest cashmere and her 'costume jewellery' - careless lumps of what looked like glass - were uncut emeralds and diamonds.

Agile and full of movement, this was the spirit of modernity and futurism. As a style, it made a mockery of fashion; Cecil Beaton called it a nihilistic, anti-fashion look, and indeed it was one of the biggest contradictions of all to pay everything for a style that was invisible. The aim of this look was to make the rich girl look like the girl in the street, and the black dress and the slight suit were the apotheosis of the shopgirl's uniform, or the stenographer's garb.

Later in the book there's an extract from an interview with Chanel in Vogue, 1953:

Elegance in clothes means being able to move freely, to do anything with ease... Those heavy dresses that won't pack into aeroplane luggage, ridiculous. All those boned and corseted bodices - out with them. What's the good of going back to the rigidity of the corset? Now women go in for simpler lives...
I am no longer interested in dressing a few hundred women, private clients; I shall dress thousands of women. But... a widely repeated fashion, seen everywhere, cheaply produced, must start from luxury.

Retail therapy

Having resolved to only buy things I really, really love, January has been spent buying loads of things - why is this? I am supremely indisciplined. But I also happened to come across a perfect denim pencil skirt, an unbelievably flattering pair of wide-legged jeans (and long enough, too, which doesn't happen every day), the kind of high-heeled brown boots I have been imagining and coveting for months, and a pair of ribbed tights in my favourite spring green. Not to mention conceiving a desire for a pair of black cowboy boots, which I bought two days later on eBay. And a handful of t-shirts from the sale, which were cheap and in flattering shapes and will add colour to my wardrobe.

So I can justify everything that I bought... just as I can justify why I bought most things in my wardrobe, and at the time I could justify why I bought all the things in the sacks of clothing that are waiting to go to the clothes recycling point and the charity shop. And I can justify this month's stuff even more easily when I consider that everything I bought was on sale. Nonetheless, I buy too much, I own too much stuff, and with clothes I have too many things that I end up giving away, or giving to the charity shop. Even as I'm buying more things, and knowing as I buy them that this isn't just an impulse purchase, that this is the thing I really need, I still feel a guilty awareness that I have too much stuff.

So I'd like to change my shopping habits. But how? It's all very well to look at my cupboard and say 'I could have bought three perfect, expensive dresses for the price of all that tat'. That's true, but I don't want to own only three dresses, and I'm not convinced that a £250 dress is truly worth ten £25 dresses. (I will write more about this later).

Instead, I suppose, I want to build a wardrobe the way I am building my library of books. Instead of having a copy of every book I might conceivably want to read one day, I try and buy books with the idea that every book is one I do want to read. I don't have to read it straight away - I'm never going to read all the books I want to read - but I want to own a library that reflects me, not a library that reflects the literary canon. Similarly, I'd like to own a wardrobe of clothing in which every piece is flattering and nice to wear, in which every item is bought after asking myself 'will I be happy every time I put this on?'. If I need a ballgown one day, I'll buy or borrow one - until then, I'll try and only buy things when they are perfect for me, and not just ok.

Crop top conundrum

Spotted in Primark on Monday: crop top and knicker sets in the children's underwear section. That's tiny, I thought - assuming that these were underwear for pubescent girls - and looked at the size: 5-6 years. It pretty much sums up the weird attitude our society currently has towards children: why are we giving a five-year-old a garment which is essentially a bra, or at least a proto-bra?

It's not for warmth: it surely can't keep her warm. It's not for support and comfort, like a bra, or for the purposes of alluring, also like a bra, so is it for modesty? But the sight of a five-year-old in underwear that mimics the underwear of adult women carries with it an enormous contradiction: we're at the same time suggesting that a little girl's nipples should be covered, for modesty, so we're in effect saying that there is something sexual, or taboo, about a bare-chested little girl. So we're, what, sexualising and protecting her, all at the same time! What really is the point?

Photo is from Marks and Spencer, whose crop tops come in 'age 6-8'. Sigh.

Sugarplum

To Sadler's Wells last night, for Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker, a production which, as one of my companions remarked, managed to be even more inconsequential than the original ballet. Still, it was good fun, and very witty, although the fact that most of the women wore character shoes instead of ballet shoes meant that some of the pas-de-deux had a slightly Strictly Ballroom feel. But the costumes were amazing - I didn't see a dress I didn't love. Best of all were the dresses worn by the soloists in the second half - a black spanish-inspired dress with enormous liquorice allsorts painted on the full black satin skirt, and a full skirted dress in bands of shocking pink and scarlet lace, but I couldn't find pictures on the internet. The one pictured (Sadlers Wells' picture) was worn by Clara in the Land of Sweets and very cute too.

Black wool pinafore dress

So here's my current sewing project. This is a 'wearable muslin' - it should turn out well enough to wear, but it's a practice run for the same dress in a heavy tweed.

It's view B, the green one on the left, and I'm making it up in a thin black wool fabric, with no belt. I really like the shape - a high empire line waist, but the dress is fitted under the bust with four darts, back and front. You can just see, at the bottom of the picture, that it's a new reprint of a vintage Simplicity pattern.

So far the only adjustment I have made is to add a couple of inches to the hip measurement, which I tend to do as standard - if it's not needed I can always take it in. I've cut it out and started sewing the top part, which is lined, but I'm also debating lining the skirt as well.

If this fits well, and is wearable - I'm slightly concerned the skirt may be too straight - I am going to make it up in a beautiful olive-grey tweed, flecked with orange, which my grandma gave me some years ago and I haven't yet found anything to do with.

Objects of desire

This beautiful Octopus necklace, sadly sold out on Etsy.

(photo belongs to seller)

True elegance

I've just discovered this fantastic archive of British Vogue covers: so beautiful. I just adore the pre-photographic ones. Look at that gorgeous Diaghilev-inspired skier!

Woo HOO

I NEVER win things on eBay.

(photo belongs to seller)

Like, whatever

So it seems that what you wear for your job as features editor of Vogue isn't so suitable for building your family eco-retreat in Suffolk. Who knew?

This is why I need yellow tights

Terrible, flash-washed-out photo.

Objects of desire (ultra-practical January version)

1. Big pants. Yes, they're enormous. But they're also comfortable, retro (it can't be just me who thinks so?) and make the best no-VPL line under winter clothes.
2. A decent black bra. Because my treasured black lace bra which gives me the loveliest shape is finally dying. It's lasted four years of heavy wear, it cost six quid - cheap doesn't always mean bad quality, ok?
3. A Marks and Spencer microfibre slip. Again, it gives a lovely smooth line under clothes, eliminates draughts at the waist, is another layer in cold weather, and it feels so grown up and glamorous to wear a slip. Also, it makes summer dresses into spring ones too!
4. Some leather gloves. Loving my new turquoise suede gloves, but they're not so practical for cycling in the rain...
5. And finally, some yellow tights. No, they've got to be YELLOW.

Rules, what rules?

It's so sad when you hear someone say they can't wear something because 'redheads can't wear pink' or 'black and brown don't go' or any one of a million other fashion rules. As a redhead, I spent twenty years avoiding pink, red and orange because I thought they'd clash with my hair: I've now discovered that some shades look great, clashing in a really cool Fauvist sort of way, rather than being unflattering. In fact just yesterday I bought a really cute tomato-red pleated top and I love the colour on me. So anyway now I REALLY RESENT missing out on twenty years of some of my favourite colours and feel that rules people have stolen this time from me. Anne of Green Gables is like 80% to blame, though:

"And isn't pink the most bewitching color in the world?  I love it, but I can't wear it. Redheaded people can't wear pink, not even in imagination."

In this spirit, then, I love Lisa Armstrong's article in the Times today taking issue with ten fashion rules for 2008. Especially the one about long hair on older ladies. I fully intend to have a fantastic wild grey mane in my fifties and sixties. Or perhaps I'll henna it scarlet.

Resolutions for 2008

1. To buy less cheap crap, and buy only things I really love.
2. To wear more colour, and be more inventive with it.
3. To wear jewellery or an accessory every day. There's looking pared down, and there's looking like you got dressed in thirty seconds. Also, I am going to conquer my fear of accessories.
4. To make much more of my own clothing. I have a sewing machine, I have a great, cheap fabric shop, and from June I'll have much more time.
5. To buy more second hand, and customise and adapt things rather than just buying new things.

Hurry, it closes on Sunday

I just loved the Couture exhibition at the V&A - like window shopping, without the trouble or expense of having to buy anything (and instead the warm glow of feeling cultured). I only wish one had been able to try things on. My favourite outfit was the Dior Zémire outfit (photo belongs to the V&A), which in the unlikely event that I one day win the Best Actress Oscar is going to be my red carpet outfit of choice (replacing the one worn by Julianne Moore in 2003). The exhibition was awfully badly terribly laid out (going in the last week didn't help, you had to practically elbow people out of the way which is not very couture-ish, I don't think) but the music was gorgeous and they played the fashion shoot clip from Funny Face which I think I might just go and watch a few times on YouTube right now.

I did find, though, that I preferred the tailored, structured Balenciaga suits to the sometimes rather overwhelming evening dresses: heavily beaded and embroidered, in luxurious fabrics, they seemed unwearable for real people: something confirmed by a) the underwear needed underneath and b) the price. Best of all, I liked the odd bits of Chanel - I'm thinking a lot at the moment about Coco Chanel and how she was one of the great modernists, so I was amused that whenever I thought 'Wow, that's really nice' it turned out to be Chanel...

Neat, but not gaudy

I've always been interested in clothes. As a little girl, I made paper dolls: cardboard dolls with paper clothes which you attached to them with tabs. I avidly read fashion history books from the library and copied the outfits, or made dolls representing characters from my favourite books; one of the things I loved about Anne of Green Gables and Ballet shoes was the attention paid to clothing and the joy with which nice clothes were described.

As a teenager, my money was limited, but my interest in clothes developed: I bought weird and wonderful items from charity shops and jumble sales, reused my mother's (and my father's!) cast-offs, cut things up, altered things, and made my own clothing. I had plenty of time, but little money, and I can still remember, more than ten years later, some of the amazing things I wore.

In my early twenties, the most unhappy period of my life, I wore denim and black every day for about three years. The end of my misery coincided with a very jolly bright period in fashion: black and utility dressing went out, bright colours and dresses came in, and I had a job and enough money to buy myself plenty of clothes.

These days, I still have enough money to buy myself plenty of clothes, and I do. Cheap fashion (the Primark influence on the high street) means that I could go out every week and buy myself a handful of new dresses, if I liked - and lots of people do. But I feel as though the fun and joy of clothing is slipping away as my ability to buy myself things increases. This is only made worse by having to dress for work - it's easy to slip into a work uniform mindset and end up wearing the same outfit a dozen times a month, just because it's easy.

I'd like to get back some of the excitement I had when I was a teenager. I can't wear what I wore then, because I'm fatter, and older, and some of the clothes (the poison green polyester fringed cowgirl-style dress?) I just wouldn't want to wear any more. But I can make more clothes for myself, buy less cheap rubbish, and put a bit more thought into what I wear and how. I'd like to buy only things that I absolutely adore (tights and knickers notwithstanding) and recapture that great feeling of owning a truly terrific dress that you don't want to take off, like, ever.

This blog is for me to share some of that excitement, and write about some of the projects I have for making my own clothes, and about fashion and style in general.