Simplicity 2025 meets the Sui

I started back to sewing for me about 3 years ago, after mostly sewing scrub caps and doll clothes and selling them on evilbay for years. My me sewing years before had  mostly been post-Home Ec budgety stuff that had all the style of….ok, I wasn’t the stylish beastie you see now, ‘nouff said.

This pattern was one of the first I bought 3 years ago- it looked easy, it looked reasonably stylish and from what retail was telling me, it was sack-like  enough that I was entitled to it. Perhaps this is why I wasn’t over-upset when I read all the blogs this week discussing the lack of decent fit in the big4 patterns.

I’m a big girl. I know this. I wasn’t always, but I am now. I’m almost cool with it. Until I go into a chain retail store and hop around from rack to rack looking for my size like a needle in a fat stack. Finally in a dim recessed corner I find the size that I am currently- it’s boxy, it’s shapeless and if I’m lucky, it isn’t also doubling as maternity. I’ve let retail convince me that I don’t belong in anything else. Like the sight of fabric skimming too close to my hips would bring the villagers with torches and they would run me to the belltower to live alone, where only my cartoon rat companions have to look at my hideous form. Ok, it’s not that bad- it even sounds like I’m headed for a musical number. 

So this week I’ve been asking myself why I’m not more bothered by the lack of fit and over-ease I find in the big4. Well, I have been comfortable with the semi-fit of the styles I have chosen. I like a sheer floaty thing. I like a loosely belted business. I guess I lead a pull on over the head lifestyle. I am just not Ms Button down. Tho Lord knows I have been told to button up!

So for me, the ease issue is not a huge one (joke, did you see it? Go back and read it again) but I totally understand what it means to others.  I know bad fit when I see it. There is a strong possibility that my Bond Girl name is Boxy Le Smut, but I know that when I make a dressier dress, I want the option of having it fit me- dare I say it- like it was made for me. So I’m really in agreement that the ‘design for a 6, grade up 3 sizes,grade  down 3 sizes-sell!’ is not good enough- and shameful coming from companies that we use to express our creativity, solve figure problems, and find custom chic from. It is time for the big4 to stop resting on it’s laurels and bring in more designers with modern eyes and stop just repackaging the 80’s for us.

Now, complaining aside, lets get down to my latest boxy creation. I am thinking about install a paypal button on the side of my blog so that you can send me donations to help cover the cost of these divine Dr Martens that would totally suit this Anna Sui fabric beautifully- don’t you think? Is it not wrong that I don’t have these? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if I had these? Yes, of course it would.

photo credits: Dr Martens, meadhawg, google images. All images remain the property of their original owners.