The wardrobe, reimagined asks how women in fashion eras that offered fewer wardrobe options got around the problem of style line/body shape mismatch (corsetry?), and hammers home my dilemma with this simple infographic for dummies on What the Short-Waisted Woman Should Not Wear:

I don’t know about you, but my eyes instantly gravitate to the outfit on the left. Completely scrummy, right? Only it’s completely WRONG. We short-waisted types are supposed to line up to the right, behind Bella Swan there. I have been coveting the high-waisted, figure-hugging, demurely slutty pencil-skirted secretary look for years, but apparently it and I were never meant to be. I blame you for this futile passion, Joan Holloway.

Click the image and prepare to lose hours of your life. Many, oh so many, Mad Men fashion postmortems await.

We are very lucky to be living and sewing at a time when we have a proliferation of styles to choose from, so even though it might be difficult renouncing my Mad Men dreams, I’m not condemned to wearing silhouettes that don’t suit me. Right now I’m shifting focus away from waist/hip-conscious eras (40s, 50s) and experimenting with leg-conscious ones (60s, 70s). Bonus: the UK is still somewhat stuck in the Benny Hill era sexually, so its collective leg fixation is alive and well.

I’m finding this vintage Playboy photo immensely inspiring. Talk about playing up your assets. She could have Starbucks-sized muffin top tucked inside that dress and no one would notice.

Via The Selvedge Yard.

Here’s one vintage pattern I have plans for:

Here’s another:

Still a bit of Betty Draper going on in View C's hat, and isn't that a teenage Joan in the back?

Right! I’d better get cracking before the British summer ends!

What are your thoughts on picking vintage looks or projects to suit your body type? What do you do when your taste doesn’t suit your own shape?

I think I’ll stick with my step-in, thanks.

The pattern is from 1959. I decided to make View 3:

I have a healthy amount of skepticism about the fashion drawings on pattern envelopes, so I was aware that there’d be some differences in the finished garment. My waist isn’t quite as dainty as in the picture, partly because I don’t usually wear a girdle and partly because I am a human being and not a line drawing. Also, I was pretty sure a straight skirt with a few soft pleats up top wouldn’t hang in that graceful bell curve all by itself. I’m not certain how you would attain that shape, even with a petticoat. But the dress ended up looking all right. The fabric is a delicately textured cotton in “Mums on Tatewaku Curved Lines Yellow” from the delightful Fabrictales.com:

And here is the finished dress. Don’t be fooled by the sunshine in the photo. The FLB and I had just returned from the park because huddling under a blanket to shield ourselves from the icy wind was starting to feel more like an SAS endurance exercise than a pleasant Sunday.

The skirt has a medium twirl factor.

Speaking of the twirl factor, a slightly startling anecdote: My friend Gaia loves her new mermaid dirndl. So much so that when she wore it to work on Friday, she couldn’t help slipping out of her chair throughout the day to give it a little twirl. It was during one of these “dirndl breaks”, while Gaia was reportedly humming a tune from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, that the workmen renovating her office lost their grip on a large, heavy, sharp-edged sheet of metal, which then smashed through the window above her desk to land in a deluge of broken glass on her chair. The chair in which she would have been sitting if she hadn’t just gotten up for another twirl. It was only thanks to the mermaid dirndl — and, in her words, “my MGM gang-bang musical fixation” — that she escaped decapitation.

Vintage sewing saves lives!

I spent a grand total of about 2 hours this evening whipping it up into another dirndl. This time I only had to sew one seam because I just used the whole length of the fabric as one big panel and stitched that up the back. And, of course, because it’s a border print, I didn’t have to hem. Sadly, I didn’t splash out on quite as much fabric as for the mermaid dirndl, so it’s a bit less full. Also, the gathers and waistband went together with more difficulty than the last one (I never did read any instructions for Fuse & Fold… I should work on that) so even though it looks just as presentable from the outside, I know it’s not perfect and therefore love it slightly less. (This is part of the reason why I’m terrified of having children.)

I came to love the mermaid skirt in the less than 24 hours between deciding on impulse to give it to my friend Gaia and actually parting with it, so it was a bit of a wrench to see her put it on and float away into the night. But she’s had a rough time at work lately and needs a little stardust sprinkled into her life. This skirt will do perfectly for me. I can’t wait to bring my cowboys into Parliament.

I love how easy it is to be ladylike in vintage designs. I don’t love how often ladylike = uncomfortable when it comes to wearing 20th-century clothes in the British climate. Realistically, I’m going to freeze my ‘tocks off in this flimsy little skirt. How did our mothers survive in all that cotton and rayon? Britain cast off a huge amount of baggage when it shed its petticoats and started following sinful American fashion, but sometimes, when I’m huddling in an exposed bus shelter for half an hour on end, I think it may have gone too far the other way. In my subterranean room with the blow heater on last night, I read this passage in Gwen Raverat’s charming Period Piece with envy:

This is what a young lady wore, with whom I shared a room one night — beginning at the bottom, or scratch:

1. Thick, long-legged, long-sleeved woollen combinations [like a modern union suit]

2. Over them, white cotton combinations, with plenty of buttons and frills.

3. Very serious, bony, grey stays [corset], with suspenders [garters].

4. Black woollen stockings.

5. White cotton drawers, with buttons and frills.

6. White cotton ‘petticoat-bodice’, with embroidery, buttons and frills.

7. Rather short, white flannel, petticoat.

8 Long alpaca [!] petticoat, with a flounce round the bottom.

9. Pink flannel blouse.

10. High, starched white collar, fastened on with stufs.

11. Navy-blue tie.

12. Blue skirt, touching the ground, and fastened tightly to the blouse with a safety-pin behind.

13. Leather belt, very tight.

14. High button boots.

I watched her under my eyelashes as I lay in bed. She would have been horrified if she had known that I was awake.

Horrified, probably… but warm.

London is very sartorially samey for a world-class city, and sewing is a niche hobby inspiring awe and wonder in this country, so fabric pickings are fairly scant, unadventurous and pricey compared with those in America. Ah, America. The magical land where everything is for sale, usually at half price. I got 2.5 yards of this amazing cotton print for the comparatively refreshing price of £20 including international delivery at Sew Mama Sew:

It has squid!

The skirt went together like a dream. Not having to mess around with a pattern was a nice change. I didn’t even cry once, although I did come close — when I discovered the hard way, after breaking two needles and spending half an hour picking out a thread jam with tweezers, that Singer sewing machines really are designed to work only with Singer needles. Way to build brand loyalty, guys!

I made a waistband with the aid of Vilene Fuse and Fold (a boon to the lazy perfectionist) and a lot of guesswork about size. Then I just ripped the remaining fabric into three 28″ lengths and stitched them together selvage to selvage, meaning I didn’t even have to worry about finishing the seams. I ran two rows of gathering stitches along the top, dropped in a zipper at the back, gathered the fabric to fit the waistband, turned and topstitched and slapped on a button at the back. After a few false starts with my machine’s blindhem stitch, I was done by 9 o’clock.

I guess this fabric is quilter’s cotton, but I’m already casting around for other clothes I can make with it. It is the easiest fabric I’ve ever sewn with. It’s on grain, it’s crisp and grabby enough to make pins almost unnecessary, it gathers beautifully and it holds a crease perfectly. Why I started my latest sewing jag with a Regency corset instead of this project I don’t know.

Here is the finished skirt. I need a wider belt, but you get the idea. It’s fun yet womanly. I find this deeply satisfying in a world where most women’s clothing looks like it’s made for either National Trust grannies or child prostitutes.

Enchantment Under the Sea!