My almost favourite trousers

Favourite, because they're a lovely soft narrow-vale corduroy that makes them suitable both for summer, unless it's really hot, and spring and autumn. White, wide trousers make for a very classic look, I think. I snatched them on one of the clothes exchanges my cousin-once-removed used to organise*.
Almost, because they sit very low, and have an unfortunate tendency to slide even lower. Not so classic. (It defines my problem with most RTW trousers, too. Either they sit too low, or they are too wide in the waist. Eventually both.) Wearing a belt with them is quite necessary, and it only allows for longer tees and blouses.

This brown one is about the shortest that works.

 (The ladder is a bit wobbly, so I did not really sit on it.)

As is often the case with me, it's all thrifted. Including the pins in my bun: I got two of them from an elder lady friend of my mom's. And I very possibly found the remaining two pins in the street. I certainly did find the elastic that holds it together in the street. I have found most of my elastics in the street; I'm lucky like that.
This simple low bun is one of my new favourite hairstyles; very nice in summer, keeping the hair off my neck but suiting me better than higher updos. Quick to make, too.

Also: boatneck. Sheesh, I knew there was a reason why I was so stuck on it!

And one with a yellow T-shirt. I got it from my mom, who is every now and then seized by an uncanny ability to get me something that defines my stylish likes for years to come. In this case, somehow tapping into my increasing love for this shade of yellow.

When Oona sent me the cheerful fabric bangles, I didn't realise they went with my yellow T-shirt, too.

This time, it's Yksi. Cats make good photographing accessories. They don't care much for being fashion accessories, though. Good for them!

The flower pin (or, rather, the flower itself) is made after Disney's tutorial, only mine is yes-sew. Phew, no-sew is more difficult than yes-sew, isn't it? You need some fancy glue for it! I didn't bother fray-checking it, either; it's just a quick whip-up flower made of a scrap of fabric.


* It used to be a fun community, almost family-like event where you could get rid of your old clothes, get new ones and help out some charity project by the way. Now it's more of helping out a charity project with a fancy event, and getting rid of your old clothes by the way. I don't go there anymore, and my cousin does not organise it anymore. It's a sad thing. I got some of my best clothes there, and got rid of some I never wore. I can still take the latter to charity, but I don't get to meet my cousin in the process.

New acquisitions (something must go)

I entered a thrift shop (one of those I enter quite often), and found several things; I came home with two.

This cost me only 20 CZK. Because it promotes someone else's Alma Mater - the shop sits across the street from the Faculty of Arts, which makes a sweatshirt from the technical university almost contraband... But hey, that should not be a problem for a seamstress, right? It's a very quality material, made in the Czech Republic (that's rare!), and a lovely colour at that.

 

 

It comes with a fun little special something, too. The previous owner wrote "This is mine!!!" on the tag. It was, unwittingly, clever. Now it is mine!!!

And a hat. A fabulous hat, with a very vintage-y shape.

 

And the ribbon matches my tote!

These lovely new acquisitions are, also, a reminder to me to go through my T-shirt stash. I have lots and lots of T-shirts, mostly of the "workclothes" kind, and wear only a fraction of them regularly. Some must go.

Grande ASSIETTE in modern designer wear

First, let me apologise for using the wrong word in the term until now. I'm going to correct it retroactively. Apparently, aissette means adze. That's not what we're talking about here. Sorry. I really don't speak any French and my linguistic common sense did not steer me in the right way here.

So this is grande ASSIETTE.

It's one of the main reasons why I'm talking about it now that all of you want to see more of Tallinn... right? If you don't like having the series interrupted, you can always just click on the "The Baltics 2011" label and see only them. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that if you visit a blog designated "dress diaries", you like seeing dresses. :-)


Second, I'm not featuring designer clothes prominently. Other people and their blogs are shaped out for doing exactly that; I'm not. Not too long ago, I didn't know many designers. Almost none. Now that I'm part of the online sewing community, I know of more designers than I ever thought possible, but I'm still not following fashion; I think it's a waste of time. I'm just stumbling upon it every now and then.

But when I see a designer's work very obviously and out-spokenly inspired by historical fashions, and not by their extremes (many designers do that, it seems), but rather by their subtle beauty, I cannot stay quiet.
That designer in question is Thierry Colson. I don't know much about him (just what I've discovered yesterday while browsing his site), and I do not desire to buy his clothes - if nothing else, a lot of them are too indecent for my liking (so if you don't like that, proceed to his site with caution). But the construction... ah, that's pure joy!

In particular, the Antoinette dress. That's just... wow. Everything I love about Regency turned into a modern dress.

Skirt gathered/pleated in the back? Check. Bodice shorter in the back, with a cute and statuesque curve? Check. Grande assiette? CHECK.

Grecian influences: Check.

Fun fabrics: Check.

All photos except the last one come from Thierry Colson's website. The last one is from Al Ostoura.com, an Arab site that sells designer clothing. Their zoom is priceless for a poking hobby seamstress.

This really must be the best reinterpretation of Regency I've seen so far. True to the original, yet making it work in today's setting. That's what I would love to do myself.

Is RTW clothing made by machines?

This is not a kind of matter I would normally address... neither here nor offline. My discussion of ready-to-wear clothing usually ends at the problems of style, price or fit (mostly fit).

I'm not venturing into the tricky issues of sweatshops and production of clothes, because A) there are people who know much more about the matter and can write better about it (such as the fantastic lady behind Fashion Incubator, or Outi Pyy), and B) in relation to sweatshops, this is one of the things I prefer doing something about instead of talking about. Because of A), it's much easier for me to buy second-hand and make my own clothes (preferably from second-hand fabric) and occasionally buy ethical (hopefully) new clothing than to try to convince others to do that. I don't study clothing design or production, I study languages and am happy studying languages.

But an off-hand, surprising remark by no one else but my own father recently made me realise that most people around me might have no idea what I've been talking about above.

Seriously and honestly, did you think the clothing you buy in shops is made by machines?

Well, if you did, you were wrong. There are machines working along the way, but ultimately, it is people who put it together.

Just like anything else as far as I know.

And because it was father who made me think about it, I'll show you on an example of his own area of knowledge and interest.

All photos in this post were taken by me in LOSTR a.s. (recently renamed to Legios a.s.), a factory in Louny, Czech Republic, that makes and repairs railway carriages and locomotives. It was on their day for public, when you could go virtually everywhere in the factory and see how they work. My father went there because - well, because it's his area of expertise and greatest hobby. I went there because I love the atmosphere of these old industrial buildings, and because my great-grandfather on my mother's side worked there.

This is the new building, where they have a laser-cutting machine for components (which I stupidly did not take a photo of). These are steel plates waiting to be cut into "pattern pieces".

And this is one of the things these "pattern pieces" are put together into. As far as I remember, these will eventually become part of carriage/locomotive underframes.

Something like these, I imagine.

I did not take photos of the workers. I felt shy doing that. But you can see people working in a video on the company's site: here.

See what I'm hinting at? There are machines that can do part of the work. There are laser-cutting machines (I hear they sometimes use them in clothing production, too) and there are machines that help in putting the components together (sewing machines, anyone? ;-), but ultimately there are people operating the machines and putting the components together in a sensible manner. And that, my dear readers, is exactly what happens in clothing production.

Which is why there's all that talk about fair wages and sweatshops, and all that jazz, going on around the internet. I imagine people who are putting together carriages and locomotives have a very responsible job, and wages to go with it. Somehow, that does not apply to many other areas of production.

It probably helps when you are a hobby seamstress: you know what it takes. When you're someone interested in locomotives, or deep ocean dwelling creatures, or whatever, the odds are you never even had a reason to think about this issue...

And that's it from me. I don't know any interesting behind-the-scenes details about clothing (or locomotives) production. I just wanted to point out the principle, for people who do not think about it.

(And to give sort of an explanation to people who do not understand why I wear second-hand clothing and bother making my own. One of the explanations possible.)