Old-Fashioned Fruitcake
Time immemorial…. Has a lovely sound to it, doesn’t it? Like days of yore.
In fact, in British law, time immemorial is defined as everything before the sixth of July 1189. This was decided in 1275, presumably because by that point no one could remember anything before the sixth of July 1189 and it was therefore literally time immemorial – a time that no one living could remember.
Capsule wardrobes are kind of the in thing at the moment in wardrobe design – but what exactly is a capsule wardrobe? A space-age pill which magically changes your outfit? Er… no.
The original blog post for Week/Month 9 of the Wardrobe Architect describes a capsule wardrobe as consisting of between 20 and 33 garments, “a small, manageable subset of your wardrobe”. But if you’re anything like me, you’re thinking “but that practically IS my wardrobe!”
I must admit I struggled with this month’s exercises. In the first place, there’s the confusion of the terminology. Both ‘proportions’ and ‘silhouettes’ seem to be referring to the shape of garments that you wear together. Jeans + t-shirt + sneakers, for example. I might call it an ensemble, but regardless of the label you choose, that’s what we’re talking about.
The second problem I had is that at first I could only think of one ensemble that I wear – leaving aside for the nonce such things as headwear (always) and footwear (socks and slippers, mostly; shoes or boots outside).
I wear a long-sleeved full-length dress pretty much every day. But there are variations on the theme. With or without belt; with or without cardigan/jersey; skirt full or straighter. Occasionally short sleeves in summer.
Then I realized that there are other ensembles I wear – sometimes. Tunic over full skirt, tunic over loose trousers, tunic over laplap (straight wrap skirt). But I don’t want to include these in my wardrobe architecting, much as I enjoy wearing them, because they leave me stranded without pockets (cue Scarlett-O’Hara-at-intermission moment again).
What else is there? Then I remembered: one of my dresses has fasteners all the way down the front (it was designed to be a throw-on layer over less-modest clothing), and I often wear it half-open over a full skirt, in a vaguely Elizabethan sort of way.
As the dress contains the all-important pockets, this is a satisfactory outfit, even allowing for different combinations – had I more than one of each sort of garment, which I don’t. I have occasionally worn the dress with loose trousers and a tunic or long slip, but there comes a point where you wonder if you are still wearing a dress, or just adding a light coat with convenient pockets.
Of course, if we’re talking about what we’d like to wear, I’d love a dress designed to look like a full skirt and matching waistcoat, which could then be worn over a variety of shirts – allowing for a simplicity approaching or even exceeding that of my husband’s wardrobe.
Not that I have ever seen such a dress, mind you, in person or otherwise. But I have hopes that one day, as I pursue my sewing endeavours, I will eventually gain the necessary skills to make myself one of these dream-dresses (with perhaps a matching jacket).
What are your favourite ensembles (/silhouettes/proportions)? What ensembles do you as yet only dream of?