Wardrobe Architect – Page 3

May 11, 2018

Wardrobe Architect 5: Your Colour Story

(Or Color Story, for our American readers.)

Having considered our unfavourite colours earlier in the week, we now turn to a more pleasant task: choosing our favourites.

There’s no worksheet for this month, but if you pop across to the Colette page you will find a few suggestions for ways to gather your favourite colours, and ways to collate them (mostly digital, for the technically inclined).

Suggestions for bringing your favourite colours to mind include: What colours are suggested by the words you gathered in Month 2? What colours are the garments you most often wear? What colours are you drawn to in other areas of life?

There is also the matter of deciding which colours suit you, and whether you’re going to limit yourself to those or not. Myself, I use the “reflective power of colour” instead of wearing makeup, so I value having colours that look good on me. Others may prefer to just go with whatever colours they like, irrespective of the resulting aesthetics – it’s a personal choice. For those who do want to find out what colours may suit them, I’ve found this site helpful. (Shopping in natural light with a frank friend can also be useful.)

Being (as far as I can tell) a Deep Autumn, I go for warm, rich, muted colours. The aforementioned site lists 22 suggested colours, some of which are Definitely Not Me (bright yellow, lime bronze, hot turquoise…). But choosing colours which suit you shouldn’t exclude wearing colours you like – there should be a Venn diagram arrangement, with you dressing yourself out of the overlap in the middle.

So, let’s start piling up some colours! You can use fabric samples, paint chips, art supplies, scissors applied to magazines – anything you like, just pile up them colours. The more the merrier.

My pile looks like this:
dark chocolatey brown (most browns, actually)
plum
buttery yellow (not too yellow!)
the natural creamy colour of unbleached calico
all the rich reds of blood and paprika and leather book-bindings
forest green
deep rose
calm lavendery blue (it makes me feel peaceful but look ghastly)
hazel green
deep gold
aubergine
mahogany
and coppery bronze.

And what do we do with this pile of colours? We hoard them… and we wait till next month, when the raw material begins to become something more.

What’s in your pile of favourite colours?

April 13, 2018

Wardrobe Architect 4: Proportions & Silhouettes

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?

March 16, 2018

Wardrobe Architect 3: Exploring Shapes

The aim behind this month’s exercise is to figure out – in great detail – what shapes and lines you’re comfortable in, which you wouldn’t be seen dead in, and which are just – meh.

You’ll definitely want the worksheet for this one – pop across to Colette HQ and there it is.

The instructions say to rate everything from 0 (hate!) to 5 (meh) to 10 (love!) but I decided to cheat a bit and have a simpler rating system: A, Y, M, N, HN. Which is to say, Absolutely!, Yes, Meh, No, and Hell No.

The last-mentioned rating I reserved for mid-thigh and mini-length items (yes, mini is shorter than mid-thigh; the mind boggles), tight trousers, cropped tops and dropped-waist trousers. Not Going To Happen.

Unsurprisingly, dresses and skirts rated highly, with ‘somewhat fitted’ my favourite fitting for dresses, and very/somewhat full for skirts (and the skirt part of dresses, naturally). Trousers need to be very loose before I will consider wearing them; indeed, they cannot be too loose.

I will wear a tunic-length garment, but only as a top over a full-length skirt – or loose trousers. Otherwise, it’s “very long or maxi length” for me – though I don’t like my dresses to drag on the floor. If I wanted to sweep, I’d use a broom, thank you very much.

For some reason the longest length shown for outerwear (e.g. coats) is tunic length. My coat is more like knee-length and I live in hopes of finding one closer to ankle length. [Side note: it is terrifying how often I can type “length” and make the same spelling mistake every time.]

It never fails to amaze me how so many people seem content to have outer layers that only come down to the very tops of their legs – even rainwear! Do their legs not get cold? Are their trousers magically waterproof? Bizarre.

I had to look up some of the necklines (sweetheart? jewel?) and it turns out I’m fairly fussy about necklines. I have the anachronistic belief that a neckline should be somewhere in the vicinity of your neck. After all, it’s not called a sternum-line. Nor (since I have narrowish shoulders) do I like wide necklines which either display my underclothing or slip right off one side or the other.

But, despite all my fussiness about skirt length and necklines, I am apparently pretty laid-back when it comes to sleeves. Spaghetti-straps are ruled out by the neckline clause; sleeveless and three-quarter sleeves I’m not mad keen on, but I’m happy to wear pretty much any other length. [Dangit! Still can’t get that word right first go! Who thought four consonants in a row was a good idea?]

So, judging by my Absolutelys, I should be looking for full-length [right first time!] dresses with somewhat fitted bodices and full skirts. Waistlines high or natural; jewel necklines (I actually quite like a collar, but they weren’t under discussion here) and full-length [gah!] sleeves for choice.

What about you? What are your likes and loathes – and what would your ideal garment look like?