Tag: knockoff

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Missoni-esque zigzag top

Sunday morning began with me balancing on two narrow beams in a four foot tall crawl space, crowbarring up a huge portion of floor in order to get at the water tanks underneath. Sunday evening ended with me sewing up this blouse. I’d say I had a pretty full and varied day!

I absolutely love the Feb 2008 issue of Burda World of Fashion magazine, and #123A is one of the three from that issue I’m determined to have! I used the remains of some fabulous jersey from Gorgeous Fabrics that reminded me so much of Missoni zigzags that I couldn’t say no (you might also remember this fabric from the top I made my mom for Christmas!).

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The Big Fleecy

My boyfriend James has a RTW fleece that he loves, but it’s getting scraggly and it’s a bit too thin to be useful when we work outside a lot. He’s been bugging me to recreate him a new one for a while now, and I recently picked up KwikSew 2561 which I thought would be easier than just tracing his old one. He bought the fleece from cheapfabrics.co.uk since we knew how nice and thick it was from our earlier fleece adventures. After the mental gymnastics of the Pendleton wool jacket, I decided it was time to make something simple!

Inspiration

Copying Keira

As part of my fabric buying spree in the States, I bought some gorgeous emerald green silk charmeuse from fabric.com, with plans to make HotPatterns’ Deco Vibe So Pretty dress. As my FW/07 collection is keeping me rather busy, I hadn’t given myself a timeline to make this dress, even though I’ve got all the materials to hand.

But last night James and I finally went to see Atonement at the cinema, and I couldn’t help but notice that the beautiful 1930s evening gown worn by Keira Knightley’s character in the film is very similar to to the dress I’d already planned!

Inspiration

London Fashion Week report

As explained a few days ago, I was very lucky to be invited to attend a catwalk show at London Fashion Week on Saturday morning. After fretting over what to wear, I settled on this ensemble, which was entirely Fehr Trade, just in case someone asked (they didn’t. Awww.).

But, as I soon found out once the models hit the catwalk, apparently I was right to decide on a cowl top!

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Orla la!

I’m going on holiday very soon, and even though I’m not a “beach person” (try getting me to sit still long enough, my freckly pale colouring nonwithstanding), I know we’ll be going to a few pools and a municipal beach while I’m away. So I aimed towards making a beach coverup that I wouldn’t mind wearing out and about, and I’m pretty happy with the results!

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Gimme Galliano

The April 2007 issue of KnipMode magazine had a section where they took a bunch of catwalk looks and replicated them with one of their patterns. I loved the easy lines of the John Galliano dress, but so much of my wardrobe is already black and white and I thought I’d prefer a colourful dress for the summer.

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Mock Frock

After seeing celeb after celeb wearing Roland Mouret’s fantastic Galaxy dress and spouting the true wonders of its inner spandex core, I was very excited to see that Vogue produced its own version of the Galaxy dress, Vogue 8280, and I bought it immediately.

Fast forward several months and I finally had the time (and the small waist!) to make this dress using the gorgeous grey tartan wool I’d bought especially for it alongside the pattern. It took me two days of sewing after quite a bit of prep work, but I thoroughly enjoyed making this dress and I absolutely love the end result! It may not have the magical spandex core, but it does have a fully lined bodice and a neat skinny belt I made to further acentuate the nipped-in waist.


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Hello, 'moto!

I downloaded this jacket pattern by designer Yohji Yamamoto a few years ago, but I never really got any further than that until I discovered a late-open Kinkos in central London that could large-format print the free pdf for me (because, frankly, I have better things to do with my time than print and tape together 54 sheets of A4 paper!). With the pattern in hand, it was only a matter of days before this jacket was keeping me warm.

This jacket is such an interesting design – it only has two pattern pieces, and can be worn two different ways. I’m actually not sure which way I prefer it, so I’ll let you all decide (leave a comment telling me which view you prefer!).

View A:

View B:

Inspiration

Green & orange oriental wrap dress

I saw this dress while looking through TopShop’s website recently:

I love it, but a) the bastards don’t make it in my size (what the hell, every other dress but not this one?? argh.), and b) I could make that!