Manequim magazine have had the unique tradition of offering two November issues each year – some sort of weird reasoning like “there’s too much summer to be contained in one issue!”, but this year for some reason there’s only one November issue (yes, I double checked the numbering with October and December’s issues to make sure it just wasn’t lost in the post!).
It may appear at first glance that I’ve not pulled out many garments here, but the ones I’ve chosen are amazing and therefore this cranks my overall rating of this issue up a notch!
The Plus sized garments this issue are all cocktail dresses, and they are fantastic! Look at the lace seaming on the right-hand blue dress in particular (sorry the tech drawing is blurry)! That hem! Those curved seams! Luscious.
The designer inspiration feature this month is in the style of Costume National, a brand I’ve heard of but am not particularly familiar with, if I’m being honest. The woven tee on the right is also offered as a pattern, but I was just blown away by the monochrome seamed dress! That’s not a printed fabric – the white and black crepes are cut separately. I’m a bit disappointed that the back is so plain – they should’ve really carried the seaming around to the back IMHO. However, the glory of patterns without seam allowances is that it’s easy to just draw your own new seaming on and split it up yourself.
There’s a feature showcasing unusual catwalk fabrics, and I just love the asymmetric dress they’ve used to showcase neoprene (which I’m guessing can be substituted with scuba for those of us without designer budgets!). Looking at the seaming, I think I’d colourblock it differently myself, but what a great design!
In the same feature, I rather like the dress they’ve used to showcase net fabrics. You’d have to be quite bold to wear this with net alone on those side panels, but think about how great it’d look if you layered the net on top of a brightly coloured fabric underneath…
December’s Manequim will be coming along shortly, but first I’ve got more magazine reviews, both from a newcomer and an old favourite…