Building a personal wardrobe

My thinking about the whole concept of putting together a personal wardrobe has advanced by leaps and bounds since the last time I posted in this subject. I have begun the process by thinking through my own wardrobe, and, more recently, that of a good woman friend. First of all, the whole idea of developing a personal wardrobe actually means changing one's wardrobe, since we all have a wardrobe we may have unconsciously constructed over years of time and choices. To focus consciously on our wardrobe is to recognize that we are in a prrocess of change. Part of this is about recognizing how our existing wardrobe was (unconsciously) designed - why we chose to wear the types of clothes we did, and what kind of new person we are becoming. The personal wardrobe we intend to create must act to enable and facilitate the emergence of the new person we are becoming, rather than be necessarily what we want (sometimes are desires are rooted in older ideas about the self and they may need to be challenged!).

For example, it has become clear to me that for years I have been wearing solid colors in my shirts and pants, often in quite dark shades, and that this represents both a kind of solidity and an invisibility. The kind of person I am becoming is much more forward moving, visible, engaging, and my clothes need to change to reflect that change.

Another consideration for designing a new core wardrobe is that the wardrobe needs to express a primary constellation of values related to the "new me", but that they may also serve to support several secondary constellations. Hence, for example, the primary set of values my new wardrobe is being focussed around is distinguished, assertive and engaged, but a secondary set includes a sense of edginess, and of exotism.

A third consideration which I also believe to be important, although it may sound odd, is that I think the wardrobe should include paying attention to underwear, not so much as a statement aimed at other people, as with regard to a recognition of how I view myself. Although we may share our underwear with one (or more?) significant others, ultimately, our underwear reflects our own relationship with our body and self image. Therefore, if we are moving towards developing a new personal wardrobe, underwear is an important component in such a move. In a sense, how we act in the world and how other people perceive us is based on only on our outer appearance, but also our choices regarding hidden aspects of who we are.

I'm not saying anything at all about what choices one should make - I think these will vary from one individual to another. But I do think we need to be aware of these choices.

A multilingual fabric wiki

I see it's been a little while since I posted here last. The main reason, aside from a certain business in my professional life, has been that around the time of my last posting I created a "fabric wiki" to serve the do-it-yourself sewing community. Drawing on my own bilingual competency, I've created a "multilingual" wiki with a bilingual component built in from the get go. The wiki is taking up a lot of the "slack" time I devoted to blog pursuits earlier - I've got to figure out how to balance my time across my different activities! I have learned a ton of stuff about organizing and running a wiki, though!

Wardrobe versus Collection

I've thought through the issue of making a collection and have worked out what I plan to do. I have written before about the fact that I'm not at ease with the traditional notion of a collection. A collection is really a group of garments with a common theme produced by a single designer and used as source material to develop lines of ready made garments. Since I have decided that doing and selling ready-made garments is not what I want to do, a collection from this perspective makes little sense.

Instead, I enjoy making custom-fitted garments, for myself and others. And I want to make groups of garments. So I'm focussing on the idea of developing a "wardrobe" rather than a "collection". My idea of a wardrobe is a set of matched clothes of different styles and uses - outfits for home and casual use, for work, for sports and for evening events. The ability to combine these differently for different situations should be built into the design, hence the notion of "matching", but matching that doesn't necessarily make for an overly "kit-like" look. The wardrobe will therefore have an "integral" feel without being homogeneous.

I am currently developing two types of wardrobe. The first is a men's core wardrobe. The basic idea is to provide a variety of styles and looks, all smart and contemporary, for trendy men who want to dress outside the traditional "business look". I have been developing such a wardrobe for myself, and I plan to organize the idea and then make it available as a business offering.

The second wardrobe idea is a women's under-wardrobe, focusing on a set of lingerie for different contexts and situations. Both of these wardrobes would be offered via custom fitting arrangements, that is, for individuals with their particular measurements. I am also thinking through the issues involved in making custom-fitted garments in a more streamlined way, to bring the costs down somewhat.

Christmas come and gone...

Well, Christmas has come and gone. It was an eventful time this year. I ended up in Vancouver and Victoria with my brothers and their families. Although I took no sewing supplies with me, I hadn't quite finished the black shirt for my youngest brother. I ended up not doing an e-shirt for him - I wasn't happy enough with the results of the e-vest effort to feel comfortable giving one away, and already, making a custom fit shirt was a great present. However, in order to finish the shirt, I needed a sewing machine and my sister-in-law had an old one in the bottom of her closet, so we turfed it out and I got it working. It needed a new set of needles, but worked pretty well as is.

Anyway, once I had a working machine and had finished the shirt, I ended up going to the local fabric store, buying some remnant silk, and made a woman's slip - my first venture into lingerie and underwear. The result was superb and SO satisfying to make! I am hooked on making lingerie now. I'm investigating the possibility of making more, with a focus on bra-and-pantie combos to begin with.

However, following the Christmas break, I realized I have a number of projects on the go I need to finish up before opening up too many new ones - two shirts for myself to finish, the e-vest to finalize, a pair of pants for myself, and a dress for a young friend.

On the e-vest, I just need to integrate an on-off switch - I had to order more of these from Aniomagic before I could finish it up. I'll publish images of the results as soon as I get it finalized. What I find irritating about the final product is that, although it looks fabulous, there is a fair amount of bulk on the back panel that I'd like to reduce. Also, the fibre optic tubes need to be sealed away beneath something - they are a bit fragile just laying on the surface of the vest panel. I'm not sure what the answer to this is yet. So I need to construct a version two before I can be happy with the result.

Still, I'm feeling so much more confident with my sewing, now, and designing is also going strong. I've learned to use Photoshop to help with the designs, but until there is a fabric, the design cannot be completed. I'm still looking for good ways of visualizing the results, as my sketching ability is not very good.

Moving forward on all fronts

Although I've nothing finished to show for my efforts yet, I've been moving forward on my sewing projects. After a very intensive period at my work, including several weekends, I've decided to take a few days off work to get my sewing projects going.

First of all, I've nearly finished the nativity scene in fibre optics. The result is more impresssive than I expected it to be, I'm really quite pleased with the effect. I've done the line work with the fibre optics, but I also want to put in a few LEDs for stars into the image. I've also ordered some more fibre optics. These ones were 3 feet in length, and I found that a little short to work with, so I've ordered another 9 cables at a length of 5 feet each. The down side is that they may need a little more current - I've been able to run two 3-foot fibre optics off one 9-volt battery so far - I'm not sure if this will work for the 5-foot fibre optics cables. The circuits are hooked to the snap-ons - I will do this for the shirt as well. It makes connecting the pieces together, literally, a "snap". Also, I've realized that using a snap-on e-panel in this way, not only can I replace the panel with additional e-panels, but I can also retro-fit other garments to take the same panel design. So I could add the panel to a jacket, for example, or to a wall tapestry, as long as I build the battery holders, switches and circuits into these in appropriate ways.

I've cut the fabric for both the black pants and black shirt. I did the pants in a cotton shell first, to make sure of the fit. This is the first pair of pants I've made and I wanted to make sure the fit was right before proceeding into the fabric. The sample pair fit perfectly, though, so I cut the black cotton to make the pants, and bought myself some black elastic so I can do the belt area. For the shirt, I found a black cotton which has a bit of a crepe-like texture, very nice, and I've cut that also.

I'm also working on a princess-seam dress for a friend - I'm preparing the pattern blocks now. More on all of this later - and I'll put up some photos showing details.

Preparing a Fibre Optics Nativity Scene

Inspired by the Christmas Sew-Along at the BurdaStyle site, I've decided to put my growing electronic sewing expertise to work by designing a nativity scene onto the back shirt panel using the fiber optics cable. I can actually develop the scene ahead of actually finishing the shirt. Here is an example of one of the fibre optics cables I've bought :





It runs off a 9 volt battery, as shown in the photo. I've tested the ability to run more than one fibre optic from the same battery, and it works fine. It would be great if I could run all four fibre optics colors from the same 9-volt battery, but if I have to use two, that's not the end of the world. It may be better to use two, and drive a flashing "Star of Bethlehem" as well from one of the batteries.

Now, using an image I found on the web of the three kings looking up at the star of Bethlehem, I've drawn in a line image that I think I can reproduce using the fibre optics (see below). I've still got to experiment with hiding the fibre optics cable I don't want to see behind the fabric - I suspect it may still glow a little.

Smart shirt

I've worked out an overall design for a smart shirt - smart in the sense that it includes electronic lighting displays. Shown is the design I've come up with (as part of an all-black outfit including pants - the grey is shown only to make the design details clear). The idea is that the two rectangular front panels and the wide panel on the back are snapped on into place on the shirt. The shirt includes batteries worn at the side in specially designed battery holders, located just above the waist on either side. I plan on having non-electronic panels in a very sharp-looking design that I can wear some of the time, but also have different electronic panels than can be switched out for other panels - in this way, I can experiment with a variety of lighting ideas and not be locked into any of them. For example, I'm planning to do a lit Christmas scene that can be replaced with something else later on.

I've bought black fabric for the pants, which I'm currently making, and the shirt, whose design I am still refining. I plan to show more of the project as it evolves.