The sad state of ready-to-wear

A few days ago I bought a suit for a job interview I have next week. I wish I had the sewing experience and non-procrastination-ness (yeah, had to make up that word) to actually make a nice suit. I did shorten the hem on the pants though.

I did not enjoy the shopping experience. I knew getting both the pants and the jacket to fit off the rack would be a challenge. One problem I had was that I am between sizes in jackets, or more accurately I am a different size in the shoulders than my waist and hips. If the jacket fit in the shoulders, it wouldn't button and if it buttoned, then the jacket looked big in the chest and drooped off my shoulders. This was when I realized that the jackets seemed to lack any real structure. The jackets were lined and had shoulder pads, but overall the jackets felt skimpy and the collars were lumpy and bumpy.

All these jackets were in a department store that carried many different labels and they ranged in price from $80 to $160. I wandered over to the expensive part of the store, where they have Hugo Boss, thinking maybe a higher price would mean higher quality. Jackets there were $450 and up, which after adding another $200 for pants made for a pricey interview suit I might only wear a few more times. In hindsight I should have tried some on anyway and looked at the quality. Maybe I will on a later shopping trip but on that day I was goal-oriented and didn't want to be enticed by a $700 suit.

I searched the rest of the store again and miraculously I managed to find pants ($100) and a jacket ($160) that fit, at least well enough to look presentable for my interview. I could tell the jacket had more structure in the upper chest and shoulders and that made the larger size I chose (so that it buttoned) look OK in the shoulders and not like I was wearing a jacket that was too big.

A long, long time ago, early in my working career, I wore a lot of Liz Claiborne and Jones New York. I remember pants were about $80-90, blouses $60-70, and jackets (blazers) were about $130. I don't remember that being very expensive - it was what the department stores offered as "career wear." How is it that today, nearly 30 years later, the prices in similar clothing lines are not much more?

At some point I stopped needing to buy "career wear." I returned to school to get a master's degree and then casual Friday became casual Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Though I still liked to wear dressier pants to work instead of jeans and blouses instead of t-shirts, I began buying separates and, more importantly, started sewing my own clothes, so I guess I didn't notice that the prices weren't going up.

If the price to the consumer was staying the same, or in some cases even decreasing, then something in the equation had to change. Pants stopped being lined. Jackets lost some tailoring. Fabrics got thinner. Labor was moved to places where they could pay very little, like Bangladesh, where my new suit was made. The quality of the sewing in my suit is actually quite good, but the material quality is not. I've also noticed that unless you go to a major city, many department stores no longer carry clothes at a higher price point. The public wants to keep paying the same amount (or less!), which means cheap clothing and now that's the only thing available. 

Since I'm in Germany and have different clothing lines, I just looked online to see if Liz Clairborne is still around. Well they are, but I wouldn't recognize it. The clothing is much cheaper than 30 years ago but nowhere near the look or, I assume, quality it once was. Jones New York looks to be targeting the same demographic they used to but the clothes are at the same prices as 30 years ago. So I'm going to guess that the quality won't be the same and the labels will indicate that they're sewn in some place like Bangladesh.

A Paris day trip: Dior and fabric shopping

When I heard that the Christian Dior exhibit at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris was not to be missed and was ending in early January of 2018, I decided that I should go! Now! I can get to Paris in 3 1/2 hours so I decided a day-trip was in order. 

I arrived in Paris about two hours before my timed-ticket entry of noon. Originally I'd planned to walk from the train station and stop at a fabric store or two along the way but it was freezing cold outside, so I took the metro. I thought it was still too early to go to the museum so after a pastry and coffee I checked out a nearby ribbon shop called Mokuba. They have an incredible selection of ribbon but since I didn't have any need for any at the moment I just browsed. I also peeked in the window of Kaetsu , another fabric shop I'd read about, but it wasn't open until noon. It turns out it's not so much of a fabric shop as a boutique that makes bags and other accessories out of Japanese fabric. They may also sell some of the fabric, but I couldn't tell - it was a really tiny store too.

By now it was time to make my way over to the museum. It was about 11:30 am but I probably should have gone over there earlier because there was a huge line outside - and these were all people with 12:00 tickets. It was cold but fortunately not raining so I waited with everyone else and watched as more and more people arrived. As you might expect, the majority of the crowd were female and many were "fashionably French" but others were pushing my fashion envelope for sure. I didn't get any photos because I didn't want to be rude, but my favorite look was an older woman wearing a knee-length bright green fur coat, red tights and purple shoes - or maybe it was purple tights and red shoes, I can't remember but she definitely stood out.

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

I finally made it inside around 15-20 minutes past twelve. I followed the crowd and headed straight for the exhibit, unfortunately forgetting to check my winter coat, and I wasn't alone in this as I saw most everyone else wearing their coats. As often happens in these large, popular exhibits, the early rooms were very congested while people tried to read and observe every little thing, afraid to move on and miss something. I was pushed by people more than once and bumped countless times and bulky coats certainly didn't help! In one very crowded room a museum worker periodically instructed people to keep moving.

I didn't really know much about Dior except for his infamous "New Look", the change in fashion that he initiated in the post-war 40's. The first room contained a lot of historical information and pictures but unfortunately it was so jammed with people I felt claustrophobic while trying reading anything so I moved on. I looked up information about Christian Dior afterwards and was surprised to learn that he died quite young, at 52, in 1957. Now I understand why so many of the clothes were labeled "Christian Dior" followed by "John Galliano" or "Yves Saint Laurent" or "Mark Bohan." These were some of the creative directors who took over the House of Dior after Christian's death. This exhibit represents the bulk of the Dior creations over many, many years and not just from Christian Dior himself. And what an exhibit it is!

I took lots of pictures with my phone and have put together an album of them, which you can view farther down in this post. My favorite exhibit was one that showcased groupings by color of Dior clothes - full size and in miniature (which I adored!), hats, shoes, jewelry, perfume and artwork.

Another favorite room was one that focused on the floral pieces. The ceiling was decorated with paper cutout flowers and leaves and it was just beautiful.

Another room showed the pieces in muslin (toile) form, filling the room vertically, which was an elegant way to showcase them. I would have loved to have been able to see the dresses closer up to see the design elements.

Towards the end of the exhibit was a room that looked like a grand ballroom and it fittingly contained ballgowns, including one worn by Princess Diana. So many lovely gowns!

I wish I could have spent my time admiring and studying each piece but that was impossible not just because it was crowded but because there was so much to see. I spent about two hours there and was exhausted afterwards.

Click in the middle to view in flickr or click the arrows to view here

After the exhibit and lunch, I took the metro to visit another fabric store I'd read about. Mahlia Kent is a weaving studio that supplies woven fabrics for designers and also sells yardage or sample pieces. They're located in a very cool space built under a railway bridge that has been re-purposed into studios and retail shops with a landscaped walkway above, known as the Coulée verte René-Dumont. 

I browsed a bit through the small sample pieces, which could be used for small bags or combined into larger pieces, but there were so many that it made my head spin. I was more attracted to the cones of yarn on their shelves that were also for sale - these are probably leftover yarns from their weaving. I bought four small cones of yarn to play with on my loom. Had I not been limited by what I could easily carry and not planning to shop more, I might have bought more!

My next stop was Anna Ka Bazaar, another fabric shop I'd read about but had never visited and located in a trendy looking area a short walk from the Coulée. It's a nice little shop but not really my aesthetic. At first glance it looked more like a "twee" craft shop with glass jars of color-coordinated ribbons and buttons, but then I saw that they also stock yarn, patterns and fabric. It looked like they'd just gotten a shipment of printed cotton knits, which I liked but not enough for the price they wanted. 

With two more hours until my train, I dashed to the metro in the rain and rode it to my usual fabric shopping mecca in Montmartre, home of Tissus Reine and Marché Saint-Pierre Dreyfus and many little "coupon" shops that sell pre-cut pieces of fabrics. I browsed and browsed as much as I could in the time I had left, but there wasn't any fabric that I felt I needed to buy. There was a small leather and animal skin shop with some nice pieces but I couldn't come up with a project to justify buying anything. Well, actually I could think of many projects but my list is long enough already.

It was a great day! Long and exhausting and it rained off and on, but still a really great day. 

Making scarves

I finished the two scarves and have now warped my loom for another scarf project.

Merino/tencel

Alpaca

The next weaving project is from the book Next Steps in Weaving. It's my most complicated project yet, but that's the point of the book, to help you advance beyond simple weaving. This one is called "Scarf of Lucky Colors" because the author found that this color combination was her best-seller. I liked the colors and decided to use the same ones, as well as the yarn called for. Having all the calculations done - how much yarn to warp in each color and how much you need for weft - makes the project easier. Threading the heddles was the most difficult part, but I think I did it correctly. Now on to the weaving!

I'm also trying to make time for some sewing. I bought some fabric to make the "knock-off" top from my last post but may make a simpler version instead so that I actually make something instead of just planning it forever.