The topic of wardrobe planning fascinates me; I love to see the colours and designs come together into something wearable. And the variety from person to person is so interesting; you can see personalities emerge in their choice of patterns and colours.
This is a favourite topic of Australian Stitches. In a recent issue, they featured the wardrobe plan of their new assistant editor, Cate Purcell. Cate is a mother of three young children and she works both from the magazine's office and sometimes from home. This, combined with her own youthful taste, gives a different wardrobe than ones that have been featured in the past. No jackets here! Cate likes to dress in skirts with unusual lines combined with knit tops. She is also a redhead, so her colours are not the black and white with red accents we see so frequently.
The first step in Cate's plan is to sit down and assess three things about yourself:
1. Lifestyle - decide what kind of clothes you need given your lifestyle. No sense in sewing georgette if you won't be wearing it. This may be obvious, but some of us (myself included) need to be reminded of this.
2. Fabric - what fabrics do you like to wear? and what fabrics are you prepared to care for? If you hate ironing, then all cotton, linen, or rayon fabrics may not be practical for you. I have recently found that tencel combined with polyester is an absolutely wonderful, care-free fabric.
3. Colour - begin with two basics and pick up complementary colours to go with them.
For Cate, her lifestyle is active and she wanted clothes that were comfortable, easy care, and required minimal ironing. She likes skirts that have design detail to them, often with asymmetrical hemlines, and she lives in knits. These facts determine the direction of her plan.
Because she doesn't have to have a suit-type wardrobe, Cate chooses different pieces than the previous Stitches wardrobe plans. Whereas previous wardrobes had the equation of x number of bottoms, paired with x number of tops that must all coordinate, and finished with one jacket that will go with all, Cate's formula is: 1 blouse, 11 (yes, 11) tops, 1 cardigan, and 5 bottoms. She also divides her wardrobe into one for work and another one for home, with some crossovers between the two.
For fabrics, Cate kept in mind her requirement of no dry cleaning and minimal ironing. She chose knits for most of her tops, and stretch wovens for the bottom pieces.
Colour wise, Cate has a different slant as well. She advises choosing two basic colours. She says the most versatile basics to work with are navy, black, brown, grey, olive and beige. Her two basics are beige and brown. But then she diversifies. Keeping in mind her two basic colours, Cate then took herself to the paint store where she picked up a few ranges of coordinating colours that would go with her basic two colours. The paint chips usually come on cards with 4-6 colours on them. The reason for picking up paint chips is that this gives you more leeway once you are in the fabric store. The chances of finding exactly the coordinating colours you want in the fabrics you want are not high; having a paint card with 4-6 tones on it will open up your options more.
Cate's colour choices
The next step in Cate's plan was to spend some time at the fabric store, looking at the pattern catalogs. Here she wrote down the company name and number of all the patterns that interested her. The list was quite long. Then she took that home, logged onto the internet and looked up all those patterns to get the front and back line drawings of them. Cate printed off the front and back view of each chosen style, eliminating the colours as this can interfere with your own colour coordination. Any styles that didn't work with others were discarded.
Then Cate cut out the line drawings and glued them to two sheets of paper, one sheet for her "working" wardrobe, the other for her "play" wardrobe. She matched tops with bottoms. Unlike other wardrobe plans, where every top must go with every bottom, Cate's plan doesn't require this. This is the reason for 11 tops. Some will work with more than one bottom and they were considered the "crossovers". Beside each line drawing, Cate wrote the pattern number and the fabric requirements. This is Cate's "Story Board".
Cate's Story Board
Then it was off to the fabric store, armed with the Story Board and the paint chips. Cate advises that you allow several hours for this part of the task - now we know that is not hard to do! She also warns that you may find yourself drawn by one fabric in a different direction than planned. In this case, she advises that you stick with your two basic colours and be sure to base your fabric choices around those. Sticking to plain colours will allow the easiest coordination. But, if you like prints, as Cate does, she advises "look for prints that contain your chosen neutrals and then select some or all of the other colours from the print as the plain coordinates of your wardrobe." For those who love prints, start with the print you love and use it to jumpstart your plan.
Cate assumes that you will buy all your fabrics in this one shopping trip. You may need several trips to get this accomplished. Once you have all the fabrics, cut a swatch of each and stick it onto the Story Board next to the garment that you intend it for.
Cate's completed Story Board
The next step is obvious: pre-treat all your fabrics and make the necessary pattern alterations so that you are ready to cut out. Cate does all the cutting at one time. With some tops, she was able to cut two at a time using the same pattern and provided the fabrics were thin enough not to cause distortion. Then each garment was folded, along with the pattern, and all the necessary notions and placed into a zip-lock bag. This means organization but it definitely pays off. Having your thread, zipper, buttons, seam binding, etc. all together with your cut fabric will let you get right down to sewing. Then all the zip-lock bags were placed in a box right next to Cate's sewing machine. She was ready to go. Every opportunity for sewing would have her digging into that box, everything was ready to sew, no time would be wasted trying to find what she needed or running to the fabric store because she didn't have the right colour of thread. Don't forget interfacing - if any of your pieces need interfacing, cut that and have it ready for fusing - let that be your first step in each garment.
Cate's initial pieces
Pink linen skirt is Burda 8340, lined to prevent bagging.
Printed jersey top is New Look 6294. Asymmetrical skirt is Vogue 7856 in polyester jersey; top is Burda 8361 which Cate painted using Genisis Creation paints.
Cate's wardrobe continued
Skirt is Vogue 7856; striped top is Simplicity 5255 and green top is New Look 6265
More of Cate's wardrobe
Skirt is Burda 8340 in pink linen. Top on left is New Look 6324; blouse on the right is Vogue 2789.
These are just a few of the items from Cate's wardrobe; the next issue of Stitches will show her casual wardrobe. Some of the pieces will cross over with these pieces - stay tuned for the next article.
All pictures were scanned from Australian Stitches, Vol 12, No 1