Narrow Pants – Marfy 0913 & Jalie 2682

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This is what I wore on Thursday of the Textile Symposium.

This pattern (Marfy #0913) turned out to be 'the one' for the narrow pants I was looking for, as far as I'm concerned. It's one of the free patterns included with the 2009 catalog, and is for woven pants, with a zipper, back darts, and a faced waistband. I used knit fabric, a blue mystery knit for the first pair, and a brown ponte knit for the second.

I added 4" in length for the blue pair, 2" above the knee, and 2" below. For the brown pair, I added another 2" below the knee, and did a straight hem instead of the curved vent. I think I might like the curved vent with a little more length, so I may try it. For the brown pair, I actually added another inch for a hem allowance, and so they're really great with heels, but I wore them with flats for the Symposium, so I just turned up the hem, with looked much like a cuff since I'd topstitched the hem both at the hem edge, and at the lower edge.

On both pairs I did a Hollywood waistband without a zipper, but still using the back darts. I didn't have to cut the waist straight from the hip since the knit has plenty of stretch, and in fact I ended up taking about 3" out of the CF at the waist, tapering to the crotch.

I used Ann Rowley's Flat Seat Adjustment, and re-did it for a little more flatness on the second pair.

I added side-seam pockets on the second pair, which will be automatic in future, I think. I should have put them in the blue pair too, but I've been wearing them with my fleece vest, which has lots of pockets anyway.

The knit top with the blue pants is Jalie #2682, lengthened. I really like how it turned out, especially with the fleece vest which was the perfect color all around. I had thought of making a brown vest from the ponte knit, and making it cropped, but I'm not sure how that would look. What do you all think? I remember a very cropped jacket a few years ago (Vogue pattern?) that stopped just below the armscye, and definitely above the bust point. I like the idea of that, but I'm afraid it would look really strange. It wouldn't take much fabric to try it I guess....

Here are the brown pants again with an older Jalie 2005 Tee. It was the right color for the Collar and Cuff set.
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This is what I wore on Saturday of the Textile Symposium.
Friday I wore my Burda WOF ruched 'twirly' skirt and blouse. It was definitely the right venue to wear interesting things, as everyone else was wearing interesting things too, and we were all interested.

Textile Symposium – Market Place

One of the highlights of the conference in my opinion, was the Market Place. As you might imagine, there were lots of very unique things available, and who wouldn't enjoy shopping in such an atmosphere? I was extremely abstemious, but I did have to make one purchase of a Nuno felted silk and wool collar and cuff set.
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The artist was Melissa Arnold, and she had lots and lots of wonderful things, and of course I think I could make my own version of some of them, and possibly this as well, but I was just so enamored of it that I thought I'd treat myself. I wore the set at the conference on Saturday, and got many, many comments and compliments on them.
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I love both pieces, and besides the way they look, it's nice and warm to wear, which was great since the conference was really almost cold most of the time. Too much air-conditioning for the weather, which was rare and perfect fall weather during the entire week.

Another plus was that the Nebraska Bead Association held its annual show and bazaar at the hotel on Saturday, and I did buy a few things there as well. I've not been to their show before, and it was quite large, with both finished items and everything you could desire to make your own I seem to be enamored of copper lately, so I got a few copper things, and we'll see what happens from there.

Details of the Marfy pants will be in my next post.

Perfect Isn't Perfect, Part 2

You may remember a post from July, 2008 called Perfect Isn't Perfect Anymore. It was about the new designer at Valentino and her first couture collection for the house. There were a lot of great comments about it, and we were all agreed that it was a big change from previous Valentino collections.

Well, you may have noticed that the designer who did the collection, Alessandra Facchinetti, is no longer at Valentino. She was touted as the one who would update the house and its image, but apparently there was unhappiness with her work or the way things were going in general.

I probably wouldn't have done a post just about that, but Kathleen Fasanella, of Fashion-Incubator fame left a comment recently on the original post which I'm going to quote here. You can use the link to the original post above to see the photos to which she refers. As always, she is very good at diagnosing problems and not only how they got there, but how to fix them. Here's her comment, and be sure to click on her link to see the photos with comments and arrows, etc. on her photo site.

kathleen said... 1:30 PM, October 17, 2008

Good eye Liana (as usual).
Don't know that I agree about the collar points, could be a matter of garment sway from walking but I do see another problem with it, bubbling on one side near the dart (see these photos I've made notes on.)



The taupe style ...that has GOT to be a proto, a last minute addition to the line. I found three problems with it, rather glaring imo. The buttons don't line up,



the aforementioned neckline bubble (same block as the white one?)



and that placket thingy in addition to buckling, is crooked.



Again, see my photos.

RE: zipper. The end point pucker is the least of it really, you can see it's puckering well before that end point. Pretty lousy imo. Also, look at that seam on the sleeve; it's caving inwards.




With all that embellishment weight, that really needed some kind of infrastructure to reinforce the seam.

I was very interested in her comments, and I admit I hadn't consciously noted the neckline bubbles, at least as a separate problem. The beige suit being a very quickie prototype rings true with me, as the placket itself looks like the kind of thing I would just fold from a scrap to see how I liked the look. It looks like they did that too, and then just tacked it on without interfacing it or figuring out how to attach it beautifully, and called it good for now.

Kathleen has graciously offered to elaborate if we have any questions, so please, ask away!


Edited to add the photos with Kathleen's notes, which I should have done in the first place.

Perfect Isn't Perfect Anymore?

I really hesitate to write this, but I'm just so intrigued by the whole thing, and the more I think about it, the more I want to discuss it. Most of you probably know that I have another blog I do called Fashioned. It started as a way to discuss the runway looks I like with some friends, and although I don't keep it up as well as I could, I do try, especially with the Couture collections, which are my favorites. I have only one rule there, which I stick to pretty closely, and that is: If I don't like something, I don't put it up and ridicule it. I generally just ignore it and move on to something I do like. I look for not only entire looks I like, but also sometimes just one small part of a look appeals to me, and I mention it and ignore the rest. Not surprisingly, I tend to look at things from a sewing point of view, and I'll discuss an interesting sleeve or hem or whatever.

So, I was working my way through the Fall 2008 shows last week, and one of my favorites each season is Valentino. Of course Valentino himself retired after the Spring 2008 show, so this was the first show completely designed and overseen by Alessandra Facchinetti. She did a lot of beautiful things, and I've read several serious reviews of the show, and no one has mentioned what caught my attention. When looking at the close-up photos of various ensembles, I noted details that were not perfect.

Even now I read that and think, how petty. But really, what is the couture if not an exercise in dreams and perfection? Of course I'm sure there are many less-than-perfect garments in the various couture collections, but we don't see them as a rule. What 'mistakes' there are, are not visible to the naked eye, or at least not in photographs. They just do not send less-than-perfect items down that runway, and honestly, they shouldn't, if only because their price-point depends on the maintenance of the couture mystique, which demands perfection, or at least so close to perfection that imperfections become unnoticeable. So how did these things escape the quality control that I know they have in the Valentino workroom? Who decided they were "good enough"? Is anyone else disappointed, or am I being silly? I know that things that I make will probably always have one or more things that are not quite right. One strives for perfection of course, but usually one settles for a pleasing overall impression, with no glaringly obvious faults. This is often achievement enough, but with a complete workroom full of highly skilled experts who have been turning out apparent perfection collection after collection for Valentino himself, right up to a few months ago, how did this happen? That's what has me baffled.

I'll go ahead and post some of the things that caught my eye. Let me know what you all think.

All photos in this post are courtesy of Style.com, and you can find the complete Valentino show referenced here.



This jacket is lovely, but look at the collar point on the left side of the photo. You can see more in the close-up below, but it looks to me like it doesn't match the right side in the way it stands.



This suit has lots of detail front and center, and you can see in the photo below that things just aren't quite as straight and even as they should be, from the center angled piece to the welt pocket that's a little wavy.



This is a portion of an embellished satin evening coat. Beautiful, and a very difficult fabric, but isn't that a pretty big pucker at the bottom of the zipper?

There are so many beautiful and seemingly perfect things in this collection, and I don't want you to think this isn't the case, but I've just been almost worried by the problems I've pointed out. So, am I silly or too picky or what?