Hello friends!
We had a lovely trip to Scotland with my family. It’s been about 20 years since I last visited, but it hasn’t changed very much at all. Even the narrow, twisty road from Glasgow to Oban hasn’t changed. When I first drove that road in my early 20s it was extremely daunting, but now it didn’t give me pause at all, which is a miracle given that I never drive a car let alone drive on the other side of the road….
Instagram Picks
Our friend Maria recently expanded Telaria, her online fabric shop, by opening a lovely bricks and mortar fabric store in Seville. (You should definitely visit if you travel there!) She posts such cute photos of the clothing she and her customers make, along with the original bolt of fabric. The Liesl + Co Everyday Skirt has been popular there, and I think the photos are so cute.
Pinterest Picks
S is a notoriously picky breakfast eater. She’s not interested in eating anything early in the morning, and it’s always been a struggle to find something to see her through to lunch. Then I remembered she loves crepes. So almost every morning we’ve been making crepes, which is actually very easy and fast because we mix up a double batch of batter and it lasts several days. I prefer mine with a few drops of lemon juice and a little powdered sugar, but S likes them with Nutella or whipped cream. (I know. I’m just happy I get her to eat something.) Now we’re messing around with crepe cakes. But not for breakfast. Goodness!
When it gets really hot out, like today, I pull out one of my my linen caftans from my Creativebug class. I’m wearing one right now. They’re so easy and comfortable, and they look great with sandals. Take a look at my caftan-itis Pinterest board for more inspiration.
Here’s a little more sewing inspiration for yourself. This fall, try wearing a longer sweater or tunic over your Liesl + Co SoHo Shorts to make a cute outfit. Also, I love this bold botanic print for the new Lisette for Butterick B6482 dress. I love the sheer raglan sleeves, which would be easy to do with the pattern!
For the kids, again looking forward to fall, how cute are these animal raglan tees that Rachel pinned the other day? You could easily use the Oliver + S Field Trip Raglan Tee pattern to make these yourself.
Weekend Reading
- Iris van Herpen is really amazing, isn’t she?
- Valerie Steele, the director at the Museum at FIT on her favorite 18 dresses in the collection. I can’t decide which I like best: the Margiela jacket (#12), Watanabe dress (#14), or McQueen dress (#17). Which is your favorite? (The McQueen dress is part of the Force of Nature exhibit, which I’m excited to see when I’m back in New York next month.)
- We just sent the fall patterns to the printer yesterday, and one of the new styles is a classic men’s button-down shirt with some special features I think you’re going to like. So I was especially interested in this feature on Turnbull and Asser’s beautiful shirts.
- I’ll tell you what intrigued me most in this article about developing better sports bras: the fact that the first athletic bra was developed in 1977! (Oh, and it was made from two jock straps….) We’ve come a long way!
- Your daily laugh.
- The Max Mara Resort 2018 collection feels inspired by Margiela’s work for Hermes. So of course I love it.
- Also, my favorite read in months: get yourself a (free) Times account and read what Li Edelkoort says about the state of fashion. I think she’s spot on.
Next week I’ll be here to show you how to turn our Liesl + Co Classic Shirt into an easy shirt-dress, including a free popover placket pattern download and tutorial. I can’t wait to share it with you!
Have a great weekend.
Loved S’s dress in the family picture. What pattern and fabric did you use? That blue color is very pretty. I have a grandchild age 11 that is tall and skinny. It is not easy to buy ready made clothes for her so I am always looking for new designs for her.
Elizabeth Perez
Looking forward to the popover placket/tutorial! Just bought the shirt pattern a few weeks ago.
I enjoyed the Edelkoort piece, with one little quibble: “..standing outside Barney’s…. Out of the revolving doors came three rich old ladies and they said, ‘There is nothing here.’ There must be 15,000 things in Barney’s. But if you reach overload it becomes nauseating.” Until fairly recently Barneys was where you went to buy things–eccentric things–you couldn’t elsewhere. Now it’s simply an upscale Target–everything there is brand driven, mass produced. So it’s not a matter of overload but of mediocrity, which seems to amount to the same thing, although an overload of uniqueness (remember Bendel’s when it was on 57th?) would not be a bad thing. Of course she’s right about high fashion being soulless. But there’s no end in sight since brands are cult-driven (via celebrity/media), a reaction to the ‘overload’ (instant identity), and because income inequality is so extreme, high fashion is a disposable commodity not an investment. As for the affordable fashion, I’m not so sure millennials etc. are so much looking for stand-out ‘beauty’ as they are for (brand-predicated) conformity. It’s not a degradation of taste, uniqueness sacrificed to ease as LE says; it’s just so hard to get a job and keep a job that iconoclasm is luxury most of them can’t consider or afford at least not in this country.
Oh, I completely agree! And Li makes that same point in the next paragraph:
Second, that stuff isn’t special enough. “In the past few years there has been very little that’s new. There is so much that is identical. It’s because of a continuous sense of crisis, chaos, fear. It’s about creating a safe haven of normality. But in the end, if it doesn’t change it doesn’t lift the spirit.”
We’ve overloaded by stuff and can’t make choices ourselves because there are too many options, so we all choose the same things. It’s safer. And of course the whole trend toward minimalism is a reaction against all this stuff, too!
Thanks for your comment.