Me-Made March, Day 24
This is another day where I’m just wearing something only just recently photographed last month… and feeling a little uninspired about taking another photo. But here it is.
Details:
Dress; Burdastyle magazine 05-2010-114, printed cotton brought home from Japan, see my review (and a better picture) here
Shorts (underneath, not seen); Burdastyle magazine 10-2010-111A, same printed cotton, seen here, with a review of this pattern
Lauriana commented yesterday about the seasonal influences and differences in the fashion scene between Australia and Europe, well I thought I would address that since it’s one that provides food for discussion amongst those of us interested in fashion here too. We follow the fashions in Europe here to a degree, more so than we follow US fashions. That is to say, when distressed khaki was big news in Europe, a few of our local designers here followed suit. European fashion turns to tailored minimalism, and boutiques here get back to simple neutral-toned classics too… European designers such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada and Chanel have set up shop here, whereas we have no American designer boutiques here that I can think of (I could be wrong there…)
But because of the enormous difference in climate, and I’m not just talking about the roundabout seasons but the fact that our summers are so very hot compared to Europe and our winters are much milder with no snow, the fashion here does march to the beat of its own drum and Australians do have their own “looks” that are distinctly ours and mark out our niche in the fashion world. The surfie look, for example, is HUGE here amongst young people and I’ve never seen this look in any other country we’ve visited. And yes, I’m including the US, who have their own, more polished, surfer look. Aussie surfers wouldn’t touch Hawaiian print, for example except in an ironic way, like say if it was a bit ripped or graffiti’d over somehow to deconstruct it and grunge it up.
My colourblock top from yesterday I made partly because those scraps were sitting next to each other in my fabric cupboard, and I grew to like the look of those colours next to each other. Then I pulled them out and wondered what I could do with them, and came up with that Tshirt, based on my previous long corduroy Tshirt that itself was copied from this look at right from Marni Spring/Summer 2007 (that year I made myself a whole outfit that looked pretty much identical to this one, loved it to death! but I don’t have it any more). So in a roundabout way, my look from yesterday has sprung from a European fashion from 2007, and the colourblocking was thanks to having to use up scraps of different coloured fabric! Yes, I was also quite happy to see that Bally dress in my latest Vogue magazine as being a look “current” in Europe, but that similarity was serendipitous and not planned by me. Whether or not we are going to see any colourblocking happening here in the local fashion scene over the winter season and into spring and next summer, as influenced by those European trends, remains to be seen. I might end up being the only colourblocked Aussie around, all alone and locally unfashionable!
(photo at right from Marni Autumn/Winter 2007, found here)
Where do you find inspiration for your “look”?
This skirt was originally a dress. I posted about my dissatisfaction with it here, and Terri brilliantly commented that she thought this dress wanted to be a skirt. Well, that revelation was like a bucket of cold water over my head. Oh, I mean that in a good way, actually in this weather, a bucket of cold water over the head could be a very welcome thing. I mean it was like I woke up and looked at the dress with new eyes and saw that yes, it did indeed want to be a skirt. Thank you , Terri!
Was able to fashion some facing out of the old bodice, luckily. I cut off the top of the invisible zip and held the top ends of the same over a candle flame to melt the top couple of plastic spiky zip bits into a biggish round blob, so the zip pull won’t come flying off the top when I pull the zip up. Yikes, has anyone else ever ever done this?? I have, once, years ago by accident, and learnt my lesson, never ever take that risk again. Re-attaching the zip pull back onto an invisible zip is NOT FUN! 
