A New Look?

When I was little I wore a lot of clothes that were either: 1. sewn by my mom or 2. hand-me-downs (which might have been sewn by my mom).

I think I'm in kindergarten here—maybe first grade.
Gotta love that double-knit, and the stripes,
and I still have a bunch of that lace in my fabric stash
(I have no idea what to do with it!).

I am on the left and my cousin, Wendy, is on the right.
My double-knit, gingham bell-bottoms are home made;
Wendy's flared-leg pands are probably store-bought.
(To further your education of 70's style: notice the oil lamp
(which did work) hanging on the very patterned, wall-papered wall,
and the large console stereo on the left.)

These clothes, by the way, were also perfectly cute and acceptable by 70's standards, and I liked them, and I was proud of my mom's sewing ability.

But when I was going to go to junior high I underwent an image change. My mom, on a school-shopping trip with me and my sister Melanie, and with lots of persuasion from both of us, bought me my first pairs of jeans. And I've been wearing some form of T-shirts and jeans ever since then.

The dates change, the hairstyles change (drastically),
but with leotards, sweatshirts, or T-shirts, the jeans remain.

And here's the thing: Over the last few (ten?) years I have learned to hate wearing jeans. Well, it's kind of a love/hate relationship. I mean, I've grown up in jeans—been wearing them for decades—so they are comfortable...the "I am used to this" kind of comfortable. Also I don't mind digging in and doing dirty work in them; they wear and wash easily.

BUT, they have a lot of strikes against them. For one thing, that especially stylish, metal button (the one that pokes out about a mile) catches on my shirts and puts holes in them. Strike one.

Then, the fly—which is not really a necessity for girls—adds bulk to my already bulky tummy. If you want me to hate you, make me look and feel fatter than I already feel. I think that counts as two strikes.

And then no matter what brand or style I get, if they fit my hips they don't fit my waist. My waist is bigger than I'd like, but it's still not as big as my hips. So after the first wearing my jeans have stretched enough that they just don't stay up, and I'm always tugging them back into place. Very obnoxious.

But I guess the biggest thing is that I feel sloppy in my usual uniform of T-shirts and jeans. So I want a new look. I started researching and looking for inspiration; I started looking at fabrics; after years of thinking about changing my look I was finally going to do it! And I was feeling pretty excited about it.

Last week I went to hit the fashion design drawing board—with myself as the client. Now, when I say I was going to hit the drawing board, I literally meant that I was going to draw some new designs on a figure, trying to hit on just the right thing for my newest client: me.

A croquis (say: "crow-key") is the figure designers use...
because everything will look good on this totally unrealistic body shape.

So, on the left I have stretched and squashed myself
into a croquis (thanks to Photoshop).
On the right you see what I really look like.

Since I am not a croquis, I thought I'd better try to draw my designs on more realistic-looking models. But I didn't want to re-learn how to draw a person to real—not fashion—scale; that would take a couple of months practice drawing naked ladies and then adding the clothes to them. Nope. I want to start designing for myself now, so re-learning how to draw is out of the question.

Then I had a brilliant idea! I would find a recent, full-body photo of myself, trace the outlines, and so create a body to design on.

Big, big, GIGANTIC mistake!

For most of my life I have been pretty...neurotic? ...about my weight and body size—probably starting when I was about ten or eleven. (If you scroll back up to the picture of Wendy and me, that's probably about the right age. And I wished, even then, that I was built like Wendy, and not like I was.) So here I am now, overweight by any scale you choose: medical, BMI, life-insurance, you name it, and I've done this brilliant thing of taking a recent picture of myself, tracing the outline of my body shape, and then shading in some detail so it wasn't just a police outline. And then I covered it up and tried not to think about it for a couple of days. 

Still I knew I'd have to tough it out: the whole idea was to draw clothes that would look good on this, my figure. So I tried. But I just couldn't be reconciled to what I was drawing and seeing, and what my mind saw—or wanted to see. Excitement gone. Completely, utterly, decidedly all gone. I spent about a week feeling depressed and doing anything that kept me out of the design/sewing room.

Finally, yesterday morning, I said something like this to Bruce: "I don't know if those designs will look good on me, or if they'll just look like I'm making tents to hide my fat." This made Bruce very sad because, for reasons I could never fathom, he thinks I look fabulous. So he set about cheering me up. He took me shopping for fabrics for my new clothes, and shoes and make-up to wear with them. I even got a hat (because even I have to admit that hats look really good on me; I just don't know what to wear them with, or where.). Now, if you don't believe in shopping therapy, it is a real thing.
No. Actually, I think it's spending-the-entire-day-with-my-husband-who-thinks-I-am-amazing-therapy that's the real pick-me-up).

So, I have determined that I will draw the designs on croquis' so that I won't feel too terribly discouraged by staring at myself for hours on end, and then I will be brave and I will make them. For myself. And when they're done I might even take pictures and post them. So keep an eye open for my new look. Coming Spring 2018.