Sewing School 1: Fashion Forecast

Yesterday morning's fashion forecast session was truly interesting. It focused on Fall/Winter 2009-10. The message is clear: in these lean economic times, buy less, but buy better. Apparently, fabric quality for the mid- to value-conscious market is taking a serious nose dive. However, high end lines will continue to use fine fabrics.

As far as styles go, I was thrilled to learn that the (hideous) high waist pant is out after a brief resurgence and we should not expect to see palazzo pants any time soon (both styles require too much fabric). Also gone are washed out or destructed jeans.

Do expect to see lots of texture - thick and thin yarns and "hairy" knits, tweeds, boucles. Lace and sheers, updated with geometric patterns rather than flowers, will also be in, with nude underneath and nudes with tatoo-like designs on them. Fabrics will also be laquered and metalized. Bright, more summery colors - reds and purples, cobalt and sky blue, pink and fuscia - will be mixed in with black, grey, silver and brown for day; black, white and grey will be the colors for evening. Prints will continue to be big. Plaids and stripes will be in, but expect the stripes to be irregular, particularly for mens shirts. Oh, and ladies, for us, silk shirts with victorianesque frills will be in. In pink. Yeah. Wear it under a tailored suit or an "H" silhouette dress (ie: seam across the waist, either high, natural or drop waist).

That is a lot to absorb, so I will leave you with the 2 notes I wrote to myself: "wear black lace with nude underneath for xmas" and "make silk pjs".

The rest of the class was devoted to a few sewing tips and tricks. I really benefitted from this part of the class. It had really helpful procedures for cutting (something I have always felt that I was not particularly good at), bindings, and also on creating a few different kinds of shirt plackets. Very helpful.