Early on in my sewing journey, I made the mistake of buying a loooot of fabric from Les Coupons de St-Pierre, something like 30 different 3m long cuts of fabric. I had to get a dresser from ikea just to store it all! Ok, I just remembered I did the very same thing when I got into crochet and bought maybe 100 different skeins at once, back when I still lived in Brazil! I took all of that with me when I moved to Sweden, but donated most of it when I moved to Spain. What’s wrong with me?? 🧶
Luckily I did buy some high quality stuff like cotton-linen blends; and really nice cotton-elastane knits for making t-shirts; but also got some really bizarre sheer polyester kinds of fabrics that I don’t know what to do with, and can’t bring myself to ever part with. From time to time I look at them and try to come up with ideas for projects to sew but, at least for me, it’s better to do it the other way round: have an idea, find a pattern, get the fabric. So now, whenever I want to sew, I go shopping in my own Ikea dresser that I had to buy uniquely for the purpose of storing this absurd amount of fabric, lol. I’m only allowed to buy more fabric if I don’t have something that works, and now I only buy the amount needed for the project. Lesson learned!
Anyway, summer is here and I feel I’m missing some items in my wardrobe, definitely a skirt or two, some tees, maybe some more dresses. Whenever I go to a store or browse online, I just feel everything is so… poorly made? Everything is so expensive for the amount and quality of fabric used, the finishes are just ok (raise your hand if you never found a loose thread!), not to mention the problematics of semi-slave labour and environmental costs.
An innocent bystander might say, well, don’t buy from Zara then. Buy from a place like Dior. They use only the highest quality fabrics and their clothes are hand-sewn in Italy by a very elegant seamstress. That’s why it is expensive. Right? Well, not really. Often, luxury brands use the same factories as their fast fashion competitors; sometimes, they will get the garment made in a poor country and slap a label once it arrives in Europe, thus calling the entire thing “Made in Europe”; other times, they might sew in European factories, but source their cotton from slave labour regions in China; and though they used to put out two collections a year, they now work on eight collections.
Isn’t that the same as fast-fashion, labelled as luxury?
Aditionally, look at the price tag in the image above. I’ll let that sink in for a moment. Seven hundred fifty fricking euros for a tank top? Excuse me?! No. Just no. I refuse. I will make it myself. I will copy this very elaborate and intricate Dior tank top.
For the pattern, I think Blomma Tank from Paradise Patterns will look perfect. For the fabric, there are a ton of options: basic ribbed knit, certified organic, and even rescued fabric. I’ll use less than a meter of fabric to make it in my size, so we’re looking at 12-16 euros in costs plus 2.50 for the thread. So, a little bit more expensive than the Zara top below, but waaaay cheaper than the Dior. As for the adorable Christian Dior logo slapped right across the chest, give me a Sharpie!!!!
