Fashion: Yarn Style

My own Mr. Darcy

 

So many of us Jane Austenites spend our lives searching for our own Mr. Darcy, only to be disappointed again and again. But not me. I have my own Darcy now, in the form of this fabulous riding coat designed by Kim Hargreaves. Sometimes a coat is much more practical than a dashing hero, and it’s sure to always keep me warm! With the trend right now in fashion towards the feminine dandy, we witty heroines don’t need a rescuer; we can dress like one!

Dolce & Gabana, Dolce & Gabana, Ralph Lauren

 

I do love a good “drag” outfit, when it’s all done tongue in cheek! What makes so many of these menswear turned woman’s wear so successful is the feminization of the male style—the red lipstick, the waist-cinching vest that shows off one’s feminine curves. Lady Gaga took this look to extremes in her video Alejandro, where she pairs an army jacket, black gloves and binoculars with lingerie and scarlet lips. For anyone who enjoys the feminine dandy look but doesn’t want to bare it all, Kim Hargreaves has plenty of patterns for you!

 

How can you not love the styling of Rebecca with the top hat? And check out her version of the male cravat with Fleur:

 

Imagine this paired with a knitted waistcoat! It is too Jane Austen for words! Being an enthusiast of the Regency Period in England, which is the setting of the suspenseful novels I write, I am totally excited by the glorious male dandy looks on the runways this season:

Jill Stuart, Abaete , Rag & Bone

 

How scrumptious are those waistcoats? I don't know if it would be possible to find a suitable knitting pattern, but I will probably be wearing my Darcy constantly, it is so light and warm and delicious. The Karabella Aurora 4 yarn I knitted it from was a breeze even to moss stitch, though the addie turbos certainly helped. Next I’m on to some more conventional feminine wear, but when I turn back to generating more dandy attire, I have this adorable little waistcoat on queue:

 

I’m thinking of knitting this Lana Grossa pattern, Model 5, in black wool, to pair with a scarlet or white silk blouse and some well-fitted trousers. But in the meantime, if I’m in need of a rescue, I’ll don my Darcy and ride off into the sunset in style!

 

 

Dark Outlook: Color Trends for Fall, 2010

Dana Karan, 2010 fall collection  

 

The sombre color trend seems to be continuing from last year, when an economic recession seemed to demand a more sombre approach to fashion. This fall, on the 2010 runways, the look is much more luxe, perhaps in keeping with growing optimism about the economy, but I still noticed many designers' shows featured almost exclusively black, charcoal and chocolate brown, relieved by splashes of camel and scarlet. The glimpse of Dana Buchman's collection, above, is an example of the monotone style now on trend.

 

However, the Panetone color report for fall, 2010, offers a saturated orchid, lipstick red, and a lovely, piney green to punctuate the dark colors of fall:

 http://www.pantone.com/images/pages/20710/2010-02/index.html

What excites me most as a knitter about this season's dark trend is the way that texture has become the real star of the clothes. Designers like Alexander Wang have transcended their layers of black on top of black by using ingenious combinations of texture--sheer black adorned by over layers of velvet, ebony fur, midnight silk embroidered with pearls and chunky ribbed knits to die for. 

 

Oh, the knits in Alexander Wang's collection this fall! Luxurious and fashion forward all at once, his ingenious wraps transform a dull woman's business suit into a quirky, tongue-in-cheek statement:

 
 

I am absolutely dying to get my hands on this wrap, in particular:

 

 

The ultra warm looking charcoal wrap is cropped so high that it ends at the collar bone, leaving a tantalizing glimpse of breast bone exposed from the blouse beneath, and then the wrap drapes elegantly down to the wrists. Aside from the sheer unexpectedness of this piece, its practicality is undeniable. So many of us mostly feel the cold around our throats and bare arms, and don't want to be swaddled in a huge, bulky knit that will eclipse our figures. I must, I must, get my hands on a knitting pattern that will allow me to create some pale imitation of this creation! But the only one I've found so far that comes even close is a new design by Ann Modesitt in the new book, Wrap Style, by Pam Allen & Ann Budd.

  

 

This wrap has long ties that hang over the front, destroying the effect of the elegant twist front, and the sleeves are super billowy, but perhaps I could fix those problems. I have bought the book just for this pattern, and am puzzling over how to convert it into a suitable Andrew Wang tribute. I would have to change the yarn, the texture, and the design of this piece, but who knows, perhaps I can pull it off...

 

But I digress from color and texture trends this fall: Dolce and Gabana's collection has also run with the trend of layered textures. Look at the way these runway looks combine knits, ranging from fine-weight cashmere to bulky cardigans with sheer, feminine pieces underneath:

 
 

 

And their black lace pieces (crochet/knit tops anyone?) look so sumptuous, combined with these deep-orange, vermillion and candy pink flowered silks:

 
 

Just looking at these amazing silks was enough to prompt me to dust off my sewing machine from its 10 year sleep and dream about just how I could get my hands on such lush fabrics!

I've had quite a lot of time on my hands to think about Fall 2010 fashion trends because of my physical limitations . My podiatrist's stern orders to stay off my foot for 6 weeks led to a cascade effect of other physical problems. All the time I spent on my knee scooter and ankle brace activated my chronic back and neck pain, which became so severe that I had to go on massive doses of medication, leaving me too loopy and dizzy to even ride the knee scooter without risk of falling off and injuring my head! It progressed to the point that all my doctors are now encouraging me to walk to save my back from getting worse. So the knee scooter is back at the medical supply shop, to my great relief, and I am getting about a bit around the house in the hopes that all the pain meds will help my ankle, which is complaining quite a bit at the moment. Barred from working, and much of any phone calling for 3 straight weeks is either going to drive me out of my gourd, or provide an opportunity for creative expression in some meaningful way.  I decided last week that the one thing I can control in my life  that inspires me is fashion, so I set out a creative plan for a Fall 2010 portfolio. I have created an actual fashion workbook for myself, illustrated by the runway looks of Andrew Wang and Dolce & Gabana, and paired with knitting patterns that harmonize with those looks. Now I just need to come up with a source of these deep floral fabrics and refurbish my brain on how to use the sewing machine, and I'll have hours of entertainment ahead during the recovery process. I may be a bit wobbly on my feet a few months from now, but I plan to be looking fabulous, and that's quite a consolation!

Je t’aime, Aimée!

 

I am totally in love with this little capelet, Aimée, a truly effortless knit by Kim Hargreaves. Since I’m not supposed to put any weight on my foot or walk for another five weeks, I’m pretty much out of work, as real estate is all about showing houses to clients, door knocking, and face-to-face meetings. So I have a bunch of time to knit, and I started this fun project to serve as a rest for my hands while knitting Arielle in superfine yarn on my size two needles. And there are so many fun ways to drape this knit!

 

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I have always adored the finer yarn, Kidsilk Haze, but I found her sister, Kidsilk Aura, almost as fun to knit with. There is something so soft and cuddly about this yarn, and the sheen from the silk thread is truly amazing. Once the weather turns cold, this will be the perfect cape to snuggle into! One of the fun things about knitting nowadays is that I’m giving myself permission to branch out from my earlier, limiting obsession with retro styles to make instead modern knits that look good with the other items in my wardrobe. Perhaps I’ve grown up! Now I’ve been emboldened to take this style experiment one step further by dabbling with the latest trends. Has anyone noticed the huge proliferation of capes, ponchos and cloaks on the Fall runways?

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Yves Saint Laurent 

Capes are not for everyone, but I’ve always been a secret fan, and here is a wonderful opportunity to indulge.  What I love about the capelet form is that it provides a great punch of color without swallowing one up in a huge swath of fabric. Here in mild coastal California, there’s no need for a giant blanket of a coat. All I need is something soft and pretty to keep my neck and arms warm when I go out on a dinner date with my husband.

 I am really pleased with how well Aimee goes with this dress. It’s a wacky and wonderful creation from the maverick Italian designers, Save the Queen. I stumbled onto a piece of theirs years ago at the sublime hole-in-the wall boutique, Morning Glory in Burlingame, and have been trying to find a way to buy their clothing (and to afford it) ever since. The company only has 3 stores in the world—Rome, Florence and Paris, and only a small trickle of their fashions show up in the U.S. I had to order this dress through a discount outlet on ebay, which is always a risk, and I was a bit confounded when it arrived in person. The combination of the fabulous print, ruching in the skirt, black lace embellishment, and off-the shoulder sleeve is a bit over the top and produces almost a costume effect.

The profusion of embellisments and colors as well as the historical drama of this dress need to be toned down for normal wear, say for a dinner at the Chez Panisse café on my wedding anniversary which is coming up in late September. I think my capelet teams with the dress beautifully, taming its wackiness without sacrificing any of the beauty of the original piece.

Now that I’ve had so much fun knitting this capelet, I’d love to try a more ambitious project: A longer cape, in the style of this stunner by Loro Piana Sloane, which is selling for about $1,500 at Neiman Marcus right now:

 

It would be so great to find some way to knit a piece like this and make sure it fit me plus save oodles of money (let's face it, who has $1500 to spend on a cape?) Unfortunately, in the time-honored tradition of bulky and unflattering knitting patterns that have doomed us for so long, all the full cloak/cape patterns I am seeing in the Ravelry database not to mention this fall's knit magazines are voluminous, bat-like creations without any means of cinching the darned thing in at the waist. Otherwise, you go back to the tiny-mini capes that don't have the drama of a full cape at all. The only fitted cape I have found that has any waist-belting possibilities is this Rowan design, Brodie, but it has a decidedly 70’s vibe.

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Oh well. Arielle is going very slowly anyway, and I’ve got to tackle the other Kim Hargreaves designs in my queue while the KAL lasts!

Summer’s Embrace

 

 Voilà! My summer version of Kim Hargreaves’ Embrace is done at last! I’d been hankering to get in on the trend of asymmetrical cardigans with handkerchief hems before the summer died, and I seem to have squeaked in just in time. I’ll eventually be pairing this with my lovely black-and-white striped zebra dress, but I just didn’t have the heart to pair that flirty little dress with my Darth-Vader boot of destruction:

 When I’m not hobbling around in this foot-armour, I’m pedaling around on my knee scooter. Snazzy looking, isn’t it? I do wish it were as agile as it looks—the darned thing has the turning radius of a tortoise, I practically have to pick the thing up bodily to manouver it. Every morning after a day spent on this thing my back and shoulders ache as if I’ve been doing 10 hours of hard manual labor! But as I seem to have a stress fracture in my left metatarsal as well as a torn tendon in my left ankle, I’m supposed to stay off my left foot entirely.

 

 

This has put a bit of a cramp in my real estate schedule, but I did actually manage to show three houses to clients on Friday. Naturally, the couple’s little five year old son spent most of his time whizzing around on my scooter. He has a fetish for using my realtor lockbox key, so I let HIM have the honor of stooping and turning upside down to extract the key from the water pipe. I’ll never know why listing agents take such a fiendish delight in securing the lockbox to a completely inaccessible place, but this time I had a recruit who was just the right height! Perhaps I’ll have to hire him out for the next month when I show property, as heavens only knows how I would have reached that thing while trapped in this massive boot without lying prone on the gravel!

 

Still, as long as I only have to move in a straight line, I can whizz along on my little scooter through a house I’m showing, hopefully not mowing down my clients in my path! I admit, I’m getting a little fond of Scott, as I’ve labeled my one-pedaled friend.

 

 

While I’m not resting my back and shoulders from lugging him around, I’ve enjoyed knitting up this white summer cardigan, another fun design by Kim Hargreaves. I knitted it using Berocco’s Pure Pima, which I have rather mixed feelings about. I don’t usually mind splitty yarns, but the Pure Pima just had so many teeny strands untwisting from each other every time the yarn moved at all, that I found it almost impossible to keep them all in check. There are a few places in the garment where I missed one of the tiny strands, so it sticks out from the knitted body of the sweater like a snag. Over all, though, it did create a smooth, lustrous fabric with a sheen that does capture the brilliance of the summer sun.

 

In fact, the cotton is so smooth and glossy it actually seems to repel the bits of leaf, hair and other fuzz that usually attach themselves to my wool sweaters like glue. The yarn is so slippery, in fact, that I took extra care to pierce through the strands every time I sewed my threads in on the back side, but I still have the uneasy feeling that they may pop through again.

 

 

I’m not sure that a white cotton cardigan with a handkerchief hem is the most versatile garment I’ve ever made, but I was a little tired of being a practical girl and knitting only classic designs I’d be able to wear for years on end. It’s kind of fun to be “trendy” now and again, and as long as I’ll be pedaling around for the next few months, I might as well scoot in fashion!