Another alterations story: Daughter found vintage piece for birthday 'recovery'...

Remember my Ralph Lauren hacking jacket alteration, thanks to a find by my daughter in a Soho vintage shop in London?

 She did it again.

New Luisa Spagnoli jackets run some $600 dollars, https://www.luisaspagnoli.it/us_en/jackets-blazers-promotion.html, so when Actress Daughter on a very, very slim budget found one in a vintage shop in London, she snatched it up for my birthday. It boasted a great true red wool-mix fabric in excellent condition and wonderful Italian Roman head buttons with flawless finishing.

 But it was a size 42, just a bit too tight around the hips and too short in the sleeves, but fine across the shoulders and chest.

Like any good quality jacket, this piece had enough seam allowance to let out the three back seams in the back to about 5cm and to let down the sleeve hem by about one inch. I also moved the front buttons by half an inch. The whole rehab took about 90 minutes.

 It needed a Milanese finish, so I've styled it above a red and black Krizia silk scarf I inherited from my own mother in the 1980's.

 

Back to an old love--safari dressing. A 'camp shirt' with gifted fabric from Indonesia, rendered into BurdaStyle, April 2021, 105A

Strictly speaking, lilac, pale mustard, and brown aren't my colorways these days. I've pretty much got an all-blue self-sewn wardrobe for day, with a run of black concert outfits/jackets for those pre-COVID evenings, and a breakout spring selection of cheerful pink/mauve/buff in jeans, cottons, and scarves for the rainiest days.

But when I was gifted a little over a rather narrow meter of excellent-quality cotton batik, I thought, why not? Well, here's why not. One end of the length had a blazing royal blue rectangle (muffled now as the lower back section) which clashed with the overall coloration, IMHO, and there were running borders down both sides which limited pattern placement.

But I do have a soft spot for safari/camp/hotweather wear with an ethnic touch. So I persevered and cut this out very carefully, single piece by piece, to make sure that the border selvages landed at the hems of bodice and sleeves perfectly, and that the only royal blue bits that are visible from the front are perfectly positioned as shoulder pieces.

This is a pattern that I'd already spotted last year but it required 1.30 m of 140 cm wide, according to the mag instructions. Haha, not true—if you're really canny.

Burda featured two versions, one in a Hawaiian mood, below, and the other nautical with stripes. My version pictured above is only short of buttons, but the custom buttons are ready (below) for tomorrow. I need to be fresh to do buttonholes!

I've tried layering the shirt already under two different beige-khaki safari jackets and both tone down the garish print to my satisfaction.

Now all I need is a bit of tropical sun! In case you missed it, I wrote a three-part post on 'safari dressing' in the archives here ten years ago! Everything I wrote then still holds. It's a classic style of dressing for springtime.

https://chanelno6.blogspot.com/2012/08/safari-jackets-part-i.html