The Idea and Inspiration behind the française: Back in late 2009 or early 2010 I found the most glorious, scrumptious silk taffeta in pale blue at The Fabric Store (back when it was Global Fabrics!). It just begged to be made into a Robe a la Française. I love the 1750s and 1760s – hair is still low, ruffles are in abundance, and styling is at the the peak of Rococo frothiness. While the French styles of this era, epitomised by Madame de Pompadour, are gorgeous, I prefer the more restrained English take on the 1760s sacque. I have a particularly fondness for punched silk trim: it’s such a typically 18th century touch. So, that was the inspiration: a 1760s française in the frothiest version of the English style, with punched silk trim. The taffeta fabric gave the dress its name: the Frou-Frou Française. Little did I know when I started it, but the Frou-Frou Française would take seven years to finish, and that by the time I had finished it I would have sewn …
I’ve been so uplifted by the response to my post on the climate crisis. In addition to many comments and expressions of support, there has been immediate action. Sewstine has started a group: Costumers for Climate Action, with the goal to use our visibility and voice to help raise environmental awareness and to create change, both as costumers, and in the wider world. We’re working on bigger plans, but to start off, every member has been encouraged to blog or post about the topic this week. While costuming isn’t a huge contributor to climate change in the bigger picture, it could still be more eco friendly as a hobby. We’ve been talking about ways to make it more so, and one of the big things that has come up is re-use. As costumers we feel so much pressure to have a new outfit for every event, and to keep making new things. But, both for the environment, and for all the work that goes into a thing, it’s sad to only wear it once. So …
Warning: this post contains triggers. Sometime in late April my brain figured out how bad climate change is going to be. I’ve been aware of climate change for as long as I can remember. I wrote a paper on it for school when I was 15. I got into a massive argument with a professor about it my first term in university and derailed the entire lecture (still not sorry). But I managed to be aware, without grasping how bad it’s going to be. It’s going to be bad. High likelihood of completely dead, un-swimmable oceans bad. Mass extinction bad. Potential death of all humans by 2050 bad. My mind took the realisation…badly. By badly I mean I went from blithely happy to extremely depressed in less than 24 hours, and became so anxious that in one four day stretch I spent more of my awake hours having panic attacks than not. I had so many panic attacks I pulled a muscle in a my chest from hyperventilating. It was not good. I’m seeing a …
