The Why

I hate clothes shopping. I especially hate shopping for work clothes. Recently I was chatting with a colleague and she mentioned how clothes nowadays are mostly synthetic and it was like a light bulb moment for me. Cos she is so right! No wonder I hate the feel of most ready-to-wear clothing. Plus my body type is not typical (if anyone’s really is) so it’s hard to find stuff that fits. When I do find something suitable I end up buying multiple of the same item in different colours (so boring). Which brings me to my next issue: colour coordination. I end up with too much black and navy and I don’t like to wear them together, or wear blue-with-blue or black-with-black and so I just end up hating my work clothes 😣

But! There is an alternative! I can just make all my own clothes! Then I can have lots of different styles in a colour scheme of my choosing, all in natural fibres. And I can try to make it fit me 😊 Hence this project was born.

Colour Coordination

I’ve had a lot of time (my entire career lol) to muse over colours and I’ve decided I will not have any black pants. Also, as much as I like pinstripes and checks, having patterned pants makes it hard to coordinate. So I will reluctantly avoid patterns. Also no navy cos I’m bored of it and it won’t coordinate with the tops I want to make.

For tops, I decided on rust tones (cos I like em) and sage (because I think it’s fashionable). Basically colours I will enjoy sewing 😁 And for pants, I have a pair of sand-coloured chinos which surprisingly coordinates well with a lot of colours. So sand and grey tones for pants.

For outerwear, I decided on rust/sage paired with a white shirt or black paired with rust/sage coloured shirt. I could also wear a white shirt with black outerwear but I thought it would be boring (albeit classic I guess).

As for shoes, I don’t really want a shoe wardrobe for work so plain black it is. Which works since I won’t have black pants and end up with too much black (since black outerwear will always go alongside a pop of colour)

Fabrics

So my plan is to try and educate myself on sustainable fabrics via this project. There are a lot more natural fibre based fabrics out there than I thought! It will also be a good way to experience sewing different types of fabrics.

Luckily I have a couple of stores that I know I can find good quality natural fabrics/fibres and looking forward to identifying more:

• MaaiDesigns (Australia)
• Miss Maude (New Zealand)
• Core Fabrics (Canada)
• Remnant Warehouse (Australia)
• Miss Matatabi (Japan)
• Wattle Hill Fabrics (Australia)
• Loopy Mango (America)
• Wool And The Gang (UK)

I did wonder about the cost of shipping fabrics to my address in the sustainability of things, but I’ve read quite a few articles that buying clothes online isn’t any worse for emissions than driving to a store and buying ready-made. I suppose being in Australia means most stuff gets flown/shipped in anyway… So I won’t focus on that aspect.

I also already collect my fabric scraps and threads for paid fabric recycling. But since I have now got a scrap fabric organisation system I’ll be able to save even more fabric for reuse rather than recycling.

Now the hard part will be trying to not buy too much fabric!!

Categories: Sewing

Tagged as: Colour Coordinated Work Wardrobe

hikaru