I think we would all agree that at some point along the journey of sewing your own clothes you start to experience a sense of freedom and power against the RTW world – you realise that you don’t have to be tied down by current trends and fashion. You can choose whatever style, fabric and colour you like (if you can find it in the fabric shop that is, that’s another story!)! Although that is true, I still see current trends and fashions creeping into the sewing world. To be honest it would be hard for it not to, fashion tends to recycle itself. I can remember countless outfits when I was growing up that my Mum would pass comment on to say she wore it when it was first in fashion!
Anyway, all this is to say that over the last few years I have seen the twinkle of a trend and thought to myself, “oh I recon that’s going to be big” (either in the RTW world or the sewing blog world) – but I’ve never bothered to blog about it. Some examples of this are scalloped edges, peplums, coloured lace dresses, peter-pan collars…the list goes on. So instead of just letting them pass by, I thought I would share my thoughts on the blog.
Todays trend may not necessarily be my favourite trend ever, but I’ve been seeing it pop up a lot and I have a feeling we may be seeing a fair bit more of it next year, both in the shops and perhaps on sewing blogs: The Dropped Waist. My guess is this trend is probably being inspired by the recent Downton Abbey Flapper style (it certainly wouldn’t be the first time Downton has influenced fashion), or maybe it’s a development from the peplum, which evolved into the hem flounce and is now a dropped waist? Perhaps a little bit of both.
It can be a hard look to carry off but can be done beautifully. Simple and chic it can be dressed up or dressed down:
Or horrendously:
Sorry VB, that’s just wrong.
But asides from the Fashion World, I’ve spotted the dropped waist on a number of commercial sewing patterns as well:
And more excitingly (because we all know we love and want to support them), the independent designers have been giving their own spin on this trend too:
So what to you think? Do you like this style? Are you tempted to whip up a drop waisted dress?
Personally, although I think it would actually fit in quite well with my search for forgiving patterns, I don’t know if I’m ready to jump on this wagon just yet…
*Click images for links
