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Sewist Reacts: What In the Vintage Inspiration Is This?!

Fast fashion is a problem for many reasons. The overconsumption. The exploitation of workers. The lack of quality in construction and fabric. Polluting water sources and landfills. Ruining thrift stores with Shein products. But one I hadn’t considered was how these fast fashion brands are watering down design to the point that they are misrepresenting fashion terms like corset, choosing the wrong fabrics for construction, and not even trying to pattern match. It’s becoming nonsensical!

Fall fashion trends and fall sales are in full swing here in the US. I’m seeing ads everywhere, in between Instagram stories, in my email inbox, on YouTube, on television advertisements, etc. It’s bonkers! You would think that we had empty closets and had never owned cold-weather clothing before! Each season you need to completely restock your wardrobe! Buy, buy, buy!

So I caved and I started to look at these websites. Looked, not purchased. That is the key here because I found some wacky things masquerading as vintage and historical-inspired pieces of fashion. These fashion brands are two that are quite popular in my neck of the woods.

The Gap does Medieval Plate Armor

A brand I get a lot of ads from, which amuses me because I don’t like this brand, is the Gap. I probably see ads because I do buy occasionally from Old Navy and they are owned by the same company. If only the Gap knew how I feel about them, they would realize it is a lost cause. I think that the Gap cuts its patterns weirdly, is expensive for the quality, and is dry toast in terms of its aesthetic. So I wasn’t surprised to see a rather vanilla dress. What surprised me were the style lines of this dress and the fabric they chose.

This dress looks inspired by 16th-century plate armor, a breastplate specifically, but it is made out of what I would guess is a stretch jersey because there is no structure or fastenings in the photos. So a rigid garment, being made out of a stretch shapeless fabric, just isn’t right. There is something off about the shape of the bodice and how it hangs on the body. This is a missed opportunity. I think they could have added boning channels or made this out of a stiff woven fabric. Maybe a coordinating vest? Vests have come back in popularity. It’s a misrepresentation of the historical garment they were inspired by and as a dress historian, it bugs me. This dress is already an attempt at thinking outside the box, so why not do it properly and celebrate the design? 🙂

There is an exhibit at the Met, linked above showing a historical example of what I am talking about, featuring an exhibit of 16th-century armor with beautifully sculpted lines.

A Corset That is Not a Corset

This dress is not a corset. Maybe it is a Victoria’s Secret definition of a corset with the stretch smocking on the back, but this is not in form or function, what a corset is or was. The corset was a supportive undergarment, a foundation garment as they were called that shaped the body and supported the bust according to the specific standard of beauty at the time. The first iteration of the corset appeared in the 16th century, called a pair of bodies. This was followed by stays in the 17th and 18th centuries and the transition to the corset in the 19th century which held popularity until the 1920s when the corset began to fall out of fashion for other types of garments. This is a very quick overview and I probably oversimplified this so I would recommend checking out historical costuming YouTube for a better reference, also the V&A has an online exhibit featuring Victorian corsetry.

Because of the lack of familiarity, we have with the corset in our 21st-century mind, we tend to slap the word corset on any shape that looks like a formed bodice, which is what this is a bodice cut to accentuate the waist but will fall flat because it is not made with any structure to give the garment a shape. There is no lacing, cording, fake baleen, or steel to give this any shape beyond the body that will wear it. It is all smoke and mirrors. But that bugs me, because American Eagle, the maker of this dress, is a popular teenage and young adult brand that can shape the minds of the future by their experience with clothing!

So why not ride this wave of aesthetic TikTok dressing and go full-on corsetry? Tight lacing is not required, nor was it popular for most women historically, except for the Kim Kardashians of antiquity who did it for the spectacle, people of the past needed to move and breathe just like us so it could be a corseted bodice, and not be controversial! It’s just a thought. I do appreciate the trim on the skirt, it is very 1890s, and I like it.

This dress has the same problem, this is not a corset and this is barely a puff sleeve. This is bad marketing and bad fashion education. You could never corset an open-back dress and to puff a sleeve you need quite a lot of volume and possibly some Tarleton to help keep the sleeves voluminous. The Fashion Institute of Technology has an online exhibit featuring the Gigot sleeve, a beautifully puffed historical design.

When it comes to historical dress there are so many cool designs from the past, and with the amount of research that exists and abilities to connect through technology, there are endless ways to be inspired from the past but not screw it up. I think we should embrace the gift we have of historical dress knowledge and technology like sewing machines, the internet, etc to make something beautiful. These companies have so many resources at their disposal, that I wish they would try a bit harder to make good clothing. But alas, they are fast fashion, and this is one of the worst fast fashion blunders I have seen from these two brands, the Gap and American Eagle until I found this one pair of plaid pants, but that is another story!

Thank you, reader, for going on this adventure into historical dress with me. If you are as tired as I am of the current state of fashion, I encourage you to learn how to sew! It’s the best hack I’ve found.

Quick Sketch – Teapot & Teacup

A tea set, one drawn from reality and one from fantasy. A picnic in my mind. Pencil and oil pastel on paper.

This teapot belonged to my grandma and I’ve always loved classic shape, delicate gold leaf lines, and romantic floral vignettes on the vessel and lid.

The tea cup and saucer, is a set inspired by flowers that I would love to own. It looks magical!

Koala Scott in Oil Pastel

I finished my koala portrait from Koala Drawings in Pencil in a new medium, well a new old medium, a medium I haven’t used in 10 years, oil pastel! I forgot how good oil pastels are for color payoff and texture without being messy like chalk pastels or watercolors. I felt in control of the pigment while being able to direct shadows and highlights over the piece. I’m hooked!

This koala was inspired by a photo I found on Instagram from a creator with the handle @hidenoritsuzuki. Why was this image so special to me? The hand posture and facial expression reminded me so much of my stepdad and his favorite goofy way to feign exasperation. It was the hand! Totally brightened my day. 🙂

#50 – Irish Landscapes

My go-to inspiration in high school was this daily calendar my mom had in her office. Each day featured a photograph from a scene in Ireland, and each day, at the end of the day, my mom would bring the paper home and give me the photograph to draw from. Before the days of Pinterest and Instagram, it was a bit tricky to find beautiful images to practice with. There were magazines of course and books, not to mention literally the world around you, but this was a game changer to get daily inspiration. In the 2000s, it was before the supremacy of the touchscreen smartphone with apps galore and fantastic cameras to snap photos in that you could carry around in your pocket. If you took photos for inspiration, you had to print them and it was not cheap. Printing even on printer paper was not cheap and trust me, parents did not like us wasting ink.

This is a taste of what the images featured via a modern source – Unsplash.

What is special to me about the framed image above is that I didn’t frame it. My grandparents did. It was a piece that I guess spoke to them and they framed it and hung it in their bedroom. Something I didn’t appreciate at the time, as a moody teenager I was embarrassed by it. Now in 2024, it hangs in the hallway outside my bedroom and when I see it hanging there proudly in its frame I remember how much they believed in my art, my writing, my fashion sense. I wish I could show them all that I am doing now. I think they would be proud.

Rediscovering Techniques in Color Theory

When you walk away from a discipline some of the knowledge stays with you, in the forefront of your mind. You can pick up where you left off, no matter how long it has been, like riding a bike. It is a core skill, a talent, an extension of yourself that stays with you regardless of what your hopes and dreams are in your current life.

For me personally, art in the mediums of watercolor, chalk pastel, acrylic, and block printing are forever imprinted in my brain. What has not stayed in the forefront though is how to make things look refined.

I used to possess this skill, but like a muscle group this skill needs to be practiced in order to stay toned or honed I guess is a better way to say that. To be sharp, one must sharpen through effort and practice.

As I continue to get my sketchbook out, I’ve noticed a plateau and a desire to make the image on the page pop. Something to make it feel real, or call to me from within the composed piece. I’ve experimented with movement and pointillism. I’ve been blending, shading, and highlighting.

I like the highlighting, but have noticed that I am going through my white pastel at a higher speed than the rest which got me thinking. Did I always, when I was taking art classes, defer to white to make those highlights? Is there another way I have lost since I stopped practicing, that I am missing?

What about color theory? I used to mix acrylic paints in this way to achieve specific hues and richer colors that subtly told the story in my brush strokes. It added three-dimensionality to a 2D image. But, I thought to myself, how did I do that with pastels?

And so from there I have been getting in my sketchbook and shading swatches of color. I do these swatches in groups. Next, I shade a contrasting color on top and see what happens. What I am seeing is making me quite pleased. I see depth. Earthiness. I see more natural hues with darker and lighter colors blending in the swatch.

With this re-claimed knowledge, I am inspired to continue down this path of discovery to re-acquaint myself with these lost skills. I didn’t realize how much I missed art as a form of expression and coping. It brings me joy. I feel at home, but a home I haven’t visited in many years if that makes sense.

It’s interesting what sticks with us from childhood, and what becomes part of our identity. Being willing to accept who I am who is not a boss babe but a sensitive creative with a lot of ideas floating around in this noggin. I should give that part of me more time to explore, reflect, and create.

Do you have any hobbies that you have done since you were a child? If so, what motivates you to keep pursuing them?

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