To say I did no knitting yesterday would be right. None at all, which is pretty rare. So that leaves me with not a whole lot to show you today but I do have a lot to say.
I have never been a rabid follower of fashion. If I didn't find it comfortable, I did not wear it. I remember when skirts became midi skirts, and how happy I was. Even teenage me did not have legs for mini skirts. But while I have almost always had a love hate relationship with fashion, I do eagerly watch trends.
The last year I was working at the yarn store, some of the pattern books from European companies were starting to show the slightly more relaxed look. I particularly recall a knit vest with a very straight slightly oversized shape with ribbed cuffs, welts if you will at the arms and neckline. I had seen that look before. It took a very long time till it seemed to hit closets on this side of the pond.
I watched as it gradually came into vogue in knitting. Boxy is a fine example of the new oversized look. And it really does look pretty good on many many bodies. One of the hallmarks of why it works so well for so many is that the sleeves are quite fitted and the armscye is close at the underarm. Even though there is a lot...a lot of positive ease it looks tidy and fresh and above all comfortable. It looks like something for work and for play.
I wasn't a huge fan of too much negative ease and was pretty pleased at how many of the trendy designers seemed to be making positive ease be a positive look. I have been having a lot of fun watching new sweaters come out this fall and most of them are wonderfully comfortable, wearable things.
I did a Ravelry search with my usual parameters, sweater, knitting, photo, adult, female and then decided to change how the search was sorted one more. Publication Date. I like to do this one every once in a while, particularly at the change of seasons when all the big magazines come out. It's just an interesting way to look at things enmasse and get a feel for what is coming.
There are a couple of sweaters that look at little too 1980s to eyes that already saw the height of 1980s fashion. Follow the link, and go down to the slideshow of women's fashion pictures. These are not fashion house things. These are from catalogues that people across the continent were buying from. These were the kind of things people wore in small town anywhere. A lot of it was okay, but note how far below the armscye the sleeve goes. Note that shoulder width and the padding. Note how much fabric there is at that point where sleeve and garment meet? Folds from the sleeve and folds from the body of the garment. That is what makes it look 80s old in my eyes. That glob of sleeve that hangs there doing no one any good. Okay, maybe just me. I am really short from shoulder to full bust and that excessive fabric just does not work.
When I was young, I remember my mom's comments when bell bottoms came in (see 1940's for bell bottoms) and I was begging for a pair. I remember when really loose legged pants came in, and what my dad said about suits circa 1950. I feel just like that now with over large, over deep sleeves. Sigh, but not in an I want that sigh kind of way. More an minor eww way.
I remember when midi skirts came in. It didn't banish all minis. They coexisted for a very long time before fashion declared the really short skirts out. Even when the really short skirts were pretty much gone, you would still see short above the knee on occasion. As short short moderated, so did midi lengths moderate and we settled to something in the middle where you could still find a great deal of variation. It felt like fashion wasn't in the driver seat anymore, so much as what was comfortable for people to wear everyday.
That is what I hope for as fashion goes a little less fitted. That all the looks remain. That wearers can go the way that feels right to them, that our fashion personality can be our own, not something that someone else decides and dictates, that tights can be perfectly fine with the a longer top and that loose flowing pants of linen can also be very stylish and perfect with a cropped top. I want my average joe ordinary style to be considered a fashion choice too.
I want to see the world with open eyes and not to close off my eyes or my mind to other ways of being as I get older. I want to be as open to change as I am to routine. It gets harder as you get older, that is for sure. A thing isn't bad just because it is different and it isn't always bad to be a bit uncomfortable. It's okay to have to learn to like a fit. I'm just not so sure I want to do that personally.
If I comment on something at all, it isn't that I think everyone should like or wear what I do. How we present our inner selves to the world is such a deeply personal thing and it can morph and change through our lives and often is a reflection of what is going on in our lives at the time. If I comment at all, it is because it touches something negative or positive in the inner me, it is me feeling a Boxy might just work for me, me seeing me be all those bodies that are wearing their Boxy's. It is me saying 'that isn't going to work for me' or 'wow, I am so going there no matter how it looks in others eyes'. I am pretty much past worrying about how something appears to someone else. Pretty much. Okay, maybe I do still worry about that a little, but I am working on it.
Unless we sew or knit or otherwise make almost everything we wear, we are at the mercy of whatever manufacturers will make and what the fashion police allow us to be and see. I don't want to be at someone else's or something else's mercy anymore.
Me? I just want to be. I am interested in fashion and style but want to be living and wearing my own style. Feeling good in my skin and my clothes and comfortable with who and what I am. That is the fashion of me.
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