The late 1990s saw me fishing that blue fabric from the London fabric market out of the stash for the first time. The lining on a favourite 1960s satin coat had disintegrated and needed to be replaced to make the coat wearable. I'd always enjoyed restoring or remodelling vintage clothes, but this time it was purely out of necessity. I had one young child and was pregnant with my second. This coat was one of the few garments to still fit me. I had little money to buy new clothes and a ridiculous number of posh dos to attend, so I carefully unpicked the old lining, made a pattern from it and went stash-diving for suitable fabrics. I kept bypassing this one as, well, it is upholstery fabric. I was big but I wasn't ready to be upholstered.
Finally it won, the job was done and the coat was put back into service. I probably looked like a very shiny Fiat Bambina but I was happy. Every now and then this coat goes on holiday to my daughter's dress-up box but it always makes it back into my wardrobe eventually.
No comments:
Post a Comment