I’ve finished my vintage Montana dress, but no photos as yet. Time instead for another wearability post. This one is about some absolutely epic wearability failures: things that barely left the wardrobe until the day I threw them out or passed them on. Failures are much more interesting to read about than successes, right?
First up is Vogue 1400, a Guy Laroche shirt dress made in black cotton poplin. It’s a more complicated design than it looks at first glance: there are shoulder cutouts that are not visible in this shot and the breast pockets have a complicated construction that leads to the effect of them floating on the chest with no visible stitching.

But those are details; it’s basically a very baggy, boxy shirt dress. And that’s its downfall: it’s so wide that when I lift my arms the whole thing lifts up. It also needs a belt to look good on me, so every time it pulls up I then have to tug it back down under the belt again. Way too much aggravation for what should be an easy summer dress. It might have been more wearable if I’d made a much smaller size, but somehow I doubt it. It got a few wears and was then passed on to the charity shop. At least the fabric wasn’t precious.
Next is a real blast from the past. This is Burda 106 03/2011. At the time I made this I’d been sewing only a few years and subscribing to Burda for less than a year. I made this one because I was fascinated by the egg shaped silhouette, which at the time seemed very unusual. Cocoon and egg shapes seem more mainstream in 2020, or perhaps it’s just that years of looking at sewing magazines rather than fashion magazines has retrained my eye.

I still like the shape. But my fabric choice was very bad: an online purchase that was billed as ‘linen look’ but turned out to be a very scratchy and coarsely woven polyester. I hadn’t yet realised that sewing with bad fabric is a waste of time and made it up anyway, making a complete mess of sewing the gathers at the neck along the way. I wanted this to wear to a wedding, but in the event I wore another, more comfortable, dress, and this one never made it out of the wardrobe.
I don’t think this is a bad pattern and I’ve kept my tracing. Perhaps one day I’ll tackle it again, if I ever need a new fancy dress.
And then we have this. It’s an amazing Alexander McQueen pattern; it was a free download from ShowStudio some years ago. It’s an unlined jacket with a complex pleated back.

I enjoyed making it and it looks good in the photos. But it’s very slightly too small; the pattern is one size and comes without any indication of what size it’s for so I had to guess a bit and got it wrong. And it’s a fussy item to wear. It doesn’t do anything to keep you warm or covered up, what with those wide short sleeves which aren’t connected at the underarm at all. The pleated back isn’t practical for sitting or lounging. About the only place I might wear this is to an exhibition, on a warm day.
I didn’t give this one away because it was such a lot of work to sew. It resides in a box under the bed. But I’ve not missed it at all.
I think what all three of these have in common is that they weren’t comfortable to wear, whether it was because of fit, fabric, or just the design of the garment. I’m firmly resolved only to sew with good fabric. Fit and design are a bit harder to get right up front.