Friday, April 15, 2011

Worn Fashion Journal and Stashoholism Confessional

Worn Magazine I found Worn Fashion Journal through a mention in the blog Of Another Fashion. Of Another Fashion is a project to collect images of women of color throughout history to illustrate their participation in fashion. It is a great project and the images are always fantastic. I highly recommend checking it out, and submitting photos if you have any that fit into the project.

I was thinking of the magazine as "Worn Magazine," but it turns out that there is *another* fashion magazine called Worn Magazine and it is about Washington DC! I'm going to have to dig deeper into that one.

Worn Magazine

I was drawn to Worn because I saw it had an article on flight attendant uniforms. I enjoyed making and wearing my retro air hostess Halloween costume two years ago, though it was not any kind of historically accurate, and was interested in the topic. The article includes interviews with women who were flight attendants during the 60s and 70s as well an exploration of the larger cultural role and perception of flight attendants. And of course, information on the uniforms. I enjoyed the article.


Worn Magazine The magazine includes many other interesting articles, such as this one by a textile conservationist on the techniques used in her work for museums. Other articles include a discussion on choosing vintage eyeglasses, a history of the perfume "Jicky," several book reviews, and a discussion about the characteristics of tweed.

There is also an editorial fashion spread, though I have to say it didn't do much for me. It is rather geared toward the university crowd with layer upon crazy layer of texture, embellishment, and Inuit inspired fashion. It is not anything that can be remotely adapted to a working woman's wardrobe. But this is more of an academic journal than a lookbook, so the fashion spread is almost irrelevant.

Worn is a Canadian magazine but accepts subscribers in the US for $18 + $8 shipping ($20 shipping outside US and Canada). The magazine comes out twice a year, and a subscription is for two years (so four issues).

I am not a magazine subscriber because I am not good at getting rid of magazines--the only other magazine I get is BurdaStyle. But I found a friend who will let me pass the issues along to her so I'm safe!

=====================

G Street 4-2011

I was feeling so smug about my fabric buying! I went to G Street Fabrics last weekend for Fashion Sewing Club. The topic, fortuitously, was rainwear. The instructor had found some vinyl on the $2.97/yd table and pulled it out for us. I want to have two helmet covers as I have two helmets (one for work and one for home) and am just about out of Gore Tex so I bought the vinyl.

I also had to check out the silk novelty $6.97/yd table, especially as there was a 25% off sale going. I found this very interesting textured, bonded silk. The outside is a blue-gray with a bumpy texture and the back side is black cotton (I think, I can't separate the two layers to do separate burn tests). It's fairly substantial without a lot of drape and I think it may be home dec. I immediately envisioned a trench-style jacket. The silk would make it warm but still relatively lightweight. I am not *quite* sold on such a dark-colored coat--not my style!--but I can see it being great for Fall, and light colored coats do show dirt awfully quickly. As I have no immediate plans to sew this up and I have plenty of wools for jackets in my stash I'm not sure this purchase was justified. I am going to have to recommit to mindfulness.

6 comments:

McVal said...

I've never heard of that mag before. I better check that out. Will be attending a sewing meeting this weekend and will hopefully pick up some treasures from the free tables! Looking forward to adding to my stash... I've been using a lot out of it lately.

BeckyMc said...

Your helmet covers remind me of the backpack covers my husband uses to keep the Seattle rain out of his packs. Maybe you need to use some of the vinyl to make bicycle saddle bag/backpack rain covers for your bike trip in the Netherlands?

Anonymous said...

Worn also has a great blog, just FYI:

http://www.wornjournal.com/html/

Kristy Chan said...

to me, functional fabrics don't count as part of stasholism. Can't really justify it, except that they are needed more for a specific purpose, rather than just another pretty fabric that I *must* own!

Of course you could have bought a shower cap to wear over your bike helmet, I've learnt from the old Chinese ladies who walk laps at my local swimming pool that shower caps are useful beyond just the shower

Unknown said...

I really appreciate the link to Of Another Fashion. Both my inner historian and the ally piece of me appreciate it. Added to my RSS feed (after going back way too many pages with time I didn't have).

Sherril said...

I admire you're commitment to mindfulness. I must adopt that mindset just as soon as I come home from Chicago.