Nora Abousteit - BurdaStyle Sewing Vintage Modern: Mastering Iconic Looks from the 1920s to 1980s

Copyright 2012 by BurdaStyle Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Craft, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.pottercraft.com
www.crownpublishing.com

POTTER CRAFT and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Abousteit, Nora.
BurdaStyle sewing vintage modern : mastering iconic looks from the 1920s to 1980s / Nora Abousteit with Jamie Lau.First Edition.
p. cm
1. Dressmaking. 2. Sewing. I. BurdaStyle, Inc. II. Title.
TT515.A27 2012
646.4dc23
2012010976

eISBN: 978-0-7704-3439-7

Photography by Danielle St. Laurent
Fashion Illustrations by Sarah Jung
Technical Illustrations by Rachel Rymar

Cover design by Jenny Kraemer
Cover illustrations by Sarah Jung
Cover photograph by Danielle St. Laurent

v3.1

If history tells us anything about clothing, it tells us that they are so much more than the fibers and dyes that compose them. Inside our closets is a tapestry of voices and stories, memories from the past that shape our present style. We continually embrace these sartorial influences, from silhouettes that are now classic wardrobe staples to style trends that reemerge time and again. This interplay between the past and the present is the inspiration for this book, a fresh collection of modern looks channeling fashions from the 1920s to the 1980s.

Wardrobes went through a number of revolutionary changes in this short time period. Increased industrialization quickly shifted the world economy and its population, as more people began settling into cities like New York, London, and Paris. The convergence of cultures encouraged the convergence of ideas. This movement was kinetic and rapid, and reflected itself in fashion.

In the 1920s, when women in the United States won the right to vote, they began liberating their wardrobes, too. Suffocating corsets vanished, hemlines rose, and waistlines fell. Women proudly expressed their newfound freedom through clothing. Such abandon came to a halt in 1929, when the economic despair of the Great Depression stunned the Western world. Women began making dresses out of feed sacks, as extreme frugality encouraged handmade simplicity. It was a far humbler cry than the decade before.

As economic and social conditions recovered, subsequent decades saw dramatic evolutions in fashion. Exaggerated shoulders and empire waists were created out of synthetic fabric during the wartime period of the forties. Elvis rocked and rolled to the delight of teenage girls wearing petticoats and poodle skirts in the fifties. Vivid shift dresses and miniskirts twisted and shimmied through the Mod sixties. Organza and sequins sparkled under seventies disco lights, and leather-clad pop stars and androgynous fashion captivated in the eighties.

In each decade, clothing articulated a deeper cultural change. Marilyn Monroe didnt just put on a white gown in The Seven Year Itch, she pushed the boundaries of sensuality.

At BurdaStyle.com, these and other key looks of the past, along with the changes they represented, are a constant source of inspiration. Our community of budding fashion designers and lifelong sewers stitch their way back in time, re-creating and reinventing the classics of bygone eras. Members of all skill levels are given a platform to express their individual styles, and are encouraged to blend new ideas with time-honored trends.

The five patterns and nineteen looks featured in this book are interpretations of fashions from the past that inspire us, with suggestions for how you can personalize them to fit your own style. Of course, these ideas are only meant to serve as guides. Like the historical greats before you, you have the freedom to reinterpret and reshape them, adding your voice to the rich tapestry of fashion history. Yes, clothes are so much more than their fibers and dyes. As we hope this book will show, they are a testament to the beauty, creativity, and ingenuity that lie within each of us, just as they were to others decades before.

Enjoy!

In this book, we offer five base patterns for you to work withplus fourteen step-by-step project variationsall of which include in-depth patternmaking and sewing instructions. Our BurdaStyle members often make a pattern their own using simple changes in fabrication, sleeve length, or neckline details. We show you how to do the same here so you can transform an iconic flapper silhouette into our version of a modern-day Jackie O. dress, or take a basic mens shirt from casual to classy. Each pattern has countless design possibilities, and we encourage you to use this book to channel your creativity and to personalize these looks so they can truly become yours.

To get started, consider your tuxedo shirt.

We also show you how a classic silhouette can be modernized for present-day wear. The five base patterns in this book represent key looks from some of our favorite time periods. But dont be shy about mixing and matching between decades to . To make your lives easier, we provide a few stand-alone pattern pieces, including a sleeve, a skirt, and a wrap that will be used in a few of our variation projectsso you wont have to worry about drafting them from scratch!

Each project is rated by skill level, from one to four buttons.

Beginner
Advanced Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced

Download the book patterns at http://www.burdastyle.com/sewingvintagemodern and enter the code "sewinspired."