Two Issey Miyake Skirts

You ask, I answer.

Here is a schematic of my skirt made from Vogue 1256, a vintage Issey Miyake dress.  The original pattern had a drawstring casing at the junction between the bodice and the skirt.  I made a tunnel elastic waistband.

Construction Steps

1. Sew center seams and make pleats.  Baste pleats.
2. Staystitch inset corners, then clip to stitching.
3. Sew rectangular pocket back pieces to both front and back.
4. Stitch pocket sides, drape top and side seams.
5. Attach a tunnel elastic waistband (a tube of fabric the length of the waist opening). Insert elastic.
6. Trim corners, finish edges, hem

Because Marie-Christine asked nicely, I decided to draw a schematic for a second, bonus skirt.  Vogue 1256 didn't have a copyright YYYY notice on the envelope, so I didn't know the exact year of the pattern.  However, the $9 price on the envelope places it in the 1980s.

I think it was near 1984 because of this skirt that I tried on in a boutique on College Avenue in Berkeley in 1984.  It was made of cotton knit and black grosgrain ribbon.  I am not sure about the stripe orientation.  I think it went horizontally, but I thought it would have looked better vertically.  Knit-in stripes usually go horizontally, so that the machines knit with only one color at a time.

I am not sure which way the stretch in the skirt went.  It was 25+ years ago, and I think I should get a bye on that.  I do remember the very soft cream and grey fabric and black grosgrain ribbon.  I recall now that the stripes went horizontally, and the skirt appeared to use the full 60" width of knit fabric.  I  thought it was weird the stripes went in an unflattering direction.  I had no idea about machine knitting back then.

Topologically, it is the same as the skirt I just made.  There is no pocket and the drape portion is proportionately wider, almost 1/3 of the full width of the skirt.  (That's why I put 1/3+ or 1/3- on the drawing.)

Happy sewing and send me a picture or link to your skirts!

When I saw this knit skirt, I had never heard of Issey Miyake.  The window display intrigued me. I went right into the store and tried the skirt on, even though I couldn't afford it. I think the boutique was called Miki, but it may no longer exist. They sold the kind of cool clothes that I couldn't afford back then, and that don't fit my conservative workplace of today. Sigh. Life is so asynchronous.

A year later, SFMOMA devoted the entire top floor to a retrospective of Issey Miyake designs.  I blogged about that in Imagery from the Past.