Calvin Clean 1985-2011

Do you remember when patterns were almost always sold at full price and we bought only a handful of patterns per year? Fewer were introduced and retired from the catalogs each season so we took our time and selected carefully.

Vogue 1507 is one of the first Vogue patterns I ever bought. I was so new to sewing, I bought by my RTW dress size (8) instead of the pattern size based on my measurements (12). I was also so naive, I bought patterns for the figure that I wished I had rather than the one I do have. If I were a six-foot tall slim-hipped wonder, I'd look like 1980's Calvin Klein muse and model, Josie Borain. Alas, the pattern has sat unused for 25 years.

I was inspired by several denim t-shirts seen at the Spring 2011 shows like this Celine one with a bateau neck. Photos courtesy of Style.com; click to see their coverage of the Celine spring 2011 collection.

Take an iconic American uniform of jeans and a t-shirt, and combine the two to make a denim t-shirt. Fashion geek genius!

Just to drive the point home even further, Stella McCartney added contrasting "jean orange" topstitching.

What's more iconic than a t-shirt from the designer who brought us "nothing comes between me and my Calvins"? I dug out the pattern.

It was a very easy and fast project. I had some very lightweight denim lying about--the same stuff I used for Iris' blue 4-tiered pleated skirt. Because of the over-sized nature of the cut, a size 8 fits just fine. I shortened the top by 3" (from 27" to 24") and added 1.5" of ease around the hip.


Asides:

• Josie was also a Classic Elite sweater model!
• No, you actually do see spots in the mirror. I thought my camera lens was dirty until I realized that terry cloth fuzz from Household Sewing had flown all over the cutting area and stuck to the glass. What a mess. I should pick up a vacuum someday, but that would cut into my sewing time.
  

Bye-bye!