layering reef and rowan // aka salvaging a sewing failure

If you asked me what was one of the silliest trends i wore as a teenager in the height of the 90’s, I would tell you it was camisole tops over t shirts. Paired with cargo shorts, Superstars, a stupid choker necklace with “meg” on it, and a heavy swipe of sparkly blue eyeshadow. Shudder. This is how i know everyone who says fashion is cyclical is right – because here I am 32, and wearing a camisole over a t shirt. To add to the hilarity, I actually owned basically these exact same shoes when i was a teen. Full circle.

The interesting thing about seeing the whole camisole/camisole dress over everything trend come back, is the updated approach to it. Something about slightly different cuts and better fabrics, and pairing much loved pieces together. I think layering pieces that are already your style together, makes for a more winning combination. I think the trick to wearing a trend from your past, is to wear it sparingly, so you have a few elements that throw back, but aren’t wearing an entire dress up costume.

The Reef camisole actually started out as a dress variation i tried last year. I absolutely loved it and had every intention of wearing it all summer, but i must not have prewashed my fabric or something (very unlike me) and it shrunk terribly in the wash. It ended up a very awkward tunic length, that I knew wasn’t workable in my wardrobe. It felt like a massive waste of fabric. But after mourning it a bit, i trimmed the hem back to the original Reef camisole length, which has resulted in a rather nice black cami. Now I have a black camisole – which if i’m honest, has turned out to be a much more useful wardrobe piece than a black cami dress would have been. My lifestyle after all is very casual.

The Rowan tee is also a bit of an accident, though not quite as happy. Actually, i’d almost call it a failure, The fabric is (i thought) a really amazing knit from Potter textiles in Perth – i would describe it as dreamy. It’s so soft that you just want to stroke it over and over. I wanted to make everything out of it! The problem is that it’s shockingly see through. Which is something i didn’t anticipate when i was making this tee, hoping it would be the perfect little white tee i could wear with everything.

It’s so transparent that there isn’t a bra in my possession that can be worn underneath without every detail showing. I really can’t deal with that. So sadly, this really gorgeous perfect little white tee… is actually just a perfect layering tee. It’s job now is just to be worn under things. Which on one hand i do find sad, but on the other hand has helped me to stretch my wardrobe a bit more by wearing pieces like this Reef camisole in different ways.

People often ask me about my sewing failures – and i think these two are pretty good examples of projects that have failed, but that I managed to salvage at the end of the day. And thank goodness for that – because is there anything worse than wasting good fabric? I think not.