Eve Di Potenza

It’s time to turn the focus on the fashion part of being an eccentric old lady. This is going to be the trickiest part of the journey for me. I think most people would find this to be the most fun part. Yay, let’s shop! I’m not a shopper, so you’ll all have to hold my hand through this. 

To quote Iris Apfel, 

‘Fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style is learning who you are, which takes years. There’s no how-to road map to style. It’s about self-expression and, above all, attitude.’

Exploring one’s personality visually is a pretty exciting idea. I have never considered myself a fashionista. I don’t care what’s on trend; I admit, I don’t pay attention to what might be good for my figure. I dress baggy to hide my stomach, and I wear a lot of cardigans. I want to look like the me I see in my head, though, not Mr.Rogers. He was an absolute sweetie pie and did have an admirable collection of cardigans, but he was not an eccentric old lady. 

Now, Iris Apfel curated her intensely iconic wardrobe by buying and thrifting her outfits while travelling for her textiles business. She is described as having a bohemian aesthetic, but I’d be very careful with that word. It’s kind of a lightning rod word that implies cultural appropriation. I think there is a difference between buying a piece from someone who wants to sell it to you and wear it because it’s beautiful and you appreciate it, vs. seeing someone beautiful and wanting to steal their look. Intention is everything.

I do not possess the money to be able to travel the world, and thrifting here means buying what everyone else has been wearing (which is also black and samesy), though I’m sure I’ll find the odd cool piece. I think the key here for me is to find fabrics and colours that better define me. There is nothing wrong with an iconic black suit, or going full Morticia Addams, but I don’t feel I’m rocking a goth mama or a James Bond type vibe with my current wash-and-wear – bought from Amazon- because I hate the mall -wardrobe. Like Iris, I have worked with fabrics my whole life. I don’t think black stretch-knit would be my natural go-to. I think I fell into my dressing patterns out of laziness.

I can pretty much guess I’m not going to find what I want to wear at my local mall. For the most part, given my mindset and skill set, I’m going to have to redesign my wardrobe with my sewing machine. This means pattern-making and redesigning most of what I have. It’s a very lost skill, but thankfully, something my grandmother taught me how to sew.  

Step one. Find an item you really like and think looks good on you, but that is past its prime. I have a pair of (you guessed it) *black* palazzo pants that I mostly liked when I wore them. They are pretty worn and no longer look good, though. So in step one, we will be taking a seam ripper to every seam on those pants and labelling the different pieces with chalk (Front left, front right, back left, back right) 

Step two: Find replacement fabric. My goal for this week is to either find fabric that I like in my piles of “Oh, I should use that one day” fabric bag or go to the fabric shop to get a new piece. The trick will be limiting the purchases and not overspending, and adding to my “Oh, I should do something with this one day” piles. (I might have a problem with collecting fabric I never use. It’s a weird addiction) So that’s step one and step 2.

We will leave that here for today. We have tasks to do.