Weekend Review: Anna: the Biography

 

Anna: the biography / Amy Odell
NY: Gallery Books, c2022
447 p.

I've always been intrigued by Anna Wintour, and since this new biography arrived in my library I thought I'd grab it -- it's an authorized bio, and very lengthy, but not gossipy like earlier unauthorized attempts at writing about Wintour. 

It's quite thorough, beginning with Anna Wintour as a child; it talks about her family beginnings and her parents, explaining how both their personalities and their family backgrounds and careers affected Anna's direction. Unlike her siblings, she was more interested in fashion and journalism than university, and once she found her direction she went for it with precise aim. 

It covers all her early jobs and how they shaped her career in magazines, both by her successes and by those places and roles that she wasn't so successful at. It was interesting to see that here was somebody with a distinct vision and a particular personality, who wasn't too good at all the things that people are supposed to do to "pay their dues", but was superb at the role she wanted and finally got - editor of Vogue. 

She found early on that she didn't like many of the elements of a fashion job; going out on site as the producer of a shoot wasn't for her, and many of the daily grind kind of things weren't either. It was running the show and shaping the vision for the magazine that she wanted and was really good at. This kind of focus on doing what she wanted to be doing was interesting to me - how did she keep on with everything else in the meantime? I guess thinking about it as a step toward the ultimate goal. 

Anyhow, the book does talk about her personal relationships to a degree, and does point out some of the missteps she made at other magazines as well as the one or two big errors at Vogue. But it was written by a fashion insider (Odell is the editor of Cosmopolitan.com) and depends heavily on interviews with friends and family, as well as being okayed by Wintour, so there isn't too deep of a discussion of the various criticisms she's faced over the years. 

Along with the personal, there's quite a bit about the workings of the fashion world in general, and about Condé Nast in particular. A reader finds out a lot about the bosses and the work culture at this magazine consortium, and my lord, you'd have to have a thick skin to make it there. I've noticed that Anna Wintour was not front and centre at every runway show in the past while, and wondered about it, but here I discovered that she is no longer the editor of Vogue but the overall content manager for Condé Nast as a whole -- so now it makes sense. 

If you're also interested in fashion journalism and the history of Vogue magazine, and have a fascination with Anna Wintour like I do, this is a good read. Lots to think about here even if it isn't an "exposé" of anything, but more of a putting on record of Wintour's career overall. I feel like it did a good job of tracing her personality and how it developed and worked for her (and against her) in her chosen field. And it also pointed out how many of those traits were only criticized or examined because she was a powerful woman - many men in the same roles were far worse but never got a comment on their leadership at all. Fascinating read about a huge figure in the fashion world, I enjoyed it. 

Burda Belted Glen Plaid Dress

I finally finished the dress I've been working on since mid-February, a Burda magazine pattern that I cut from a fabulous glen plaid knit. You can tell that I was really influenced by the pattern photo here; as soon as I saw it I wanted a subtle grey work dress. This print is pretty much as subtle as I get ;)

Burda 105-09-2019

I really enjoyed making this! The style lines are fairly simple, and it went together well. I had to unpick the neckband twice to get it to just the way I wanted it, but that is because of my well-known lack of neckband skills, not the pattern. I really like the full sleeve and the gathering at the cuff, but am still considering removing the cuff and shortening the sleeve by an inch just to get it exactly right.

The only alterations I made were just ones for length, and of course I added side seam pockets too. I used cotton broadcloth so that they are smooth and non-bulky. The pattern has the waistline marking on it so it was easy to position my pockets. 

With some careful cutting I was able to get the print to match up at the side seams. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Even the neckband print matches up, which makes me unreasonably happy ;)

The unusual feature of this dress is the self belt. There were two options; a sliding buckle or eyelets. I chose the simpler version, but had quite a time finding a large enough buckle. There was nothing in my stash so I had to go farther afield and check at Fabricland, where I found two possibilities. Now I do have one in my stash! 

I find that Burda fits so well. I made minimal adjustments to this dress and was really most careful about the print placement. I really like the shape and the way this lighter weight knit works in this design. The sewing process was straightforward -- the thing that took the longest was trying to source the belt buckle!

Although the weather is warming up, as you can tell by the melting snow all around me, I think I'll still get some wear out of this before Spring really gets here. Because of the lighter weight of this fabric, it is not overly warm, and is so comfy to wear that I'm going to try to wear it as much as I can! Another Burda hit for me. 

Safe as Houses Blouse: Burda 112-03-18

I started this blouse in January -- cut it out, prepped it, sewed a few bits -- then put it aside as the silky fabric and the neckline were intimidating me. But then I picked it up again, and finished it this weekend.

It started with the fabric, a silky poly that I found at the thrift store. This print was so charming, I just had to have it.

I intended to use it as a lining for something or other, but the print kept nagging at me to be shown off, so I finally matched it up with this tie-neck blouse, #112 from BurdaStyle 03/2018.

I am really enjoying making up my Burda patterns, even with the extra step of tracing off the pattern from those wacky pattern sheets. I find that they fit me well, and I enjoy the modern styles in the magazines.

This blouse did take some extra effort though. Anyone who follows me on Instagram might recall that I had trouble making choices about it, from which side of the fabric to use as the 'right' side to choosing cuff buttons as the final step! Even though this wasn't an overly complicated make, I learned some new things in the process. I've never sewn an attached tie neckline before, and I don't recall making buttoned cuffs like these ones either. My sleeve plackets are pretty rough but I think next time they'll look better.

I left off the back opening as I didn't need it to get this over my head, and I'm not a big fan of buttons along my back. Hard to do up and painful to lean on! This just meant that I had to make sure the back neckband and facing were appropriately adjusted to the right length too.

I'm glad I persevered with this project and am finally wearing this adorable print. I really enjoy the fit and the colours and the tie, and just so much about it. I might not look it from my photos, but that's just because I have a dreadful cold.

Another great project from BurdaStyle for me! I'm queuing up a dress to trace off next.

Finding a Cache of Threads

In the last couple of weeks, I've found some delightful thrift store scores. One of them was this stack of Threads magazines from the late 90s/early 2000s. There were 21 in the stack but I already owned two, so came home with 19 new-to-me magazines.

I really like having physical magazines to flip through when I'm in the mood for it. I can flag any technique or project I want to try; I can pick them up and put them down without fear of losing track of which website I was on when I saw something interesting! And I'm not a Marie Kondo follower, so I actually like having a row of magazine boxes on my shelf :)

In any case, I had a lot of fun looking through these old magazines. I found a couple of articles in particular that are really useful to me right now. Isn't it funny how styles may change, but the sewing info found in these articles remains golden for years.

And I found familiar names from today's sewing world on Instagram and Pattern Review, in the tips and letters sent in, even from the early 2000s! (TCSewhat, I'm looking at you LOL)

Something I really enjoy about older magazines (these ones are at least 20 years old now) is checking out all the advertisements, especially the ones in the back. Even with only a 20 year gap some of them feel ancient. But there are SO MANY Indie pattern designers advertising regularly; we'd be remiss to think that the Indie revolution started with Colette.

I was so intrigued by the advertisements that I started searching online to see if any of those indie designers were still in business. It was surprising to find that many still were, with a few no longer designing but still having their patterns available. So to close, here are just some of those originals who are still designing and selling in the Indie Pattern world albeit most of them with very retro websites. Have fun checking them out!

Islander Sewing Systems

Petite Plus Patterns

Christine Jonson Patterns

Cutting Line Designs

Green Pepper

Pamela's Patterns

WWWearables

Saf-T-Pockets Patterns

Silhouette Patterns

L.J. Designs

Great Copy

Pavelka Design (so 90s! No longer designing but patterns are still available to order)

Burda Magazine "Kimono Sweatshirt"

Burda Challenge accepted!

 

I did it -- I made my first pattern from my stack of Burda magazines! This oversized top comes from February 2017's issue (though if you don't have this issue you can always buy just this pattern from the BurdaStyle website too.)

I have at least a year's worth of Burda mags, and have even traced off a couple of patterns already, but I finally used one of my magazines to make a pattern, start to finish. All the factors came together: the pattern was rated "very easy" and is cute, I found the most amazing knit at the thrift store, and the weather is cold right now but I know it won't last long so if I wanted to make this sweatshirt I'd better do it right quick!

This was indeed a very easy pattern, though Burda instructions, as always, assume some sewing knowledge. The only tricky part of this pattern was the inset kangaroo pocket on an angled seam -- I had to read the instructions over three times before I kind of understood the process, and then only with some advance pinning and flipping before I stitched anything down. Of course once it's done it seems pretty obvious. Although Burda never mentions that after sewing the inside top edges of the pocket bag together, you should really slipstitch it to the inside of the top, otherwise the pocket bag sags down below the hem in a very unsightly manner.

I enjoyed making this one, especially since I remembered to add on the seam allowance while cutting, whew...though it's so oversize it probably would have still fit, haha. As this is my first Burda, I didn't quite have a good handle on their sizing, so cut this all in size 44. I think next time I'll cut 42 at shoulders and 44 at hip for a better fit - this is a little larger around the bust than I'd prefer, and really a little larger all around than the model photo.

But with the triangular inset and the fact that I'm not unpicking a zigzag stitch from a sweater knit, I'm going with this look and calling this my Kimono Sweatshirt. On my next try I may follow Lisa's Carolina Handmade's lead and fold an inch out of front centre & back to get it a little closer fitting around the body.

I do love the way the back swings though!

It's super comfortable and matches wonderfully with my vintage Japanese beads (yay!) I wore it to work today and my very accommodating coworker once again took some quick snaps out in the blinding sun in our back parking lot. So please excuse my closed eyes in some of these photos :) In the sun I was quite comfortable despite the cold wind... Spring really is in the air. I'll have to wear this as much as possible before the weather turns and I start in on my summer dresses.

Vintage Workbasket gems

In the recent batch of embroidery patterns and suchlike sent to me by my Mom -- as she was clearing out her craft space by shifting it into mine ;) -- there were a couple of old Workbasket magazines from the late 60s, early 70s. I don't know if you remember these, but I was addicted to reading my Mom and Grandma's old issues when I was a kid. I loved all the craft ideas, even if they were out of date even then.

I never really noticed the sewing content when I was young, as I wasn't yet an active sewist like I am now. But it was super fun to look through the four issues that were in my parcel and remember all the crafts I'd made from them...even if we might now label them as crafts of the "Pinterest fail" kind! Great memories of non-perfectionist fun in my childhood.

Something I noticed this time around, though, was the hilarious advertisements lining the pages. The delicious recipes. And of course, the sewing. While there are craft instructions, recipes, and knitting patterns included in the magazine, the sewing element are just line drawings of the latest dresses with instructions on how to order. Sadly, it seems none of the women in my family ever ordered any. But they are lovely to look at for inspiration, nonetheless. Take a peek!

Knitting for a sporty look

Important concerns...

No mincing words here

Delicious jello molds!

Who knew accordions were such a hot item?

Dial yourself a dress!

One look at the sewing tips and options for fashion
(more to come...)