McCall's 6988 (1980): Stephen Sprouse Inspired Camouflage Jumpsuit

Last spring, I encountered this stretch cotton sateen at Mood Fabrics in NYC.  It immediately brought to mind fashion designer Stephen Sprouse, who transformed the fashion world in the 1980s.   I happily purchased several yards in both colorways:

Stephen Sprouse was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1953 to Norbert and Joanne Sprouse.  When he was 2, the family moved to Indiana. It isn’t a stretch to say he was a born fashion designer.  As a young child, his fashion sketches showed such talent that his parents wondered if they had a prodigy on their hands (at age 14 he did a summer internship in NYC with Bill Blass).   

Stephen attended the Rhode Island School of Design briefly in the early 1970s.  But he dropped out after securing a job with Halston in New York City, the reigning king of fashion at the time.

After working for Halston for a few years,  Stephen struck out on his own. During the late 70s and early 80s, he formed intense friendships with up and coming artists, designers, models and musicians in the burgeoning NYC punk rock music scene.  Debbie Harry of Blondie was a particularly close friend, and he loved to dress her for shows.  

In 1982 he was part of a show of emerging designers, put on to promote the launch of Polaroid’s SX-70 camera.  His transformative and innovative mini collection reflected elements that would become his trademarks: Day-Glo colors, 1960s inspired silhouettes, graffiti printed on luxurious, high end fabrics and the “energy of the streets.”   He went on to release collections throughout the mid-80s.

In the late 1980s his friend Andy Warhol allowed Stephen to incorporate imagery from Andy’s “Camouflage” series of paintings into his clothing line.  These pieces fetched high prices and are still coveted today.

Throughout the 1990s,  Sprouse’s downtown, “underground” pop art/punk style was always in demand by those in high-end fashion circles.  In 2001, he collaborated with Marc Jacobs to produce a line which included the famous graffitted and “defaced” Louis Vuitton bags (a perfect nod to the admixture of  refined uptown sensibility and the gritty downtown look).  

In 2002, he released an affordable clothing line at Target called “Americaland”, featuring his signature grafitti “street” style done in a palette consisting mainly of red, white and blue.  

(As it so happens Target is releasing a 20 year retrospective of collections created by some big-name designers over the years, including Stephen Sprouse, Marimekko and Isaac Mizrahi!)

So you can see why I was excited to find this fabric.  It is NOT described by Mood as a “Stephen Sprouse” inspired design.  But the melding of graffiti and camouflage surely brings this 1980s fashion genius to mind.

I decided to use this 1980 jumpsuit pattern and the fabric in the brown and blue spruce colorway.  It’s not exactly a utilitarian design, but I hoped the zip front would blend well with the camo:

I encountered no real issues in the creation of this jumpsuit.  I did take care with pattern matching, ensuring that the design flowed at the center and yoke seams (this required that I recut and replace the yokes when I saw that the design repeated too closely).

This is my first piece of camouflage clothing (when you are looking for it, you see it on people everywhere!).  I felt surprisingly comfortable in camo, and very on trend!

from Forever 21

Here is my jumpsuit.  It is very comfortable, looks good in heels and sandals and I love the front zip!

I tried pairing it with this vintage 80s white belt (I prefer it without a belt):

The pattern called for wide bias tape to make the casing for the elastic, but I just used a strip of fabric:

In the year or so before his death, Stephen was in treatment for lung cancer,  but had kept this very serious diagnosis largely private. It was therefore a shock to many when Stephen Sprouse died of heart failure on March 4, 2004.

The Stephen Sprouse Book, by Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha and published by Rizzoli, has plenty of photographs of clothing from his runway shows and other clothing lines, and some of those can be found on the website thestephensprousebook.com.   This book, as well as Stephen Sprouse: Xerox/Rock/Art were my main sources in writing this post.   

These are wonderful volumes on the life and work of a great American fashion designer, Stephen Sprouse, whose influence is still felt to this day.

Polaroid of Stephen Sprouse taken by Andy Warhol in 1984

Wet n Wild's Photofocus Rose Primer Serum: Elixir of Youth?

A few months ago, I reviewed Wet n Wild’s first ever skincare products.  Part of their Rebel Rose Limited Edition Collection, the Skincare Collection Box includes a lip scrub, lip balm, facial oil, toner and serum.  

It was fun to open the box when it arrived, having been such a devotee of their makeup and nail polishes back in the 80s. There I was a gazillion years later, all excited with my Wet n Wild purchase once again! To be sure, the company has evolved and stayed current, coming up with so many fun, high quality products. Yet they are proud of their past and remain true to their values: Wet n Wild is still extremely affordable and cruelty-free.

I have been using all of the skincare products off and on since, and have been really happy with them.  The toner removes dirt and oil really well, and the multi-use facial oil is a great moisturizer for day or night.  The scrub works and tastes yummy, and the Tint of Corruption jelly lip balm is AWESOME. It tints my lips the most perfect, natural shade of pink, leaving behind a light sheen.   I wasn’t really using the serum, because I thought of it as a prelude to makeup which I don’t wear that often.

Well, I was missing out on an important benefit by neglecting to apply the serum to my naked and aging face.  For this serum has the miraculous ability to TIGHTEN YOUR SKIN.  

This ability was brought to my attention by my friend Rachel.  When she first got her Rebel Rose Skincare box, she dove right in and applied the products not only to herself, but to her mother Sandy.   

In particular, they got interesting and impressive results with the Photofocus Rose Primer Serum.

  

What follows are before and after pictures Rachel’s hand and Sandy’s arm.  It is clear that the serum tightened up their skin and smoothed things out quite a bit.  

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

When she texted these pictures to me, I was REALLY impressed.  I think there is a dramatic difference!

Yesterday, I applied the serum to half of my face, concentrating on the vertical lines, or creases, that sometimes occur between the nose and the outer corners of the lips.  On me, they aren’t too deep yet but trust me--they’re there!

The serum has a watery consistency, and I was reminded of egg whites as the serum slowly dried on my face.  Egg white masks are known to tighten the skin and shrink pores (this woman mixes honey into her egg white mask and applies it with a fan brush).

I left the house into a lovely bright day and jumped into my car (heedless of showing up to work with only half my face painted in serum).  At stoplights, I peered closely into the rearview mirror. All that natural light was going to show me the good, the bad and the ugly!

Without a doubt, the crease on the serum side of my face was diminished and smoother!  Gazing at myself in my rearview earned me some honks from the drivers behind me (if you don’t move instantly in this city the moment the light changes, people will lay on that horn!).  But I couldn’t help it. I kept changing the angle of my head and scrutinizing my face. Yes, this serum works!

I did take a “selfie” with an idea to post it here.  Alas, I am not brave enough to publish such an “up close and personal” photo, so you’ll just have to trust me!

In the future, I will use this primer serum under my moisturizer, especially when I want to have a bit of a youthful and dewy glow. It seems important to let it dry a few minutes before putting anything on top of it. While I'm waiting, I can turn back the clock on my lips with my Perfect Pout lip scrub!

Would the serum truly “erase” lines from your face?  My sense is that it’s a temporary fix, but I don’t know.   I should use it consistently and see what happens. If do, I will be sure to report back!

(Special thanks to Rachel and Sandy for the feedback and photos!)

Simplicity 0017 (1985): Morning in Miami

When I found this vintage 1980s fabric in the Lula Vintage store on Etsy, I fell in LOVE.

This light cotton piece featured large hibiscus flowers and uneven stripes.  The colorway was described by the shopkeeper as “very neutral” in tones of “salmon, mocha, mint, grey and white.”  

I had purchased it in January and stowed it away until I found a pattern worthy of its glorious 80s-ness.  This fabric captured my imagination like no other. I would take it out now and again during those short winter days and thought of warm summer mornings, the days stretching endlessly ahead…

...the smell of chlorine, reading Seventeen Magazine while I sat on my towel after swimming in my best friend’s pool….

...going inside her air-conditioned house in my damp bathing suit (BBR!) and seeing the opening credits (and hearing the theme song!) for The Golden Girls on the TV in her living room…..

It was during such reveries that I realized this fabric needed to live its life as a summer robe. 

A robe that might be worn while having morning coffee on the Golden Girls’ lanai.

What’s a lanai?  

It's the porch.

(If you don’t get this meme, please refer to Season 2, Episode 25  of The Golden Girls when Sophia asks Dorothy this question. Episode confirmation is courtesy of this blog, which recaps every GG episode in hilarious detail.)

Blanche, Rose, Dorothy and Sophia lived in an 80s dream of a house in Miami wherein they often wore awesome bathrobes while having heart-to-hearts, frequently in the kitchen.  (This fabric could just as easily have been made into throw pillows for the rattan couch in the living room.) 

I recently discovered a wonderful website called Golden Girls Fashion Corner which features excellent analysis of GG episodes and outfits (with plenty of pictures!).  I believe that Claire coined the term “Devarobe”--a play on Blanche’s last name Devereaux and her endless supply of flowy, gorgeous bathrobes.

Blanche is wearing a kimono robe here

I settled on a kimono robe because this design would allow large swaths of the fabric to remain intact and flow beautifully from the shoulders. I had a limited amount of fabric so I had no choice but to make it a short robe.

I omitted the patch pocket.

Because the stripes are uneven and the colors don’t repeat regularly, cutting out the pattern was a little challenging.  First, I had to get over my fear of ruining the project by making cutting mistakes on a piece of irreplaceable fabric. I couldn’t match every single stripe at the shoulders, because I didn’t have enough.   But that wasn’t critical because there’s so much going on and the stripes are irregular. I was able to match one stripe at the shoulders to establish harmony between back and front.

I wanted the front band to be on a white stripe, but I had run out of white stripes that were long enough and the same width.  I came up with a solution that required I cut the band in three pieces instead of two. I attempted to match the cuts with the shoulder seams but I failed to do so.  Luckily, I don’t think it’s noticeable and it doesn’t bother me.

This fabric is light-weight, slightly slubbed and semi-opaque.  The cut edges did fray quite a bit. So I used french seams and mock french seams (doing a traditional french seam on curved areas such as the shoulder seams can be tough) to enclose the seam allowances.   Here’s a shot from my Singer The New Sewing Essentials book (2008) showing how to do a Mock French Seam:

Instructions for a regular french seam are above.

Regular french seam:

Mock french seam:

This project took a lot longer than I thought it would.  To up the quality, I hand-stitched all hems. I used something called Snug Hug which I had purchased a few years ago after reading about it on the blog Lilacs and Lace.  This seamstress highly recommends this rayon tape to finish seam allowances and hems (she has a tutorial), so I had picked some up just in case I wanted to try it one day. If you want to see real couture sewing and vintage-inspired pieces from BEFORE the 1980s, visit this blog!

The oatmeal color of my Snug Hug tape was perfect for this project.  I sewed it to the edges of the sleeves and the bottom, pressed up the hems and hand-stitched, picking up single threads as I went so as the stitches aren’t detectable on the outside.

Now I’m ready for my morning coffee on the lanai! 

close-up of belt and carrier loop

This would have been a good bathing suit cover-up after swimming at Jean’s house back in the day.  To her and all the Girls back in high school: Thank you for being a friend!

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (1987)

Although the 1980s began in a recession,  the stock market soon began to soar astronomically, injecting huge amounts of wealth into certain segments of society before crashing in 1987.  For many, these were heady years, full of giddiness, good times and downright hedonism. Wealthy or not, the feelings seemed to be contagious. In came the big hair, the bold colors and the jewelry which at times seemed to channel that of the ostentatiously rich.  Regular girls wore ropes of faux pearls and fake gem brooches while rappers piled on thick gold chains:

Chanel jewelry circa 1980s

LL Cool J

The excesses of the 1980s were writ large in New York City, the home of all that is huge and over the top.   For the epicenter of that wealth explosion was Wall Street, and from there flowed many stories of social ascendency and moral decay. 

The Bonfire of the Vanities is one of those stories. 

This novel describes the rise and fall of Sherman McCoy, he of the Yale chin and $1M bond trader’s salary.  Or rather, it’s the story of a WASP who made more money on top of family money, and how the life he built all came crumbling down.  

Sherman’s story is supported by a vast and colorful set of quintessentially New York characters and crucial storylines that all weave together to create one epic tome.  I loved it. Wolfe provides such believable (and often hilarious) detail and dialog that the book feels like a piece of journalism at times.  

Those enduring themes of class, race and sex underpin the book and allow it to remain relevant over 30 years later.  But enough of the heavy stuff. And I don’t want to spoil this excellent read for anyone who may not have picked it up yet.

There are some fashion moments in this novel.  For example, when Sherman meets Maria at the airport:

“In this mob she looked like something from another galaxy.  She was wearing a skirt and a big-shouldered jacket of a royal blue that was fashionable in France, a blue-and-white striped silk blouse, and electric-blue lizard pumps with white calf caps on the toes.”

Later, at an exclusive dinner party,  Sherman scrutinizes the women, basically dividing them into first wives and second (trophy) wives.  The first (older) wives are “skin and bones”, “starved to near perfection”:

“To compensate for the concupiscence missing from their juiceless ribs and atrophied backsides, they turned to the dress designers.  This season no puffs, flounces, pleats, ruffles, bibs, bows, battings, scallops, laces, darts, or shirrs on the bias were too extreme.  They were the social X-rays, to use the phrase that had bubbled up into Sherman’s own brain.”

Tom Wolfe may have had Christian LaCroix in mind when writing those words.   This is a good article about the designer, whose clothing many feel epitomizes the excesses of the 80s.  He also invented the “pouf” skirt which had many variations.

The following are from Christian LaCroix shows in 1987, the year The Bonfire of the Vanities was published:

Her hair might be too big, even for the 80s!