Bright Pink + Ruffles = Fashion Do?

In sewing clothing for myself, there are a couple of things that I worry about. I worry about ending up in a magazine with a black bar across my eyes. I also worry about looking "Becky Home-ecky" as Michael Kors would say on Project Runway. I also try to avoid anything that could be considered "art-to-wear." I really don't want anyone to mistake anything I have sewn for an item purchased at Chico's (no offense to you Chico's aficionados. It's just not my thing).

So in my most recent project planning...in which I intended to sew a wrap dress with a ruffle neckline out of magenta sateen, I immediately became concerned about the possibility of showing up as a fashion "don't" in some magazine. Not that I think that Glamour or Cosmo photographers are lurking the streets of St. Louis. There are WAY better places to be.

But, whenever making anything that might not be considered a "classic," I always do a little research ahead of time to make sure that there are other items similar to what I want to make available in a RTW form. And available someplace other than Chico's.

Here are my plans...I intend to use a length of magenta sateen that has been aging in my stash:


The dress I intend to make is Butterick 5320:


Given the combination of incredibly bright color, and huge neck ruffle...I definitely wanted to check ahead of time and make sure that I was not setting myself up for a giant fashion faux pas.

First, I started looking for dresses with ruffles...any ruffles...just to make sure that it was an actual trend and not a figment of my imagination:

Shoshanna, $318.00 at Nordstrom

Ann Taylor, $139.00

Eliza J, $168.00 at Nordstrom

Then I looked for bright pink:

Tadashi, $305.00

Rickie Freeman, $330.00 at Nieman Marcus

DVF, $365.00 at Nieman Marcus

Then I started looking for pink WITH ruffles:

Banana Republic, $89.00

Old Navy, $29.50

Kay Unger, $350.00 at Nordstrom

Ali Ro, $220.00

And then I hit the jackpot, at JCrew...pink...wrap dress...ruffled neckline!

JCrew, $268.00

The verdict? I will sew the dress! Now I just have to hurry before the "ruffle trend" passes and there I am in my ruffle-neck dress with a black bar over my eyes in Cosmo.

Edited to answer Dana's question:

To go find equivalents to what I want to sew, I generally have a few "old standbys" that I go to. When I DO shop for clothes, I tend to buy them at Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, JCrew, and Nordstrom. I usually don't actually buy clothes at Nieman Marcus, although will shop there for jewelry (my wedding rings came from Nieman's ) and will often lurk the DVF displays and see how things are put together, what kinds of silhouettes they are using, etc.

So, since those are my "go-to" places to buy clothes, I like the styles, and always find something I like, those tend to be where I do my "snoop shopping" when I am looking for something that will be a style I KNOW that I will wear, and will also fit in with the types of clothes that the people around me wear.

There are places like Net-a-Porter.com where you can see some amazing designer frocks, but I typically do not snoop there because if I made knock-offs of the clothing available there, it would be so different from what the people that I associate with wear, I would stick out like a sore thumb. For example, as striking as this Roland Mouret jacket is:


I don't know anyone who wears $2295.00 blazers. Nor do I know anyone who owns anything by Roland Mouret. Let's just say that that isn't the crowd that I run with. So, if I were to make a knock-off of this jacket, I would just end up feeling weird and silly because I don't hang with Victoria Beckham. No one else I know would be wearing anything similar. That is the reason that I tend to limit the sources where I will look for comparative material.

I hope that this answers your question!