A Twist on Stripes

This skirt is heavily influenced by one from the Marc Jacobs fall collection.  You’ve seen it.  Everyone seems to be blogging about it.  When I saw the photo, I went to my fabric collection to find something that can create a reasonable facsimile of it.   I found this silk organza and bottom weight cotton that will do nicely.  Actually, I found several combinations that would work, and I may indeed make another.  I wanted it to be summery, to wear right now. 

 When I do knockoffs, I tend to take a look at a garment or a photo, then it kind of morphs in my head into something either slightly or radically different.  After I completed the project, I checked the photo of the MJ skirt, I realized that the MJ stripes are different widths.  It looks to me like the sheer stripes on the original are tulle.  I will try to get to a fancy store to get a look at the skirt, but since it seems to be turning into the must-have item for fall, it will probably not be on display on the sales floor.  It may take all of my sucking-up skills for me to get the salesperson to fetch one from the back so I can see it.

I stitched the stripes together, finished the seams, and topstitched.  The weight of 3 rows of stitching combined with the stiffness of the silk organza gives this skirt a nice bell shape.  It has a zipper hidden in the pocket.  I did not hem it because I wanted the bottom organza stripe to remain as sheer as possible.  The pattern is from Burdastyle 9/09.  I used it to make a skirt last year, as well:  https://couturearts.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/white-linen-overload/.  Actually, I thought to use this pattern while I was wearing the white skirt and sewing together the fabric to make stripes.

Here is the link to the original: http://www.style.com/fashionshows/complete/slideshow/F2010RTW-MJACOBS?event=show2062&designer=design_house57&trend=&iphoto=19

Back View

Here it is on my light box so you can see the sheerness of the organza

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