This was supposed to be a happy post about a sassy jumpsuit I made for a friend’s bachelorette party a few weekends ago in Boston. A post about how I took two patterns, the Holly pants pattern from By Hand London and a McCall’s bodice pattern from a dress, mashed them together, and came up with a jumpsuit that made me feel like a million bucks, as well as a jumpsuit that my fiance hated, which meant it must be 100% awesome (because boys are stupid sometimes). I was man-repelling in this baby, and I didn’t really care.
However, that is not the story for this post. But, it does have a semi-happy ending.
Wanting to wear something special for a night out in the city, I splurged on some Monique L’Huillier silk crepe de chine, digitally printed in Italy.
Did you catch that last sentence? There is nothing not amazing about that sentence!!! Her garments made out of fabric like this sell at Bergdorf Goodman, omg.
Stumbling upon amazing designer finds like that at Fabric Place Basement is why I keep coming back over and over again. There were so many stunning prints to choose from, and I ended up landing on this green/black colorway that looked like abstract-printed butterfly wings. Beautiful drape, easy to sew, and felt great on the skin. I couldn’t wait to wear it when I was finished!
A full-length shot in my hotel room before we went out to dinner – was loving this whole look so much.
We then proceeded to have a fun night of dinner, a cruise out in the harbor on a boat with a live band, and then drinks and dancing back at our hotel. All-in-all, not a rowdy night, especially for a bachelorette party (we may or may not have asked some guys to pose for butt-judging contest…as you do when you’re out for a bachelorette paty!)
With all of that being said, someone please tell me how this happened all over the front of my jumpsuit:
I started to notice this happening as the night went on. At first, I thought it was fuzz from my white napkin at dinner, but it grew progressively worse and worse as the night went on. Keep in mind, silk crepe de chine is a pretty durable fabric, dresses and blouses are made from it all the time. I also want to mention that I didn’t wash/launder this fabric in any way, shape, or form before I made this, figuring if I needed to clean it I’d take it to the dry cleaners. This pilling/pulling/bearding was all over the top of my thighs, lower part of the bodice, and along the upper side seams of the pants. The back was completely fine, which I couldn’t understand! If anything, if friction caused this, this should have happened to the rear-end from all of the sitting I did that evening. Even when I got home, I tried to replicate this effect by rubbing and picking at the fabric, but I couldn’t get the fabric to behave as such.
So, I took my beloved jumpsuit to the store, spoke to a manager, and explained to her what happened – she was just as stumped and puzzled as I was as to why and how this happened. After taking it to the back to show one of the other associates and figure out if there was any kind of solution to this, she came back out and apologized for this happening to my garment and gave me a full refund. The whole point of taking my jumpsuit in was to let the store know they may have a faulty roll of fabric – I’d hate for this to happen to someone else! I’m also really glad she was so understanding and accomodating, because this wasn’t a small amount of money spent on this project.
Trying to be the eternal optimist, I’m seeing the silver lining of this whole experience that this jumpsuit was a “first run” of the future version that I will eventually make again. I really liked this garment, and got lots of wonderful compliments in the few short hours I wore it, so I know the next one I make will be just as fabulous to wear. And yes, much to my fiance’s protestation, I will wear the new version out to dinner with him. So there!
Have you ever had a freaky-weird situation with fabric for a garment you made?
I literally have a frown on my face. What a fabulous look. I'm sorry I don't have any clues as to why this happened.
I am also clueless, but I'm really happy the store made it right.
How sad!! Looks like it was a fab jumpsuit, so hopefully you'll make another. I've never had that happen to me on CDC—so puzzling!
Oh dear! What an awful thing to happen to your beautiful jumpsuit. Is your purse to blame, maybe? If you took one with you that you normally wear to the front, perhaps a small burr on it kept catching your fabric. I've had that happen before, so it came to mind.
I'm glad the shop was so understanding though.
That is just so disappointing! The jumpsuit looks awesome, what a shame it was a single use item of clothing! Very glad to hear that they gave you your money back, though I'm sure it's hard for them to know about the quality of the fabric they sell a lot of the time and have to go by the quality of the supplier, and in this case, who would question it?
Oh man, what a bummer! According to the textile science class I'm in right now, pilling happens when synthetic fibers break (wool pilling is a different situation), so it's possible there's some sneaky stuff that isn't silk in the fabric. And sometimes the designer label fabric at stores is just surplus from the designer, but other times it's rejected stuff from the mills, so you have to be really careful when you buy it- there may be a reason that the designer didn't use it. 🙁 But I hope you make another one of these jumpsuits! It's such a nice style and you look really cool in it!