Here you go! My first Self-Stitched September outfit post. These are the outfits from the 2nd and 3rd of the month, which I’m grouping together because they involve the same skirt.

This skirt is from a pattern from 1975, which I picked up for 50p at a vintage stall a year ago. It turns out it’s just my size, and it really does have a lovely shape – full at the hem but slim through the hips, meaning you can wear it with sweaters without worrying about the frumpy bulk factor. I love the pattern cover, those breezy ladies with impossibly long legs! And although the pattern styling in the drawings is obviously dated, I don’t really think the skirt shape itself is.

I couldn’t resist making a change to the pattern, and adding pockets across the hip, lined with some leftover floral cotton.

This skirt makes use of one of my favourite clothing strategies: a slightly smart, tailored style made from a casual fabric, in this case a medium-wash denim. I love tailored styles, fabrics like wool, or simply the interest of details like buttons, pockets, and clever seams which you often don’t get on properly casual garments, but the clothes with these features can often look formal or fussy unless you work in a really professional job. For many years now I’ve had various jobs where I felt I needed to dress up a step from jeans, but much more casually than a pinstripe pencil skirt, and I think this combination of a slightly smart shape in a casual fabric is very versatile for that type of everyday wear. If anyone says derisively, ‘Hey you, why are you so formally dressed in this semi-casual office setting?’ you can say, ‘What! This is just a denim skirt!’ And if they say, ‘Hey you, why are you wearing denim in this office environment?’ you have the devastating retort: ‘On the contrary, this is a tailored skirt: look at the single welt pockets.’ See, an answer for every sartorial attack.

Incidentally, if there are any sewists reading this, I got the fabric from Dragonfly Fabrics. It wasn’t cheap, but it’s beautiful fabric – substantial but with drape – and their service was excellent and their shipping fast and reasonable.