Vested Interest

Apologies once again for my appalling lack of blogging. Hopefully slightly more regular posting will resume after my exams finish in two weeks time.

Anyway, as promised some time ago, this post is dedicated to my completed prom suit. I stuck to the Topman suit I bought online, however I must say I was rather disappointed by the trousers, whose darker shade of cream contrasted terribly with the lighter coloured blazer. In fact, though the trousers are very unique and elegantly styled in their own right, they go with very few blazers, I found to my cost, as I tried them with every tweed blazer I had at my disposal. Finding a shirt to go with them was also very challenging; in the end I had to resort to simple blacks and greys.

Having decided to ignore the trousers, I was left with something of a problem: what to wear with a patterned blazer designed to go with matching trousers? Perhaps black was the boring option, but in my desperation, it seemed like the option with the lowest risk of prom-night-embarrassment. To liven things up, I took a black shirt and glued diamantes all the way down the centre. You can't see it in these pictures, but I also stuck diamantes around the cuffs and applied a line of studded diamantes across the seam on the back which stretches from shoulder to shoulder. 

The party piece of my outfit is the diamante bow tie. It may have taken hours of painstaking labour to apply the 3mm diamantes to the black backing, but the rewards were immensely satisfying - I relished each compliment all the more knowing that I had made the bow tie myself. Unfortunately I cannot take credit for the manufacture of my two-tone shoes, but they're such classic shoes that they've garnered almost celebrity-like status at my school. Would definitely recommend them to anyone seeking to stick out in a formal environment. They're also great for disguising an inability to dance! 

Method:

1.

Turn your material around and draw a rectangle of dimensions approx: 23cm by 16cm. Cut out- it doesn't matter if the cut is a little rough.

2.

Do the same for a second sheet of fabric, this time cut it into a rectangle approx 17cm by 12cm- you can alter these dimensions depending on how big you want it to be.

3.

Do the same for the smaller rectangle. Pin the edges together to make sewing easier. You don't need to pin the edge where the two folds meet.

5.

Sew all the way around the edge where the edge is pinned. Leave a gap on the side where the folds meet so that you can turn the shape inside out. Do this for both rectangles.

6.

Use the hole to fold the shape inside out- this way the shape looks a lot neater. The corners can be tricky to turn, so I found using the end of a pair of scissors to push them through was very helpful.

7.

Sew up the hole you used to turn the material inside out. You should end up with two shapes like this (see above)

8.

If you're doing bow ties for a couple of friends, you could try mixing up some different combinations of clashing patterns, like beige zebra and polka dot, or paisley and leopard print (inspired, even if I do say so myself!)

9.

To make the centre piece of the bow tie, cut another rectangle from the outer bow tie material, about 5 cm in width and a few inches in height (it doesn't really matter how long it is, as you can cut it to size later). Fold twice in on itself to make a triple thickness strip and sew along the length of the material. You can do the same for other bow ties if you're making more than one- as you can see, I haven't been consistently accurate with the length:

Take your bow tie body, place the smaller rectangle on top of the rectangle, as close to central as possible (like in step 8). Pinch the bow tie at the centre, making sure both the top and bottom rectangles are pinched. Sew through the centre several times, as demonstrated below.


Take the strip of material which corresponds to the material of the larger rectangle in the bow tie. Wrap it once around the pinch at the centre of the bow tie, and sew through the centrepiece in the same way you sewed through the pinch.


You might want to think about customising the bow ties to give them a more personal touch, as I have done for the bow ties I'm giving to my closest friends. I warn you though, it can be quite difficult to force a claw-backed stud through several layers of fabric. It might be advisable to punch through the material with a craft knife or the sharp end of some scissors first.

 Tweed jacket- £15 from Rockit in Camden Town (huge selection of Tweed jackets here, all at £15)

Jumper- £15 from Primark

Shirt- £15 from M&S

Houndstooth bow tie- £12 from Camden (somewhere!)

Chinos- £38.99 from Topman

Brogues- £50 from Clarks