100 wears?: work clothes

Due to a lack of blogging, a 2019 retrospective would be a bit strange, so instead I am posting about some unblogged projects that I have worn frequently. This is inspired by Carolyn's 2019 retrospective post where she beautifully documents her favourite and also most worn garments. Being limited in the time available to indulge in my favourite hobby, it pleases me greatly when someone talks about how often they wear a garment that they have sewn, as this helps me to choose my projects, but Carolyn describes a negative response to this inclusion

" inevitably someone will comment “that doesn’t sound like many wears to me!  I’ve got things I’ve worn a hundred times this year, at least!”  to which I usually think – did you actually count?"

I'm not guilty of this querulous comment made to Carolyn, but after her post I'm counting, and I will show you what happens when you wear a garment 100 times. Usually this involves a pointed comment on one's shabbiness from the family fashion panel. It also usually takes me more than a year to wear a garment 100 times.

Category 1: Work clothing

3  days a week, woven cotton shirt and tailored trousers for clinical work , 1-2 days a week, a dress or skirt/top (mostly I work 4 days a week. I am a very fortunate person.)

This is an easy category to count, as I typically have a limited work wardrobe of 3-5 shirts and 3-4 pairs of trousers. These are always handmade and are always worn once then washed. At the moment I have 1 summer only shirt, 1 winter only shirt and 2 transeasonal shirts and two pairs of trousers that fit. This wardrobe is very limited but does mean that I can wear a different shirt on every clinical day and that I can have clean trousers for every clinical day. I wear a dress or skirt on non clincal days.

Here is a work shirt and a glimpse of work trousers, both made in November 2016 and unblogged

The shirt is a modified version of Burda Style 02-2010-114 and the trousers are self drafted. I've added an inverted pleat to the back for movement ease and left the sleeves uncuffed as I plan to only wear the sleeves rolled up unless length is needed for sun protection.

 The shirt is made from a mid weight woven cotton, with a fairly loose weave,provenence forgotten, and it is trimmed with cotton lawn. All of the seams are either bound with bias binding and topstitched, or are french seams.

This shirt is from the same pattern, you can see here that I have modified the back to include a box pleat for movement ease,  and added a contrasting standard cuff and placket rather than the french cuffs and faux placket of the pattern. This fabric is a high quality cotton seersucker from A Fabric Place.

The second shirt is worn with a different pair of trousers, from the same self drafted pattern,  and the fabric is a heavier wool twill, lined with imperial batiste. I only wear these trousers in winter, which from a weather point of view, is a very short season here. During winter I wear these trousers twice a week, again washing each time. My job in health, and our subtropical climate require this level of washing.

I originally made these two shirts to take on a work and holiday trip to Sri Lanka, but rejected the seersucker shirt as I found it quite warm to wear. The orange shirt, however, is cool to wear, having only a mandarin collar, no sleeve cuffs and a looser weave.

I wore the orange shirt about 6 times in two weeks in Sri Lanka,  hand washing it after each wear.

I then wore it at least once a week to work during 2017 and 2018 - say worn and washed  96 times over 96 weeks, so over 100 wearings after 2 years.

It was looking pretty shabby. My husband suggested that I throw it out.

I mended the back pleat a few times, then retired it, probably 6 months later than I should have done, to be a hiking shirt. I am allowed to wear old clothes when hiking :). It went on holidays again in July  2019, for a week of remote camping and walking. I nearly threw it out at the end of the trip, but it's still in my wardrobe  and has been relegated further down the wearing suitability ranking and is now a gardening/painting shirt. Such is the versatility of a long sleeved, sun protective yet cool to wear shirt. 

 

The seersucker shirt is not often worn in the hottest parts of summer. I wear it at least once a week to work from March to November so 43 times a year minimum, so its now up to 1at least 129 wears. No wonder that I've had to repair the hand embroidered running stitch several times! This shirt has held up a lot better as it's made of a much higher weave and probably longer strand cotton. No one has threatened it with the bin to date.

The first pair of trousers are made of tropical weight wool, lined with imperial batiste (polycotton). I wear these 3 days a fortnight, all year, washing after each wear, so they are now up to 108 wearings. There are probably two more years of wear in these trousers. The second pair of trousers, identical other than being made from a heavier wool, were worn at least 100 times over about 7 years. I threw them out this winter after the second repair of the seam at the bottom of the yoke which had become worn at the side seams.

I don't aim for 100 wears from a garment. It is not reasonable to expect this from most items of clothing. However, if you sew with good quality fabric, wash gently ( and line dry), garments can sometimes be worn 100 times or more without being completely worn out. I find that sewing work clothes is not my favourite type of sewing, but I am content to do it, with the goal of achieving well fitting, comfortable clothes that look reasonably smart and professional, and will last. I have never yet found a pair of RTW trousers that fit, and a well fitting shirt that is suitable for work is a rare find.

 This theoretically frees my sewing time for more frivolous and entertaining sewing, but having done some counting to write this post I now think that I should sew myself another work outfit or two before my family fashion panel edits my wardrobe again.