Have We Met Before?

I "discovered" In Style magazine about a year ago while in a hospital waiting room and really appreciated it's goal - to simply cover fashion.  Period.  The issue I perused didn't have articles on revving up my sex life, or adding the latest home decorating trend to my living room, or new recipes to encourage my family to ditch eating New York strip steak in favor of tofu, or a perceived overabundance of advertising - just some of the problems I've had with other so-called fashion magazines.  So, I recently started my subscription and have been eagerly waiting for my inaugural issue to arrive in the mail.  While thumbing through and adding page markers with Post-It notes (I dislike folded "dog-ear" pages), look what I found on page 78...

This dress looks so familiar.  Where have I seen this?


Then it came to me...this looks just like Vogue 8900, part of the summer 2013 pattern collection they recently published.

So, of course you know I embarked on a mission to learn more about the designer dress.  As part of Carven's Spring 2013 Ready-to-Wear line, I initially thought the fabric looked like a traditional French toile print, but a closer look showed it's actually a safari-themed fabric.  Interesting?  I wanted to learn more.

It seems this exact dress is not available for sale online - or, at least I couldn't find it - but I found another dress from the collection which appears to be made of the same fabric choice.  According to net-a-porter, the dress is made of a linen-cotton blend and retails for $560.00.

Knowing it would be a long-shot to find a similar safari-themed print, I wondered what toile print choice could be found and its price.  There are many, many options available online, the prices of which varying greatly, anywhere from $6 to $22 or more per yard.  But, given the Vogue pattern calls for a maximum of 2 yards of fabric - and that's if it's only 45" wide - you could create your version of Carvin's dress for about fifty bucks.  That's a huge value!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just one of the reasons why I love sewing!

Be blessed!

Aisha