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Although there is some argument for not knowing a great deal
about the clothes one is wearing (apart from the fact that one
presumably likes the garment!), I have always taken an interest in
exactly how the pieces I wear are made up. Silly as it might
sound, I am of the belief that some the knowledge does has it’s uses
- particularly if one likes running up the odd piece of clothing
oneself.
OK. So where does one start? First and foremost let’s try and
combine all the pleated skirt variants at this stage rather than
talk of each separately, as we will be doing this on another page.
The TOP of the skirt is as good a place as any. (we are talking of
both pleated skirts and pleated dresses here). |
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Most pleated skirts have either a fixed or an elasticated
waist band. To the right we have one from a green STITCHED
DOWN knife pleat skirt with back zip and button fastening.
Note the stitching-down is ‘invisibly’ done. | |
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Here is an example of a stitched down knife pleat skirt
with ‘grown on’ waist band. Somewhat surprisingly these skirts
have no button and rely entirely on the security of the zipper
to stay up on the wearer! |
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The prettily patterned knife pleat skirt to the left has
unstitched hip pleats and therefore flares out from the waistband -
less flattering if you have large hips. I think these rather more
feminine than the stitched down type that always seem smarter and
more formal. |
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To the left and below we have examples of an elasticated waist
band with knife pleats (left) and sunray pleats (below.) To my mind,
the sunray pleat skirt band in this example is particularly neatly
made. |
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There are two ways of hip-stitching a pleated skirt. One way is
to ‘invisibly’ sew down the first 6-7 inches from the inside, like
with the green skirt further up, but more commonly one finds the
stitching quite visible as depicted with the smart navy skirt on the
left. These stitches have to be pretty secure as otherwise they will
start to come undone at the lower end - like with one of my smartest
skirts (see pik below). One can easily see the strain they have to
put up with in the pik where the wearer has smoothed the pleats open
(to either side) before sitting. |
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In the pik below we see a typical sunray pleat skirt with fixed
waistband and back zip and button fastening. Note the very neat way
of hiding the zipper so that only the tag is visible from the
outside. This is in fact a detail from my long black ‘dancing skirt’
which receives a great deal more punishment in the form of
‘skirt-work’ in use than was ever intended with formal wear! |
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And now for a few quick words on seams. All pleated skirts
with the exception of kilts, have a least one seam. Usually the
skirt manufacturers hide this neatly as a pleat fold - but sometimes
they go wrong! See the dreadful place where they put it (arrowed) on
my long spot skirt. Incredible! I also have an identical shorter
length spotty skirt which has it nicely hidden as a pleat fold.
Fortunately the long skirt depicted will soon be the subject of a
bit of re-designing as I want to turn it into a beach wrap. This
will involve |
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unpicking the waist band to remove the elastic and pressing
out all but two of the pleats with the ubiquitous hot iron and
damp cloth trick (methinks leaving a sharp pair of pleats to
one side at the front will look neat?) The material can then
be fastened as a straight tube wrap skirt with ties? The
material from the pleats should allow for enough surplus to
give a decent front wrap. |
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The pik on the left shows how the seam should be made
with a knife pleat skirt. Very neatly done don’t you
think? Mind you, the seam fold of the ‘pleat’ has almost
been pressed wide open already, although the skirt has
seen little use; confirming my observation about the
pleat immediately below back zip and button fastenings
opening out first. Compare this pik to the one below
which shows the next ‘real’ pleat along at the back from
the seam. |
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Below you can see one of the seams of my old white skirt
about to be transformed on the ironing board from outer-wear
to under-wear. As you can see, the ‘pleat’ it was supposed to
form has been pressed completely flat in use, but still gives
the appearance of being a pressed pleat rather than a
seam. |
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And lastly, a very quick mention of the HEM. There
are two basic types of hemming to be found. The
invisible way and the visible way! Whilst the stitching for
the hem is easily seen on both my prettily patterned knife
pleat dress (below centre) and on the white skirt (don’t look
at the bit ‘caught’ whilst on holiday - there’s hardly an inch
length of hem remaining without a pull in it). The blue
skirt’s hem however is almost invisible. (Look for it on the
pik to the left of the same skirt) The pik below is of the
seam at the front where it joins the hem. A bit bulky
but somehow the pleat holds in. (The pleats shown from my
dress are two of the almost pressed flat ones from the
back.) |
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