The Knitted Dress: Can a Dated Style Be Revived?
Dress: improvised cable-raglans Aran-weight poloneck sorta thing
Yarn: Wendy something or other 100% wool from the 1990s??
Model: Kate Y.
Q: I remember in the early days, you knitted quite a few dresses. What has become of them? In keeping with the fashion of the times, I am finding that I don’t tend to wear mine so much anymore. They are all above the knee, and now look quite dated! What is your advice?
A: In the past I have always thought of fashion as incremental. But some time around 2018, it felt as if there was a noticeable shift in stylistic tendencies - with loose, elongated, low-contrast silhouettes replacing the more fitted and prints-dominated looks of the previous decade.
And it seems to me, that no garment suffered more from this abrupt change than the dress. The short, quirky-print frock over tights look was decisively out, in favour of the long monotone oversized dress that created a ‘solid column of colour’ effect. And a knitted dress that was not only short, but form-fitting, suddenly looked quite dated.
As it happens, I spent the latter part of 2018 pregnant. For that reason, I gave away most of the dresses I’d knitted over the previous years, in anticipation that my body would never quite revert to its pre-pregnancy state. So that is what became of most of those dresses, to answer that specific question.
But to address the topic of trends…
I admit, one reason I have not published a dress pattern recently, is related to this very issue. A dress in keeping with today’s stylistic trends would need to be quite long. Which means vast quantities of yarn. And extra time to knit the sample. And an enormous commitment for those who consider purchasing the pattern. I still love dresses and still plan/ hope to design at least one, ‘soon’… but, as you can see it hasn’t quite happened!
During my recent house move, I did find one dress from the so-called ‘early days.’ I believe I knitted it in 2016. To my surprise it still fits me, and even has a half-reasonable amount of ease around the torso. If it were longer (a lot longer), I could definitely see myself wearing it again.
And that is certainly one solution to the dated dress dilemma. If you have reserves of the original yarn, adding length is certainly an option to make the garment look current again.
Unfortunately, I do not have additional yarn. So, another consideration was to unravel the skirt part and convert the dress into a pullover.
However, whilst trying on the dress, I noticed that it actually looked quite good as a tunic - worn over loose, wide-legged trousers. So in the end I decided to keep it exactly as it was, but style it differently. Styled in this manner, I plan to wear the dress once it gets cold enough this coming Autumn/ Winter… by which time, no doubt, the trends will change once again!
..Which brings me to yet another option: The long game! Change nothing. Keep the dress in storage. Then retrieve it again in 20 years, when the trends change in its favour once again! The end.
