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About two weeks ago, Dan and I found ourselves with some vacation days to use and nowhere to go. After a quick consultation with our trusty advisor “The Internet” we had bargain flights and posh hotels booked and took off to Rome the following day. (Now, before you open your mouths to complain that Selfish doesn’t deserve the charmed life she leads, I should mention that this was no dream vacation. We were called back home after 3 days due to an emergency followed by a tragic and heartbreaking loss that I can’t even bear to talk about here, and that I wouldn’t wish upon any of my dear readers!)
Rome, as you may know, is home to something really big. Something amazing, huge, epic, and legendary that you can’t see anywhere else in the world. It’s so enormous, it’s monumental. One might even say it is … COLOSSAL.
That’s right, I’m talking about Fratelli Bassetti Tessuti.
Bassetti Tessuti (try saying it five times fast) claims to house upwards of 200,000 bolts of fabric. Selfish, as it turns out, is not good at visualizing large numbers of things. She know that she is 100 times awesomer than anyone she knows, and 1,000 times meaner. But what does 200,000 bolts of fabric mean? How many bolts are displayed in your average Jo-Ann? 2000? 10,000? What about the big Vogue fabrics flagship store in Evanston, IL? 20,000? 50,000? What about Mood in NYC? 100,000? 500,000? Seriously, I had no idea.
Well, after visiting Fratelli Basseti Tessuti (NY Times article here), I feel fairly sure that I had never before seen 200,000 bolts of fabric in one place. The place is an endless maze of rooms packed from floor to (very high) ceiling with bolts and bolts of Italian milled fabric. Room after room after room. Need some sweater knit? Here’s just one of multiple walls of the stuff:
Or perhaps you need some wool suiting? There’s a whole room’s worth:
And one for cotton shirting:
Just shirting here in this room, by the way. All the prints and other assorted cottons have their own rooms. And if you need something really posh?
Let’s take a closer look at this, shall we?
Versace, Gianfranco Ferre, Armani, Valentino, and other names I’d probably recognize if I were fancy enough to shop that room of the store.
This should have been heaven for Selfish, but as wonderful as the store is, I found it quite overwhelming. (Though lately I find even Mood and New York Elegant fabrics overwhelming, which is why I seem to spend most of my NY time at the more manageable Metro and Paron.) There’s no junk to be had at Bassetti- this stuff is high quality, and it looked like most (if not all) of the fabrics were Italian. I certainly didn’t find bargains either (though to be fair I only took a close look at about .0001% of what they had.) Wool coating and suiting looked to be upwards of 100 Euros per meter, and I didn’t even go near the silks or cashmeres. Selfish, who usually leaves no bolt unturned, was so intimidated by the sheer number of rooms and volume of fabrics, that she resorted to shopping by gut. If it didn’t catch my eye immediately on the wall, I moved on.
So what did I get? Surely even an overwhelmed and intimidated Selfish doesn’t leave a fabric monument empty handed. I ended up splurging on two pieces of beautiful stretch cotton sateen. Cotton sateen may not sound like a splurge fabric, but Bassuti prices put it somewhere upwards of Liberty fabric, albeit lower than Marimekko yardage. So we’re talking some posh cotton for a vacation splurge. And even though 200,000 bolts were vying for my attention, I did something that I never do- I bought the same fabric in two colorways – fuchsia and aqua. I just couldn’t decide which was more stunning and would make you more envious.
Although cheerful florals are rare in my stash, I have noticed that I have a particular weakness for florals without greenery. I find them somehow modern and edgy in a way that cuts the usual sweetness of floral prints. I just noticed that most of the floral prints in my stash are leaf-free.
The service here is very nice, with plenty of staff around who will gladly scurry up ladders to pull down the bolt all the way up top that you think could be pretty. And they don’t hold a grudge if it turns out that you’re not that into it. Interestingly, you pay for your purchases at this old school bank teller-esque window while a guy at another table holds your fabric hostage:
A mere two blocks from Fratelli Bassetti Tessuti, I also discovered the charming Fatucci Tessuti (try saying THAT five times fast), a much smaller store at Via dei Falegnami 63. It appears they have yet to invest in a sign.
The store is smaller, but it still boasts a lovely selection of high quality Italian fabrics. And the prices are much more splurgeable, as you can see:
Boiled wool coating at 18 Euros per meter, silks for 13 Euros per meter, etc. I love how they have it written up like a café menu. The proprietor was very helpful and I found this fabric shopping experience to be much more comfortable. Here are some of their silks and other offerings:
So what did I come out with? Surprise, it’s another greenery-free floral cotton!
This cotton is so smooth and silky and crisp it feels like a light taffeta. Using my broken Italian (which is actually better suited to fabric shopping than any other kind of shopping in Italy due to having read quite a number of La Mia Boutique issues) I first asked whether it was rayon because it was so smooth and sheen-y. Nope, 100% Italian cotton. I was drawn to it because these “tribal” prints are so popular and modern-looking right now. Though I don’t like referring to them as “tribal” because maybe actual tribespeople who read my blog are like, “Pfft. That’s not tribal. That’s fake tribal.” Hello, tribal readership- thanks for visiting The Selfish Seamstress!
After returning home, I discovered as I often do that the newest fabric in the stash is the most exciting. Out came one of the sateens and Simplicity 2473 (previously made up as the English Tutor Dress). Apologies- they’re not the best photos and the skirt is a little wrinkled from wearing, which I didn’t notice until after taking the pictures:
I wanted the midriff in a black contrast fabric. I found some black suiting remnants in my stash that I think are a poly or perhaps poly rayon blend. This seemed like a good idea because it had a little bit of a smooth sheen to it that I thought would go better with the sateen than a black wool flannel or other matte suiting. I’m not sure about it now though because it’s also got a little bit more drape than I was expecting, which causes the midriff to sag a little bit, making it look sort of like a cummerbund.
The slim skirt variation is shaped more like a straight skirt than a pencil skirt- it doesn’t taper to the knees. So I ended up skipping the back vent as there is plenty of walking ease (plus the stretch in the fabric). I also skipped the neck and arm facings and instead went for a full lining in ivory rayon (again, wrinkled from wear- sorry):
Here’s the back view- I used an invisible zipper:
And finally, here’s this shot that I took of myself sitting – I thought it would look all elegant and dreamy, but what it really does is make my *size 5* feet look huge!
I’ve got ideas for the “tribal” print though it may be a while until I get around to it. I’m not sure what I want to do with the aqua version of the floral sateen though, as I want it to be substantially different from the fuchsia version. Maybe something full-skirted and sundressy- something to wear on my next Italian vacation.
Inspired by Amber and her fantastic fitness regimen (I’m Obsessed with Amber, by the way), I’ve started dancing about five times a week to tone up and get fit. I’m only going to be doing this for a month and then I’ll get back to my normal, sane dance class schedule. It feels fantastic so far but it is definitely eating into my evenings, and hence my sewing time (and oh dear, that BurdaStyle book coat still needs to get started!) Plus the hip hop classes are making me think really stupid things like, “Hey, I should sew some new sweatpants!” No, no, no, stupid.
I did manage finally finally to hem the 1950s-style sheath dress I started months ago and neglected to finish, even though it would only have take 20 minutes. The pattern is derived from my much-loved Burda 5-2008-125, which I’ve made up as designed, in Audrey fashion, and now as a simple scoop-back sheath, using a modified version of the lining pattern. Here are some early morning sleepyface photos:
As you can see, I cut the back a little too wide and a smidge too deep and it’s showing some bra strap action. I’m going to need to some some clever little loops on the inside to keep everything hidden. Strapless undergarments and I only ever go out together very reluctantly.
The dress is made from a very vintage feeling stretch matte satin that mysteriously seems to have some cotton content to it, and it’s lined in Bemberg rayon. The zipper is handstitched as usual, and I gave another go at blindstitching the hem by machine. It’s still not blind enough compared to hand hemming in my opinion, but I guess this will come with practice.
I really need to dig through my piles and figure out what other perfectly serviceable unfinished garments are just waiting for a quick half hour of finishing. I suspect there are many. Maybe finishing them will distract me from thoughts of sweatpants…
These are some not-very-good pictures of a dress made from my favorite Burda Modemagazin dress pattern:
I made this a while ago, right after I got the issue, I think. (I was a bit slimmer at the time that I made this dress than at the time of the photos, so it looks a little overfitted here. But I wear it and love it anyway.)
I haven’t seen model 125 from the May 2008 issue of Burda reviewed on Pattern Review, or seen any other versions of it made up. I can’t understand why this pattern doesn’t have a cult following. Just look at it! Elegant, classic, but with just the right smidge of clever detailing to make it fun to sew and distinctive, but still a relatively quick and manageable project:
I know you’re all thinking the same thing right now: Why haven’t I made this dress? (Well, I’m not thinking it. Because I HAVE ONE.) Maybe you weren’t drawn to it because when Burda made it up, they insisted on using that crinkly fabric (yawwwwwn) that they love so much (why would you use this for a tailored style with ruching??) and letting the model swim in the upper part of the bodice:
That photo nearly threw me off too. But thank goodness for line drawings!
My version is made of some $1.79 bargain table fabric that feels like cotton poplin, but was probably too cheap to be 100% cotton. It’s deep olive green and has an interesting cobalt or navy blue sheen to it from certain angles, I think because some of the warp threads are a slightly shiny blue. The dress is fully lined, and it has a mock wrap front. The skirt is actually a regular pencil-type skirt with an extra flap over the front to give the wrap look. The bodice has princess seams and a waist seam in the front but not the back.
I love the style lines and the slim silhouette of this dress so much. Look carefully- it almost gives the impression that I have a waist rather than being shaped like a slightly flattened cardboard tube from the center of a roll of toilet paper! I also used the lining pattern from this dress as a block when drafting my Audrey Hepburn-style little black dress and I suspect I’ll use it again for future variations.
Why are you still reading this? Shouldn’t you be hunting eBay or your giant Sterlite container of Burda back issues in desperate search for this pattern? GO NOW.
The Selfish Seamstress 