PatternVault

15 years. 415 posts. 1,881 comments. 156,890 words.

PatternVault is fifteen! To celebrate a decade and a half of writing about fashion and fine sewing, I’ll be taking a three-part retrospective look at highlights, from the blog’s beginnings in July 2011, right through to summer 2026. (And include a bit of a peek at what’s next.)

The series that started it all

Fifteen years later, the posts in my opening series on Alexander McQueen sewing patterns are still among my most popular. (Click the images for more.)

Around the time of those first posts, my YSL wedding dress, which I made in a special black-on-black version of the McQueen tartan, could be seen in Vogue Patterns magazine and not long after, on the blog. Later, when Savage Beauty was opening in London, I curated some McQueen fabric posts.

Spotlight on designer patterns

As the Internet has evolved, I’ve had the opportunity to update the McQueen series with more and better images. The same goes for another early post, on John Galliano at Givenchy. It was great to find I was right about Galliano’s final Givenchy pattern being from the stunning Empress Josephine couture collection.

Yves Saint Laurent has been another constant, grounded by Paco Peralta’s foundational research. In addition to my Mondrian posts, I also featured collection-centred PatternVault posts on Yves Saint Laurent at Dior and the designer’s Forties-inspired Libération collection.

Other designers and labels I featured in the first five years of PatternVault included Guy Laroche, disco-era Krizia and Versace, Marc Jacobs for Perry Ellis, early Donna Karan, and André Courrèges. Despite the pattern industry’s longstanding interest in vintage reissues, there used to be less recognition of pattern companies as heritage brands. This blog was an outlier, and here at PatternVault I marked the 40th anniversary of the DVF wrap dress.

In 2012, I started sharing my research on interwar couture patterns to celebrate the Vionnet and Schiaparelli revivals, as well as Lanvin 125.

Patterns (and models) in Vogue

In the first five years of PatternVault, I also launched my Patterns in Vogue series with a post on Nick Knight’s surveillance-themed Kate Moss editorial, “Courrèges Edge.”

My early models posts — like those on Benedetta Barzini and Gia Carangi — sometimes doubled as Patterns in Vogue.

Costumes and TV and goth (oh my!)

In the first months and years of PatternVault, I also began my regular goth(ic), Halloween, and costuming posts, the latter starting with Star Wars and superhero patterns. Over the years, my costuming posts have been some of this blog’s most popular.

I still maintain a list of patterns inspired by Game of Thrones, and brought together costuming and disco in 2012 with my Quaithe dress — photographed on the Toronto shoreline.

From my 1920s, True Blood-inspired couture sewing, my velvet Martial et Armand wrap was the piece I wore again. I later found an illustration of my wrap and dress together. Aren’t they charming?

In some of my early PatternVault posts, I also featured historical costume and on-screen costuming work — starting with my Mad Men series in 2011.

In the vein of Mad Men, I also enjoyed featuring the occasional post about vintage sewing advertising, including McCall’s “Make the Clothes that Make the Woman” campaign.

Books, sewing, and industry news

During the early years, I also reviewed two books — a Spanish catalogue on Pedro Rodríguez and Joy Emery’s A History of the Paper Pattern Industry — and edited a sewing book, Bias Cut Blueprints.

In 2014, Naomi photographed me at TIFF’s David Cronenberg show in Vogue 2248 from Alexander McQueen’s Blade Runner collection for Givenchy, in a shoot that yielded my PatternVault author photo.

And I’m proud to say that, in early 2016, I was featured as a Vogue Patterns Star Blogger.

I closed out the first five years with some news about the abrupt end to Donna Karan patterns, following the designer’s departure to her new label, Urban Zen. As it turned out, Urban Zen pattern licensing didn’t happen, but it gave me a taste for writing about industry news that would shape the next half-decade of PatternVault.

Everyone loves free patterns

In 2013, I launched my free designer pattern series with a post about SHOWstudio’s Giles Deacon dress pattern. Other free patterns were sourced from The Observer, the V&A, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Not surprisingly, this series featuring free designer patterns available online has consistently produced some of my most popular posts.

Some highlights from the early years of this series include: Patrick Kelly’s one-seam coat, Alexander McQueen’s Scanners kimono jacket, JW Anderson’s top and skirt, and designs from John Galliano and Junya Watanabe for the Costume Institute’s PUNK: Chaos to Couture.

Next up: PatternVault 2016 – 2021

Stay tuned for the next post in my anniversary series, covering years six to ten of the PatternVault blog.

(Biba! Swimwear! Outlander!)