Dark Academia - anyone who loves this style?

[highlandcoo]

And where to find it?

This is how I want to dress this winter. More skirts and dresses rather than trousers as my waist is not the best and the trousers can look bulky unless you have a good waistline I think.

I love tweed and wool and flannel and autumn colours. Not black! Although brown is sometimes hard to find. Love brown leather for boots and bags. I really want to get away from jeans and chunky boots for a change.

I think I can knit some jumpers and cardigans. But I would love a big tweedy coat. I have a couple of really nice brown tweed hats from a shop in Edinburgh who made the hats for Peaky Blinders. But I need the right sort of coat to go with them. My long cosy puffy coat is cosy but totally wrong.

Any aficionados out there?

That sounds like an excellent plan @MoltenLasagne!

I’m so impressed by anyone who can make their own clothing. I’m still at the slightly-wobbly-hemming stage with my sewing machine. Some day!

I was staying with my mother in law enjoying a nice time as my kids were more occupied with Granny and the dog than me. I read half a dozen books and went a bit bonkers on vinted. I am tall(ish) and carry all my weight on my tummy and chest so this look can easily look a bit frumpy on me. I also have back problems so can't wear heels and I am an academic librarian so frumpy cliche is easy. Even when I really like how I look my much younger sister thinks I look frumpy anyway. I am learning to sew but I need a lot more practise before I can get the fit right sometimes.

I am particularly pleased with the Seasalt cord pinafore. I have wanted a pinafore dress for ages but not found one that fits well. This does! The mustard dress I think will be nice with dark green accessories and suit my colouring better that way. The polka dot dress and the black one with small flowers both have Peter pan collars which I adore (even if style rules declare because I am busty I should avoid, I don't care!) The plaid dress is a surprising hit. It fits so well and I think will be lovely with my low heel tan brogue shoes for work. The skirt I think would pair well with dark teal. It isn't as dark as a lot of dark academia style, probably more academia/vintage/librarian vibe but I am looking forward to wearing it all. I would like a new pair of tan/brown ankle boots. Preferably with laces and a brogue/victoriana vibe. I have a nice black pair like that and a dark green Chelsea style suede boot that should be last another winter but a brown pair would be very useful.

Oh and for decent fitting and good quality tights I recommend snags. As a long legged person finding snags have made a HUGE difference. Even worked during pregnancy

I love silk velvet dresses. I picked up a gorgeous on from Toast once but it never fitted 😕
Wyse London have a lovely one in at the moment. Can't justify the expense at mo.

Great haul!

@Merryhobnobs I love the idea of dark, green Chelsea boots! I seem to have quire a few Chelsea boots, including dark, purple wellies and dark grey, nubuck Blundstones. They go just as well with trousers as well as dresses and skirts.

I love silk velvet too, I have a vintage, black blazer from Viyella that was my mum's. I wear it quite a bit in autumn.

I’m also very tempted by finding a velvet blazer…don’t suggest any to me please, the bank account can’t take it 😂

Yay velvet blazers! Interestingly, this is the only place I've seen DA fans advocating for them to be part of the aesthetic. Is it because we fondly remember them from our 90s youth, long before the TikTok crowd were born?

I have a brown velvet blazer in the loft that my mum wore in the 70s and I wore in the 90s/00s. I need to lose some weight to get back into it!

@Catchasingmewithspiders Brown velvet jackets are perfect! Wish I still had mine. I think it was St Michael, most of them were. Fat arms are a problem for me these days and the reason why most of my surviving 70s jackets have gone to my DDs.

It looks great on you.

I’m only 5’ 2” though, so it looks as if it would be far too long. Thanks for posting the pic.

I have a black velvet fitted jacket I wore with 501s in the 80s but dusted it off a couple of years ago.

This is more workwear but there's still a lot of DA possibilities and they seem good quality:

www.carriercompany.co.uk/collections/womens/Type_Knitwear

@Alpacasoft, re knitting in the round, I've only made Lopi jumpers a very long time ago, and in lockdown I knitted hats on circular needles for everyone I knew. (baby hats with flowers were really fun to make). Then last year I had a bash at a jumper for me with raglan sleeves, knitted from the neck down. Somehow it went so wrong. I realised when I got to the chest part I would need one very fat and one very thin arm to fit it. When I can face it I'll unravel it and have another go.

@MmePoppySeedDefage these velvet dresses are just beautiful! So many lovely colours. I wonder where the waistline falls .. I am short-waisted and I often find there's too much fabric bunching up at the back of dresses. If anyone buys one please could you report back?

Nice colours in the Carrier Company knitwear too!

Oh no!
Sounds like you miscounted the stitches for the arms.
I put the arm stitches onto some spare yarn.
I double check that everything is correct before knitting the body.

Arm stitches should be equal and stitches for body equal so eg 68 L arm 100 body front 68 R arm 100 back obvs will depend on your pattern.
I love knitting top down.
Once you can picture what you are doing is so easy and you can lengthen the yoke as needed.
Frog back and have another go!

@highlandcoo

Do you use stitch markers?
I use them to mark different sections,lace patterns etc

Coming to report that TKMaxx online have some gorgeous DA stuff in at mo.

Wool coats/blazers and edwardian style collared dresses etc.

@Denimdreams and @Alpacasoft thanks - I did use stitch markers and I did start off with the right number of stitches but somehow the increasing for the raglan sleeves went really wrong! Can't explain it.
I've recently joined the WI in our village and in the autumn there'll be a craft group starting. I'm sure there will be someone who can keep me right so I may put off restarting until then..
I'm generally not bad at knitting - can do Fair Isle and Arran and often help friends if they're struggling so this has been very frustrating!

Have you checked for errata online?
It might not be you!

This thread is not helping my bank balance!

I have a new pair of ankle boots and a wool longline cardigan on the way from tkmaxx

My wool dress from house of bruar needs to go back so now I'm on the look out for a wool dress as well but next month definitely!

Not velvet but I have a Harris Tweed jacket that was my Grandad's, I reckon it's early 80's and might even be late 70's

@Brexile I think it might be because we are also channelling louche velvet smoking jackets into the look as well. And why not, I say. It’s meant to be a fairly androgynous aesthetic!

I have also learned lots about fabrics since this thread started :-) I always assumed that flannel (as in a pair of “white flannel bags”) was the same material as a face flannel, vaguely thought it was an odd choice for summer but never really thought further about it. Turns out…nope it’s not 🤦‍♀️ Also really interesting to see just how thin and smooth tweed can be.

Sorry for spreeing, coffee has not yet kicked in!

This is my major bugbear with Vinted. Unless the seller has posted a photo of the label ive no idea what fabric it is. I was looking for cashmere and silk last night - it's impossible. Even the material filter is wrong - people listing a jumper as being cashmere when it's a primark item!

I ask for further details on fabric information if I'm unsure as I've been caught out in the past.

You're better off going to women's jumpers then filtering by material 'cashmere' rather than searching for cashmere jumper as due to the way the app works a search will bring back anything in the description with the word cashmere e.g. "this is 100% polyester from Primarni but it feels like cashmere to me".