Sewing Bee is back!

[Cocolapew]

14th April

I am not responsible for internet rabbit holes

DON'T MAKE ME TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY OWN ACTIONS!

@SchadenfreudePersonified, that was glorious! Love Downton.

[quote MarchXX]@SchadenfreudePersonified, that was glorious! Love Downton.[/quote]
Glad you enjoyed it MarchXX

There is anther one but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

I love sewing bee. So glad it is back. I sew quite a bit but not garments really.

My sewing buddies and I are always saying "oh esme wouldn't approve" about shoddy seams/ zipper inserts (the one I did today was a shocker...)

I actually saw Esme a couple of weeks ago when I was out walking with my sister and was all set to go off and speak to her because I thought I knew her... the penny dropped just as I was saying "Oh, hi, how are you?"

My sister was very embarrassed. I have form for this - previous people I've tried it on were Gordon Brown (in his chancellor of the exchequer days) and John Hannah.

Just dug out my Laura Ashley "buffet dress" picture circa 1981. Worn for ease of changing under the covers in bed on stage in Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce. It was a hairy time but I always managed to do it with seconds to spare thanks to the capacious nature of the dress!

Did they make up the name Buffet Dress?

@NutellaEllaElla

Did they make up the name Buffet Dress?

I think so, I'd never heard it before.

No one seems to have heard of it before. I think they made it up. God knows why.

@NutellaEllaElla

No one seems to have heard of it before. I think they made it up. God knows why.

Perhaps 'Gypsy' dress has connotations.

I did a quick Google for 'buffet dress' and I did find several mentions dated before this episode aired. The earliest mention was August 2019, so well before this year's Sewing Bee was filmed. The mentions were on fashionista type sites, so perhaps the name was well known to the people who decide on the patterns/styles to be made even if it wasn't in common usage.

BlackAmericano, yes, I've seen some mentions of it pre-dating the Bee too.
There was that white and black polka dot Zara dress in summer 2019 (I think) that seemed to be everywhere. That's voluminous. I don't know if they specifically called it a buffet dress though.

The name buffet dress does not inspire me one little bit!
It just makes me think of plates piled high and people stuffing their face with beige food

Whereas 'tea dress' is a delight! Thinly cut cucumber sandwiches and scones!
Skater dress... lovely on young people
Bardot dress ... va va voom!
Ditto shift dress and pencil dress. It's a style I love and suits my figure until it got fat

I agree, Roussette. At very best it makes me think of Abigail's Party. But mainly I think of tiny sausage rolls

Yes
Whoever dreampt up the term 'buffet dress' did not play a blinder there!

Perhaps 'Gypsy' dress has connotations.

Wasn't there a giant upheaval last year around the naming of things and cultural appropriation? There was a lot of re-naming of patterns and styles at that time (e.g. Kimono Jackets). Maybe Buffet Dress was all they had left after they named all the other stuff.

It really does have implications of Joey's eating pants to me.

Yeah they are what I would normally call 'gypsy dresses' and they've decided to err on the side of caution and call it something else. Maybe they should have said, 'the buffet dress formally known as gypsy' then we wouldn't be so bewildered by it!

@Whitney168
To be honest, I'm actually getting a bit 'over' the original, The Bake Off - challenges seem to be getting a bit repetitive, and the contestants don't seem to be quite the same somehow, perhaps in the rush to make sure we have all the diversity boxes ticked, some of the better ones are passed over? Nice people, but somehow not turning out the quality of earlier contestants

That sounds like you think the contestants who tick the "diversity" box are not there based on merit. Surely you are not suggesting that?

[quote tofuschnitzel]**@Whitney168
To be honest, I'm actually getting a bit 'over' the original, The Bake Off - challenges seem to be getting a bit repetitive, and the contestants don't seem to be quite the same somehow, perhaps in the rush to make sure we have all the diversity boxes ticked, some of the better ones are passed over? Nice people, but somehow not turning out the quality of earlier contestants

That sounds like you think the contestants who tick the "diversity" box are not there based on merit. Surely you are not suggesting that?[/quote]
I know what @Whitney168 is getting at, and I think she's used "diversity" for want of a better word.

It's as though rather than look for good home bakers, the producers (or whatever) have gone for "characters" who will make "good" TV in their opinion, presumeably to try to draw a bigger audience and to sell/markey the show t the US, where "whacky" is what they want. A.lso "moving" back stories

It's like they have a list. "We need an old one, a gay one (either sex), a Muslim one, a non-Causacian one, a single dad, a one who collects one raisins and displays them on the mantel piece, a plucky one recovering from a motorcycle accident, a one who only started sewing last Friday but can make a ball-gown out of tea-towels, an ex-serviceman living in a shop doorway with 50 recipes for mouse-piec etc etc".

In order to avoid a formula (mum/ grandma/ auntie who bakes for school fetes/ birthdays etc), they've introduced another formula - to have everyone as whacky as possible and it's lost its "naturalness".

I appreciate they want to cover all bases and be open to a wide audience, but it just seems to have lost something and I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's era has passed - who knows?

(And I'm not interested in the obstacles they've had to overcome, though I don't mind seeing a few kids/ dogs/ cats and horses)

Sorry for typos

I agree about the possible 'box ticking'. You'd think it'd be mostly older females that sew. That's the majority in my sewing groups that I'm on. I like sewing bee but I don't know why everything has to be so jazzed up and everyone has to have a big personality. I wish there was more sewing and less life stories.

[quote tofuschnitzel]@Whitney168
To be honest, I'm actually getting a bit 'over' the original, The Bake Off - challenges seem to be getting a bit repetitive, and the contestants don't seem to be quite the same somehow, perhaps in the rush to make sure we have all the diversity boxes ticked, some of the better ones are passed over? Nice people, but somehow not turning out the quality of earlier contestants

That sounds like you think the contestants who tick the "diversity" box are not there based on merit. Surely you are not suggesting that?[/quote]
To be honest I think too many bake off contestants are not there on merit. I find the worst are young instagrammers and white middle aged men with no experience and a lot of misplaced confidence. In my view it's not diversity that's the problem. In fact contestants from ethnic minority backgrounds usually do well because they are there on talent and thrive when able to use their cultural influences and creatively.

To some extent I can see producers have an issue. A lot of the countries skilled dressmakers and bakers will be white middle-aged and older women, simply because they have experience, but that's not what is required of a TV programme.

Do you think a buffet dress was a bit of an office joke that someone took seriously?
As in ... well what do you call it it's not glamorous like a cocktail dress / what about a buffet dress haha / oh shit no we didn't mean it...

@RozHuntleysStump

I agree about the possible 'box ticking'. You'd think it'd be mostly older females that sew. That's the majority in my sewing groups that I'm on. I like sewing bee but I don't know why everything has to be so jazzed up and everyone has to have a big personality. I wish there was more sewing and less life stories.

I applied for GBSB a while back and they were very disappointed I didn't have an additional hobby or some extra exciting background I could add. I told DH if I ever fancied applying again I'd borrow a friend's chickens and pretend to have a small holding.

I think a lot of regular sewers also get put off by the filming schedule - the application suggests it's all at weekends but once they start firming up dates it becomes apparent you'd need all your annual leave if you get to the final. Bad enough when I just had a full time job to consider but impossible if you had small kids.