Great British Sewing Bee is back on 15th July

[BlackAmericanoNoSugar]

I'm looking forward to it.

To be fair, the one from Gateshead doesn't have trace of a geordie accent!

I think I have always said crutch although I know it's spelled crotch. Not that I say it very often.

I think having males models does make things significantly easier from a fit perspective. I do a lot of small bust adjustments for myself and tbh, since most patterns are drafted for a B/C cup there is limited impact on the armscye or shoulder. When I've done FBA for friends its been a lot more involved and also trickier to ensure that the bust point remains aligned to the bust rather than making the chest look lopsided.

For a male model you also remove the challenge of the waist to hip variance, and issues around fuller hips as well, although admittedly you could also choose an A-line/full skirt pattern and do the same.

I really liked Kit's skirt that he was wearing, I thought he styled it well. The one on his model though felt the wrong style/shape and badly styled - whoever chose those awful shoes over biker boots should be shot.

I’ve just tested DH on Crutch vs Crotch by asking him what he calls the bit where trouser legs join and he came up with ‘crutch’ too.

Biker boots would have been so much better!

I definitely remember them mentioning him as 'our' Dan (or similar) but ofc I can't find it again now

Biker boots is what you'd expect with that outfit nowadays and I suppose they are always looking for something new (e.g. a man in a dress). It's always good to challenge ideas and we soon get used to the new stuff.

A lot of online store photo shoots currently have the models wearing extremely pointy shoes, too. The general public seems to have collectively rolled their eyes at that one because I haven't seen any in the wild.

...yet.

Late to the thread, but have been watching.

I think a repair challenge is a great idea, instead of the transformation challenge. I am never going to make a ball gown out of a kids paddling pool, although I grudgingly admit it does show what’s possible, that I’d never have thought of. However, I’d love to see six or seven people replace a zip in a pair of trousers. What issues do they run into? What mistakes are common? I think that would be useful to inexperienced sewers who want to improve.

I loved the Dorothy dress, although I was sceptical when she said what she was planning.

I plan to make a wrap dress, I think they looked really nice. I’m also thinking about getting a cover stitch machine. But that would be quite extravagant and probably unnecessary.

Man in a dress really not a new idea.

David Bowie looked beautiful in that dress. Apparently, when asked why he was wearing a women's dress, he said it wasn't. It was a man's dress. Kit's dress achieved nowhere near that elegance, the length and the footwear were all wrong.

Mick Jagger seems to have cheated by wearing trousers under his.

True - even the Romans wore tunic type things. But how often have you seen men in dresses on telly recently? Fashions come and go. The new latest thing has usually been done many times before.

I have never heard crutch before, very interesting! Really enjoying this series so far and the sewers are excellent. Feel that those who have gone home so far would have stayed in longer in previous series.

I don’t see any issues with any men wearing skirts. People should be able to define their sense of style free from typical gender based conventions.

This is often an argument put forward on MN on the FWR board when arguing that people should not feel they need to ‘change sex’ because they don’t feel or look a conventional man or woman.

Yes, the cut of Bowie’s dress is clearly for a man’s body. I couldn’t find a decent colour version of the photo but I think it looks stunning (it’s on the cover of The Man Who Sold The World). Bowie seemed to favour longer dresses, Jagger shorter ones plus trousers - like the white combo he wore at the infamous Hyde Park concert.

I find it very sad that Bowie and Jagger set the trend for all the “gender bending” of the 70s and 80s only for there to be a screeching U-turn in the 90s. Just thinking of my own teenage and student years, it was unremarkable for the guys to wear eyeliner, lippy and nail varnish and a blouse instead of a shirt. Common for young women to have short hair. There were goths, punks, New Romantics, metal heads (with sub divisions of rock v “hair” metal), New York scene, Madchester etc etc. All distinctive looks requiring creativity.

There is so much conformity in young people’s style at the moment and any experimenting seems to box them into a gender definition that restricts them even further. At a society level their fashions seem to lack boldness and rebellion. I know these things are cyclical but I do hope individuality comes back soon.

I think it depends on the young peopl' you know. There was heaps of conformity in the 1980s and 1990s alongside the fun, experimental stuff. Just as there is today. You are looking back nostalgically and remembering the people who looked fabulous. The vast majority of people looked mundane for that time.

I agree and think this is one of the things that leads young people to feel unhappy in their gender instead of being who they want to be.

Not the people I knew and there wasn't all the pink Disney stuff for girls in the 80s either. My daughter wore dungarees, dresses, track suits whatever in the 80s but no Disney princess type stuff.

I’m not seeing how dungarees, dresses & trackies are so much more creative & imaginative than princess dresses? My point is, everyone wasn’t dressing like David Bowie back in the day, just like they don’t all dress like Harry Styles now. It is just nostalgia that makes people think everyone was so much more stylish in yesteryear - older people love to slag of the way younger people dress because it was always better in their day. And the music was better and summers lasted longer

It depends what they're like. I made most of them myself and bought other clothes for my daughter like reversible dresses and quilted jackets. I'm not going to argue. I know what we wore, I have photos

FWIW my teenage and adult grandchildren wear 90s 'vintage" clothes.

It is scary when your clothes have become retro or vintage .

I have a beautiful emerald green Harris tweed jacket from Jigsaw that I wore as 'bridesmaid' at my friend's very informal registry office wedding in 1990. With the 80s oversize jackets and big shoulders coming back I dragged it out of the loft. The shoulders are huge - I mean ginormous to the point of caricature. Real 80s power shoulders and sadly unwearable. You forget how shoulders mad we were - I remember attaching shoulder pads to my bra for under T shirts

De lurking although I've been following these threads for a few seasons now. I think one of the issues in the 1970s and 80s was that children's clothes were seen as something you hung onto for each subsequent child and you tended not to buy much new for the younger DC. Consequently if there were boys in the mix most of the clothes would be unisex/more masculine. A mother might buy a few more feminine things but the basic core of the children's wardrobe would be things both sexes could wear. Retailers were aware of this so a lot of clothes in the shops would meet this criteria. I remember a lot of red yellow and green in my wardrobe as a child.

I was the oldest and photos of me as a very small child are noticeably more likely to include dresses etc than ones once my brother arrived on the scene as DM would be buying clothes for me that could subsequently also be worn by him. (And once I joined the Guides all my summer clothes were blue so that they were OK for Guide camp.)

Just to throw in my penny's worth, I just dont think Kit's mtm suited the model's body..The top part would have been better with the see through part cut differently - deeper maybe. The skirt just didn't hang well. Didn't help the model stomped up in it swaying from side to side like an action man being "walked".

Wasn't taken by any of the winning makes this week. Thought plenty of the others were better .

Mind you I like the transformation bit - so appreciate my think may not be in same ball part as most!!

I agree with you on all counts.

I usually think the transformation challenge is rubbish but it was the best bit in this episode.