Let me take a quick second to tell you about one person that inspires me to no end. But you can probably already guess since her name is in the title. Yea, Gwen. I’ve already written about how much I love No Doubt, but I probably will mention it a lot more in the future. Fair warning here.
Anyway, as a lot of Gwen fans can probably share, she’s the reason why I started taking sewing seriously. I went from sewing clothes for my Barbies, to wristbands (I sewed a lot imitating Gwen’s arm accessories during the Rock Steady era), to sewing shirts for myself, and I can’t stop. I have been for years inspired by her cool style and she inspires me to try to be cool with my style. I don’t know if it’s working, but I do what I can.
When No Doubt came out with their music video for Settle Down, I, as everyone else, was in love with Gwen’s pants. Obsessed may be the actual correct term. Couldn’t stop looking at them. The No Doubt fansite Beacon Street Online shared a little excerpt of the process and inspiration behind the pants and it made me want to make my own pair.
The video came out in 2012, so clearly I never followed through until I came up with an alternative just last month. As much as I felt like it was cheating to work on top of already made pants, it was the only way I could follow through. Gwen’s designers hunted down vintage fabric, and I don’t think I have the time and resources to try and do the same. So I had to work with what I had.
I remembered I had these printed pants that have a color scheme I wanted to work with. All I needed were something similar to those vintage mirror beads that were already embedded into the fabric that Gwen’s designers used for her pants. I headed over to Etsy and found a shop that sold crochet mirrors.
I also loved the checkered fabric that ran down the sides of Gwen’s pants to break that “hippy” feel. I remembered that I had houndstooth ribbon, which is almost checkerboard’s neighbors, so I was ecstatic to incorporate that as well.
I sewed the ribbon down one side. I used my own judgement, and I felt sewing the ribbon down both sides was a little overkill. Besides I like the asymmetrical look, and I always have the option to sew down the second side if I ever feel like it. Then I scattered and alternated the three colors of the crochet mirrors. Took a long time for me to hand sew them on because I really wanted to make sure they were sewn securely. I don’t know how they will do in the wash, but I imagine turning the pants inside out will do the trick.
I’m excited to finally have followed through with my plan to make Settle Down Gwen pants, even though they’re quite different than intended. But hey, there’s always plenty of time to hunt down similar vintage fabric to make “the real deal”. In the meantime, I’m really loving these crochet mirrors and I’m trying to think of another project to use them for since I still have a decent amount left over. They really jazz up clothes pretty nicely!
Here’s No Doubt’s Settle Down video if you have yet to see it!
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