How to make a pair of culottes
In our last post, where we hacked the Elisalex Dress into a floaty boho dream of a dress complete with neckline capelet, we touched upon the subject of trends, and how I'm - generally speaking - rarely one for basing my season's sewing plans on the latest issue of Vogue. Don't get me wrong - I love looking at the pretty pictures, and I take a wealth of inspiration from a small handful of designers season in and season out, but when it comes to things like "five must-have looks for fall", I'm never usually sold. Until this season, apparently! 70s boho? Digging it. Debutante chic? Always. Velvet?Bring it on. And it's not just me - Victorian goth? Hello, Victoire! High-necked geek glam?Ummm, Charlotte!
So now that Autumn Winter 2015 has 100% infiltrated our sewing plans, we thought we may as well start a little series to document it, with some fun pattern hacks and DIY tutorials thrown in for good measure. First up, culottes.
Aaaaahhhh, culottes. When I used to picture (ok, wear) culottes, they were nothing more than floral mock-skirts that didn't fall quite as well or look quite as good as a skirt, because they weren't a skirt. They were, in fact, the boring sensible cousin of the skirt. Just look at how far the culotte has come... Not pretending to be anything it's not, instead unashamedly basking in its own softly tailored, wide-legged, ankle-grazing glory. Here's a little Pinterest candy that gets my point across nicely.
Step 1 - Altering the pattern
Now, you could quite easily just hack 15" off the length of the existing Holly trousers and call it a day, but in order to really make the most out of this season's culottes trend, we wanted to throw in some menswear inspired details, namely pleats and slanted pockets (because you always look chicer when you have a pocket to lean into).
To draft the pleats, and at the same time increase the width of the trouser legs, draw a vertical line from the waistline notch to the hem for the trouser front, and through the centre of the dart to the hem for the trouser back.
Cut these vertical lines.
Place your spare pattern paper underneath and open up that vertical cut by 2" evenly all the way down, for both front and back pieces. Tape down to secure and re-draw the waistline.
For the trouser front, you'll want to mark three notches along the waistline to indicate the pleat - one either side of the 2" opening, and one slap bang in the centre (new notches shown in red). To create the box pleat we'll be bring the outer notches in to meet the central notch.
For the trouser back piece, the outer notches are the same notches as indicated by the dart we split in half, and the central notch is the halfway point between them.
Finally, slice off the bottom of the trouser legs to achieve your desired length of culotte. I opted for a final length of 28" waistline to hem. Don't forget your hemming allowance!
If you're adding side slanted pockets to your culottes, check out this post here.
Cut out your fabric and let's get sewing!
Step 2 - Assembling the culottes
First things first, get your pockets all sewn in to your trouser fronts (as outlined in our tutorial linked to above).
Assemble the inverted box pleats on all front and back trouser pieces by bringing the outermost notches in to meet the central notch. Pin into place and baste to secure.
Now go about the rest of the sewing of your Holly trousers as normal. Do check out our Holly Jumpsuit Sewalong for any guidance with sewing or altering the Holly trouser pattern.
I moved the zipper from the side seam to the centre back so that it wouldn't interfere with the pockets. If you choose to do the same, the only thing different in the order of the steps in assembling your trousers, is that you'll be sewing both side seams, followed by both inseams, then inserting the zipper at centre back, and finally sewing the crotch seam.
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