I like to think of this Amira Skirt as a shameful reflection of all my worst capitalist urges.

Deep sigh.

Sorry, I’ve been well-trained by the capitalist patriarchy in which I’ve been raised.

Let me explain.

This was inspired by a silver sparkly version of the pleated Dino Skirt by Sezane. I imagine that many of you are familiar with Sezane but for those who aren’t, they release relatively limited stock of their garments and, especially if you are in the upper end of the size range like me, you have to be fast to purchase the most popular items. I had been desperately waiting for this skirt to be released and was on the website 15 minutes before the skirt was supposed to be released.

But, by the time I spotted the skirt available in new releases, it was already gone in my size.

But rather than give up on my capitalist urges, I decided to try to recreate my own version.

Just to be clear, the vision I had was sparkly New Year’s Eve goddess. The end product I’ve ended up with is a little more, ummm, astronaut costume than I’d intended.

In many ways, I feel like this project brought out all of my worst urges and the end result is something of an apt punishment for indulging in them.

Shortly after I missed out on the Dino Skirt from Sezane, I saw this fabric, which is 95% silk and thought it would be wonderful. Then, when it arrived, I had been sent the wrong sized piece of fabric and had a horrendous customer service experience trying to have it replaced. The store made me feel entirely insane and unreasonable for expecting the store to propose a solution for the fact that they’d sent me 2 metres (i.e. not enough!) when it had been marked as a 3metre coupon at the time of purchase!! I ended up feeling so frustrated with their non-responsiveness and acting as though they’d done nothing wrong that I just didn’t want to deal with them anymore.

So I walked away in an attempt to keep my sanity but also therefore kept my mere 2 metres of fabric. I made it work by reducing the pleats slightly and shortening the skirt.

So it felt like, after giving in to my consumerist urges of “I just HAVE TO HAVE a sparkly silver skirt”, the universe was punishing me with my fabric purchase too!

The pattern is one you’ve seen me sew before – it’s the Fibre Mood Amira Skirt (pattern provided to me free of charge by Fibre Mood).

To sew the Fibre Mood Amira Skirt in this lightweight silk, I interfaced both the lining and outer of the waistband/yoke to strengthen it. It is a little on the too lightweight side but it just about works. The fabric is also slightly transparent so I’ve added a lining. The lining is just a simple A-line skirt. I used a more robust stash silk blend I’ve had for a while for the lining.

In the end, I found the silk extremely slippery and difficult to handle. It creased easily. It moved constantly. Every time I tried to press a pleat in place the fabric transformed into a waterfall tumbling off my ironing board to the floor.

In all honesty, I ran out of steam and enthusiasm about the fiftieth time my skirt ended up on the floor as I tried to press it.

Slippery little sucker.

I ended up sewing this Fibre Mood Amira Skirt to get it done, rather than for joy.

And I felt, overall, like the overarching lesson I took away from it all is that FOMO is bullshit. And if I’d just walked away from the Sezane skirt I missed out on without looking back, that’s one less frustration I would have experienced in my life.

Soooo, yeah, mostly sewing is great. But sometimes the great sewing goddess likes to laugh at us. And throw our underlying weaknesses into stark relief.

So, yes, I ended up with a silver silk pleated skirt. It’s possibly not even that bad as a unique “party” piece.

But, if someone’s having the last laugh on this one.

Well, it’s definitely not me!

Still, I did get to wear it for New Year’s Eve!