A Time to Sew

Eve herself invented it (Genesis 3:7). The late Gypsy Rose Lee listed it as one of her favorite indoor sports. Leslie Uggams and Mrs. Hubert Humphrey do it regularly--and so do nearly 50 million other American women. Nonetheless, home sewing was scarcely worth a fig leaf until the late '60s. Today it is a $3 billion business, up from $1.3 billion just seven years ago, thanks to a happy combination of factors. Coinciding with rising costs and declining quality of retail clothing, there came a new widespread interest in creative handicrafts. At the same time, improved sewing machines plus a wider variety of patterns and fabrics added to the appeal of sewing-it-yourself.

A far cry from the old stereotype of the dowdy, pennywise seamstress, today's home sewer is youthful and fashion-hungry. The average age of the Ms. who makes her own clothes has dropped in the past few years from 47 to 23. Surveys show that 85% of all teen-age girls now sew. Many of them, like Sharon Sikora of Oak Lawn, Ill., do so for the obvious reason: "I want clothes that are different." Home economics classes, long known for their "horrible aprons and dumb blouses" (as one graduate put it), now feature smarter getups, from pantsuits to prom gowns. One Park Forest, Ill., teenager, Tova Kletnick, 16, has become so expert with her own creations that she now designs and makes clothes for her friends, charging them a modest $10 per dress from first fitting to finish.

Economy is still a big reason why women sew. But an increasing number of home seamstresses--over half of whom have incomes of $10,000 and up --find other advantages as well. Bib Neiman, 30, whose father owns women's clothing stores in Illinois and Kentucky, used to get all her clothes free, "but they never really fit me." Now she sews for herself and her husband and is even learning to weave her own fabrics and spin her own yarn. "I think we need to return to a more primitive way of doing things," she says. "When you're sewing or weaving, those are good, quiet times."

Linda Hackett, wife of a New York oil executive, taught herself to sew several years ago when she couldn't find pants for her long-legged, size-8 frame. Soon she began designing her own slacks--and got more than a good fit for her efforts. One day at the beach, a Saks Fifth Avenue buyer spotted Linda in a pair of sleek white slacks and signed her up to design a line of sports clothes for the store.

Off the Bolt. Sewing machines now do practically everything but press the finished garment. Dial a knob or change a foot and your machine can sew on buttons or make flawless buttonholes. Machines can also darn socks, embroider blouses and monogram pockets as well as baste, hem and stitch once "impossible" materials like leather and stretchable knits. In addition to all this, Singer's expensive Touch & Sew model ($439.95) has solid-state speed control enabling it to breeze through varying thicknesses of fabric without being reset. Today, however, many inexpensive machines (about $60) offer zigzag, hemming and stretch stitches plus an extra foot for buttonholes. Thus most home seamstresses buy the cheaper models and spend their money on fabrics, which can be expensive.

"Home sewing used to be the dumping ground for the fabric industry," says Carol Bird, president of Off the Bolt, a chain of fabric shops in Los Angeles. "Now all that has changed. If a woman sees a dress she likes in a store, she can come into a fabric shop, ask for the identical fabric and get it." Five years ago, there were 2,300 fabric stores in the U.S.; today there are 12,000. Most popular sellers have been double knits, which are strong and stretchable, and bonded fabrics, which have a backing sealed to the cloth, making lining unnecessary. Bonding also makes laces and other ravelly materials as easy to sew as calico. Besides an ever-expanding market of synthetics, textilers now offer fake furs, machine-washable woolens, washable crushproof velvet and even washable suede. Some materials can set the connoisseur back more than $100 a yard, but she is apt to find them a bargain. Says Manhattan Socialite Belkis Ertegun: "I have a hunger for clothes. I want something new every minute, and yet I think it's criminal to spend $6,000 a month on clothes, as I used to do. With my sewing, I only spend about $500 a month." One rich Chicago woman recently bought three yards of hand-embroidered organdy imported from Switzerland for $160 a yard. She is making herself a $480 evening dress, but it might have cost $1,000 in one of the designer shops at Marshall Field or Saks.

Closely knit to the fabric boom is the greater availability of patterns by such designers as Yves St. Laurent, Pierre Cardin and Bill Blass. The concept is not new. Vogue put out its first high-fashion patterns back in 1949. But until recently there was a long lag between the appearance of a new style and its patterned reproduction. Now companies frequently turn out paper copies of Paris originals within weeks of a showing, long before ready-to-wear has even finished the basting. The home sewer, able to stitch in time, thus can stay in fashion more readily than her friends who wear store-bought frocks. She can make just about anything, too. There are now patterns for panty hose, lingerie and bathing suits as well as men's suits, shirts and overcoats. Butterick even has Stitch N' Stuff Sew-It-Yourself Furniture patterns for making legless sofas, beds and chairs that are basically overstuffed slipcovers. Patterns are easier to use now, too. Many are two or even one-piece designs that can be zipped up by the most fumble-fingered amateur. Some companies offer package deals--precut material that is ready to sew--and one even computerizes patterns that are made to fit an individual customer after the taking of 17 separate measurements.

On the Air. Lucille Rivers, the Julia Child of sewing, is seen daily on 100 local stations throughout the country, and draws an amazing 20,000 letters a week. Textilers are advertising as never before, wooing home sewers on the air and in print. Department stores, hurt by the proliferation of fabric stores, are pushing their own pins and needles with fashion contests and sew-ins accompanied by rock bands to attract teenagers. Singer dropped its sewing classes some years ago and began to retail stereos as well as sewing machines to pump up profits. Now the company has reintroduced its classes, with 82,000 now attending, and is gradually phasing out its phonographs in favor of fabrics and notions.

Even men are now sewing. The San Francisco Sewing Center has an equal number of men and women in several of its sessions. In Chicago, a high school shop teacher, Peter Gerstel, started making his own ties last year, and recently whipped up several hundred for a local art fair. He sold $300 worth in less than two days. Emboldened by his success, Gerstel is now making himself a sports jacket. Perhaps the most prominent seamster is ex-Candidate Ed Muskie, whose father was a tailor. The Senator from Maine made draperies for his family's Washington apartment.

The McCall Pattern Co., aware that industry bigwigs ought not to preach what they cannot practice, opened a men's executive sewing school last year. The finished products of the first 45 students were not much to brag about, but the classes did have one positive result. Finding that most of the executives could not understand the complicated directions on their patterns, McCall's decided to rewrite its directions in plain English.

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