And then, a skirt was sewn

Almost everyone lives with some deep trauma related to clothing. One childhood experience here, another scratchy day there and you are marked forever. As a child, one cannot simply tell their mother to burn the sweater knitted with love by Grandma (who probably used wool made of cacti), so you just suffer through every winter and pray for puberty to hit. I remember wearing an unfitting, formless white blouse made of some synthetic plastic-like material as a ten-year-old. And not wearing white blouses until these days.

I found it in the closet and I managed to put it on me with brutal force - it fits! It was a present. It looks okay, the rash it gives me is almost invisible. My friends wear it. The people I hate wear it. I feel like walking in mud today and I need something dark - hand me those jeans from 1998! These are just some excuses and reasons how and why those traumas were and still are able to find solid ground to grow from.

There are days that are simply bad. Many of them are made bad or worse by wearing terrible things. Some clothes are terrible in a surprising way, which means you had only random bad luck in buying the only uncomfortable yoga-pants on Earth. And some are horrible in all variations, colors or of any countries of origin.

In my personal Race of Fashion Disgrace, the bronze medal goes to - socks. Yep - that piece of clothing universally loved, or at least tolerated by the majority of people I know. Sometimes even an accessory which can underline the style or add some edge to the outfit of the person wearing them and which is sooooo cute when made for little kids. For me, socks are just small straitjackets.

Silver goes to tops with long sleeves. Which might sound a little odd, since long-sleeved-shirts and tops and blouses and cardigans and other wearables are quite common in people's closets. For some reason, I feel the intense urge to roll up the sleeves even on thick sweaters and coats, making them look strangely worn out at the ends of the sleeves after a short time of wearing. Seriously - give the guy who invented the T-shirt the Nobel prize!

The gold medal in my lifelong Race of Fashion Disgrace goes - absolutely well-deserved - to turtlenecks. This invention of the devil himself is chocking and itching, electrifying my hair and straightening out the - well - charming messiness in an unwanted, non-elegant way.
I even don't trust people wearing turtlenecks. I mean - a person able to bear wearing THAT cannot be a human being. Which planet do you come from, turtleneck-wearer? From the planet Numb Metal Neck Omega Delta?

All in all, it looks like I have quite a load of negative feelings towards clothing I associate with strangulation of smaller or larger parts of my body. Which is quite opposite to my favorite piece of clothing. Freedom of legs, freedom of moving. The comfort of their various cuts. There are some for every season. For every body-type, for every occasion.

Skirts.

Some years ago, my Mom would not have believed that someday, skirts will become the most-loved parts of my wardrobe. And I would not have believed that someday, I would be able to make one on my own.

But here it is. Hours and evenings and days of shearing, drawing, sewing. Trying it on for the first time. Passing the No Strangulation Test. The first skirt on this planet made by me!

Despite the scenes of combined horror and embarrassment in my head (me just walking innocently, while the skirt slowly falls apart into a large pile of fabric left behind on the ground), it didn't even fall off of me when I wore it for the first time. Workplace approved!

There really is no better feeling than to create something with your own hands.

Ok, maybe just one - taking off any pair of shoes with even the tiniest heals after walking even a few minutes in the streets of Prague!