Monday, December 8, 2008
I have discovered a magical and splendid world...
...and it is called BurdaStyle online and Burda World of Fashion magazine.
Now, I am not 100% clear on exaclty how these two are related, aside from the fact that they both say "Burda" and they are both really cool. However, I can say that both resources offer exceptionally affordable sewing patterns and style. I found the BurdaStyle website via my sister Anne recently and I have download about 20 pring-at-home patterns (for FREE!) in the past few weeks. I also discovered the Burda World of Fashion Plus magazine, and I bought a copy a current copy on Ebay, which is also full of patterns I fantasize about making this December. I am SO EXCITED.
The BurdaStyle website describes itself as "a virtual sewing circle, an open-source hub of ideas, expertise, and amazing patterns you can download and sew at home." What is open source, you may ask? Well, the open source philosophy concerns the sharing of intellectual property, and allowing the public to adapt such intellectual property to their specific needs, without fees or stipulations. Thus at BurdaStyle they have removed the copyright from the patterns, and they are free! The idea is that they give them away on the web to be used as a base for our own design. At BurdaStyle they believe that removing copyrights from the designs will inspire creativity and spawn multiple new designs - and that's wonderful! The designs are beautiful and stylish and very of-the-moment hip. Look at this dress and this apron and this robe, as a few examples.
Burda World of Fashion magazine is a European publication that has been in publication for almost 60 years. In 1949 Aenne Burda founded her own fashion printing and publishing company in the town of Offenburg, located in south-west Germany. The first issue of her "burda fashion" magazine appeared in 1950. Each monthly issue presents 50 new garments, many fashion and styling tips as well as a detachable supplement with the relevant comprehensive instructions and sewing pattern pieces. In other words, the magazine gives you all of the style advice AND patterns you need to knock out a perfeclty customized, hand made, ultra chic wardrobe. For example this skirt and this dress and this jacket and this coat.
Both images posted here are from Burda Style, and FREE to anyone with a printer. You just print page by page and tape it all together to create a stunning pattern on your kitchen table. Plus, the site is starting to link to fabric stores carrying the particular fabric featured with a pattern, so you can recreate the stylish looks without searching high and low for a look alike. It's brilliant!
As the website says, "BurdaStyle is a celebration of the handmade and the heartfelt, the individual and idiosyncratic things we make ourselves, and is intended as a platform for experts and beginners alike." I will be at my sewing machine for the rest of the week putting my findings from both resouces into practice. I would love to see what Burda creations others have made, or links to the items you would like to create.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
What a treasure trove! Thank you so much for sharing those links! I have a moratorium on sewing during December, as my sewing table gets cleared off to work jigsaw puzzles during the holiday season, but oh boy, what dreams I have for January!
Why the moratorium on sewing? It's a long story, but the short version is I had way too much sewing to do one December and it stressed me out, so the husband stepped in, and declared December a "no sewing machine month", and bought me really nice jigsaw puzzles to work.
I still do much embroidery and handsewing though. :)
Welcome to the Joys of Burda. My family has been using the magazine for decades and the fit, IMO, is amazing.
In fact, I had quite a shock over the last few years to read on Pattern Review and sewing blogs the variety and volume of alterations people did to Big 4 patterns just to get a good fit!!!
Re: relationship btw the two. As far as I know, Burdastyle is a product of the BWOF people but for the younger, online crowd. Aren't all the free patterns great? I'm stockpiling too!
The caveat: necklines are PLUNGING! Has been like that in my 15 yrs using BWOF!!!
I'm not a Plus size but I'm glad to see they have the special issue. I"m even jealous. They use to have a Petite special issue whose sizes fit me to a T but not anymore! Of course, they usually include Plus or Petite patterns in each issue, though I could not tell you if these are the same in the stand-alone mags.
I have read that patterns from the mags are reissued as sleeve patterns about 6 mos-1 yr later.
This blogger uses Plus size: http://anothercreation.blogspot.com/
Good luck and have fun
nice dress....
Post a Comment