August 29, 2010

Cultural Exchange

More on my friend's visit.

Surprising but true.  French girls these days love Japanese dress-making books!  Can you believe it?

My friend showed me several very popular French crafty blogs (blogs by crafty people who sew, knit, etc.).  They buy Japanese dress-making books all the way from Japan, and although they can't read Japanese, they still love them.  (All this time, Japanese people try to imitate what French people are wearing... hmmm, it's interesting.)

To me, most of the Japanese sewing patterns (洋裁の本) contains mostly baggy and dull (filled with beige and grey colors) designs.  But those French people adopt the original design to themselves, pick more beautiful and colorful fabrics, and create really beautiful clothes.
It's really interesting that in France, because of the feminism in the 70s~90s (not sure about the exact time period), women stopped sewing (sewing was regarded too womanly?).  As a result, young people these days have to teach themselves how to sew, because their mothers didn't know how.  Also, most of the sewing patterns are from very old days, very unfashionable.  That's why they love Japanese books.

I think the other reason is that French women are generally thin and petite, so are Japanese, so they can wear what we wear in Japan.   Again, it really surprised me that French people love Japanese yarn and fabrics too...!

Anyway, I would like to post the websites that she showed me, so I won't forget.

Petite Pimprenelle : I love this blog so much!

Z comme Zoe

Une poule a petits pas

Petites Choses : she has her own sewing and knitting patterns as well.  Actually, I translated one of her knitting patterns into English, and posted on Ravelry.

The Sewer Cat : my another favorite

There were a few more, but not sewing/knitting related, so that's it for now!  Thank you so much, my friend :)

2 comments:

lau said...

...and I'll forward your views on French Japanese sewing to my French crafty friends immediately !! ;-)

Meri said...

Thank you :)
And it motivates me to probably study French again ;-)