One week, one pattern - my bread and butter Style Arc Elle trousers

The challenge - to wear a version of the Style Arc Elle pants every day for a week. Lets be real here. With 9 pairs floating around Chez Tragic this was never going to be hard.

 



For me OWOP started with a beautiful spring Saturday morning. I was feeling lazy, so mooched around for a couple of hours drinking coffee and looking stylish wearing my wool leggings adapted from my Style Arc Elle pants pattern. This fabric contains no lycra or elastane, so it does tend to bag out at the knees - an important characteristic to look for in leggings fabrics I've learned! Worn with a wool gathered raglan Burda top and Miami beach chic leopard slippers.

Later that morning, we went out and about doing some shopping so I changed into my Shar-Pei Elle Pants. They still wrinkle, and due to the 200% synthetic component of the fabric don't feel the nicest on, but I still love them.

And can you believe I had yet another costume change for the day, into a third pair of Elle's - this time a brand spanking new unblogged pair of exercise leggings, further adapted from my original leggings pattern. To be honest I've had zero interest in making exercise wear up until now - firstly because I didn't really need it, but also because it's hard to find good fabric for this purpose. But I busted out the backside of an old pair of exercise pants, and within a few days happened upon a lovely cotton-nylon-spandex fabric at Darn Cheap, so felt motivated to make myself the ultimate stretchy-wear and took them for a test drive that afternoon:

Sunday morning was Father's day here in Australia, and another gorgeous spring day. I snazzed up my cord Elle's with my Salme cropped blazer, a striped dolman top and my gorgeously wonderful brand spanking new Hasbeen clogs. Is it wrong to be in love with a pair of shoes?

Monday saw me in a brand new pair of Elle work pants, made from a charcoal grey bengaline bought on sale at Spotlight a few weeks ago. It just goes to show how important it is to compare the stretch content of the different fabrics used for a pattern such as this - the bengaline is a little less stretchy, so these are a bit snugger than my older black versions - I could probably have done with maybe another 1cm of ease in this pair. But they're comfy and the fabric's great. Worn here with a striped Mandy Boat tee.

Tuesday is my RDO, and I spent it sewing. I had absolutely no need to leave the house, so went for comfort and spent it in my ponte Elle pants. These are my most comfortable. Sadly the ponte is starting to ball up so they're not great for outside wear. Next winter I'll definitely be making some in grey and I think investing in some wool ponte would be well worth it.

Wednesday was a work day, and I was unable to get more than this for a photo. Grey bengaline Elle's worn with another Mandy Boat tee.

Thursday - work again! This work caper totally gets in the way of my sewing time..... Anyway I battled through wearing a pair of black bengaline Elle pants, and my Swoon Scarf Neck cardi.

 

And finally the last day - black bengaline again, worn with my striped Plantain and Style Arc Fiona cardi. 

So thats my OWOP roundup. Drearily similar to most of my MMM outfits I believe, but thats what happens when you find your perfect work pants! I've no profound insights here - if you've been reading my blog for a while you'll now how much I love these pants. And if you're not into the super-slim cut like these, Style Arc has a couple of other pull on stretch woven styles with different leg shapes..... easy to make, easy to wear!