Dress/robe/tunic for hot days?

[BrotherTailor]

I see this has been revived!

All I can say to everyone is "Go and experiment on your sewing machine". If you don't sew, then find a friend or a for-hire seamstress/tailor who work with you. Mock up a few garments in cheap fabric and when you have gotten the fit right, make a good one. I would be more than willing to assist anyone who cannot sew, except I'm very far away and working from measurements alone is unreliable, also colours and patterns of fabrics are best judged in person.

Here is what I do: I find a women's pattern in which the two key measurements fit me - chest/bust and waist. Back length always needs at least two inches spliced in, and arm length needs 4 or 5 inches added, this is easily done. Length is infinitely variable, I need 64 inches to go from shoulder seam to just above the floor, most skirts I make are 43 for floor length and less for other lengths. It is EASY to adjust patterns for skirts to fit men, much more so than to fit the women they are designed for, because men are not nearly so fussy about the "second skin" look and feel for the most part. We want to be loose and comfy.

I just finished a "cassock skirt" last night. It goes with a clergy shirt, I made it from black twill based on Simplicity 6359 view 4. I have made this skirt before in view 3. I switched the zipper to the front center seam, I cut the back panels on a fold so there is no back center seam. In addition to the four darts in the pattern, I added a center back dart to tighten up the waist a tad more. A simple hem and some bias binding at the waist with a hook and eye and presto. With no labourious thought, I made all these adjustments on the fly and the skirt flew together. It rests on my natural waist and the hem just brushes the tops of my shoes. When worn under the alb etc it looks exactly like a cassock does...at a tiny fraction of the cost and one need not wear a cassock over the typical clergy shirt and pants. Piling on layers just adds to overheating.

Just get some cheap fabric and experiment.

[AMM]

Just get some cheap fabric and experiment.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not very good at just experimenting at random. I need to have a very clear picture in my mind of what I want something to come out as before I can even start.

Even then, it often doesn't come out the way I expect; there's a lot of "experimentation" in both figuring out how to get the fabric to behave the way I want and in matching the idea of how I want something to look on me and the reality.

And even when something comes out the way I planned, there's still that moment of shock when I think, "am I really going to wear something that makes me look like that?" I dont' mean something that looks ugly, but something that makes me look so different from how I am used to seeing myself. It makes me aware of how accustomed I am to using my usual boring old appearance as a kind of armor to hide behind. (Side note: when I looked at my face in the pictures I posted of myself in the other forum, I had this strong feeling that I looked like I was wearing a mask, like the masks that ancient Greek actors wore.)

Finally, there's the fact that I only have so much disposable free time. A typical skirt takes me several months to finish, just because I may only have an hour or two per week to work on it. I already have so many clearly envisioned projects that I'll never get around to just random experimentation.