Coordinating Safiya Trousers & New Look 6217 top

It's a measure of how my style has changed in the last couple of years that I bought the fabric featured in today's post to make a swishy summer dress, and instead it has become a coordinating set of Tilly & The Buttons Safiya trousers and a New Look 6217 top.

A couple of years ago, my wardrobe was mainly full of dresses, with a few skirts and tops for a little bit of variation. While I do still love dresses and skirts, particularly if they have a good twirl factor, gradually more trousers, jumpsuits and shorts have been infiltrating their way into my garments of choice. It has to be said, this is in no small part due to me moving to a coastal town and getting fed up of battling against the wind to prevent skirt-related wardrobe malfunctions on breezy days!

Anyway, the reason for this shift isn't really important, but it doesn't show any sign of stopping yet. Having bought this fabric for a dress, the more I thought about it I just couldn't shake the feeling that it would get more wear if I turned it into a coordinating top and trouser set, a kind of fake jumpsuit - all of the ease that a jumpsuit brings of having a ready-made outfit with the added benefit of not having to get almost completely undressed whenever you need the loo, and of being able to combine the two pieces with other garments as well.

I debated various pattern combinations for a while - the Winslow culottes and M7131 were both strong contenders for the bottoms, and I considered the new Helen's Closet Reynolds and the Sew Over It Silk Cami for the top - but in the end I decided on the Tilly & The Buttons Safiya trousers and the New Look 6217 top.

The Safiya trousers are one of the patterns from the book Make It Simple. I blogged about making the dungaree version of Safiya last year, and also made a pair of Safiya trousers but apparently they never made it to my blog. They're definitely on my Instagram though. Anyway, I knew it was a nice, simple pattern to sew and that the trousers fit me well and are comfortable to wear.

The New Look 6217 top is one of my most used patterns - although the pattern itself is one of the commercial patterns that features a collection of separates and I've only actually made the top (view B) and not any of the other three garment options. I've definitely got my money's worth out of the top though and by now I've lost count of the versions that I've made for both me and other people since I first made it back in 2016 (enjoy the old photos there!). It's a great simple top for showing off a pretty print, and works particularly well with viscose fabrics.

The fabric that started this little experiment is a light blue leopard print viscose (still a bit in stock as I write this!) that I got from Like Sew Amazing. I'm not much of a fan of traditional leopard print fabrics because the colours just don't suit me, but in these shades of blue and off white it's definitely something I can get on board with! The fabric is that lovely kind of viscose that has great drape, but isn't horrifically slippery to work with. 

So what's the verdict on the finished set? I think the Safiya trousers and New Look 6217 top work well together and pull off the fake jumpsuit look I was going for. There is a small part of me that's slightly concerned that they might look a bit like pyjamas, but the majority of me feels great in them and doesn't particularly care about that! So much so, that I've already got another coordinating set underway - albeit with different patterns and very different fabric. Stay tuned for more soon!