Burda Marlene Pants

Hot weather is still here and I'm sewing more light and wide clothes to cope with the heat. I searched long for a pair of wide leg trousers in my Burda magazines and on the site, I browsed pictures and in the end decided to go with Nata's latest idea in the vlog - the Marlene trousers in Burda 02 / 2020.

I bought the pattern she showed on her vlog - #104, and only after browsing the finished works on the Burdastyle.ru site I noticed, that the pants had another version with a kind of a belt, so I decided to add this feature to my pants too. In fact my final inspiration for the trousers was sunnybird's version, with pleats at the front and elastic only at the back of the trousers.

I am very happy with this modification, as it does not take away from the volume and comfort of the trousers, but still elevates them a bit above a pair of super simple elasticated pants.

I finished the trousers on Sunday, tried the on and put them on a hanger, feeling very doubtful that I will ever wear them, anyway. First, they are not exactly my style - I feel I lack the height for such volume, and let's be honest, voluminous elasticated backside rarely compliments the figure. And last but not least - my fabric, very lightweight viscose, is so thin that it wrinkles like a paper napkin. The low quality of the fabric was the reason I saved myself the trouble of using french seams and finished all relevant seams on the overlocker - and dare I say they look pretty decent on the inside too. If the fabric was of higher quality or semitransparent, I might have bothered with narrow french seams, but I believe the effort would have been wasted on this black viscose.

So when I put them on today for a walk downtown with my husband and an opportunistic photo session, I expected to hate them and even feel a bit embarrassed for wearing such unflattering pants.  To my amazement the moment I walked out on the street in the heat, I fell in love with them - they are so light, so breezy, so comfortable - definitely a winner for hot summers! I totally changed my attitude to wide elasticated pants. Hurray for comfort!

 

Pattern: Burda 104 + 105 02/2020

Size: 36, shortened

Fabric: lightweight viscose

Time to make: 4 days

My modifications: 

- Burda pants are generally too deep for me, so I shortened the crotch part by 4 cm, but added 1 cm to the crotch line of the back. I also shortened the length of the pants significantly (can't remember exactly how much, 6 cm?) and I took in 2 cm from the width of the back pieces. This latter correction was out of necessity, as my fabric was a bit less than 140 cm wide. But the back of these trousers is so wide, that these 2 cm would have been excessive, anyway.

- As I mentioned, I elasticated only the back, calculated a generous width at the front, placed the excess into pleats and then calculated the length of the waistband to fit the new length of the waistline of the pants. I also reduced the width of the waistband from 6.5 to 4 cm.

 - As I didn't have the instructions for the additional belt with the straps, I improvised with the construction, but I don't think it could be much different from what I came up with.

 

Although I did put on these high heel Italian sandals for the photos, I brought them in my backpack and put them back there again after we finished taking pictures. I intend to wear the trousers with my usual ballet flats  - I'm too old to pay tribute to vanity anymore :) Once again - comfort!