MY ME-MADE CHEVRON SWIM SET

Every so often a make comes together so nicely you get a bit smug about it. This was one of those — right up until the shirring. But we'll get to the shirring.

Back in fashion school, someone donated an enormous pile of fabric to the department, and buried in it was this chevron print — orange, red, blue, all zigzagging together in that very seventies way.  Free fabric you actually love is one of life's great wins, and I knew straight away I wanted to make something for a beach shoot with it.

So I drafted the lot from scratch: a one-shoulder swimsuit and a matching bikini, both my own patterns. And then, because apparently I can't help myself, I made the sandals too — same chevron, to finish the set off. Turns out making sandals is a skill that doesn't quite leave you, and there was something very satisfying about using it to complete the whole look rather than buying something in to go with it.

The swimsuit was the easy part, honestly. It went together beautifully — the one-shoulder line is flattering, the draft worked first time, and I had one of those rare, blissful sews where nothing fights you.

And then the bikini. The shirring. Oh, the shirring.

If you've never done it: you mark row after row of parallel lines across the fabric, then sew every single one with elastic thread so it gathers up into that stretchy, textured effect. On the bikini triangles it looks gorgeous — all that ruched texture catching the light. But getting there is slow, fiddly, mark-sew-mark-sew work with no shortcuts, and I spent far longer on those two little triangles than on the entire swimsuit. Worth it in the end. I muttered the whole way through.

Shooting all three together on the beach was the payoff — swimsuit, bikini, sandals, every piece in the same print, every piece off my own table. That's the bit I love about making your own: it's not one garment, it's the whole look, start to finish, exactly how you pictured it.

Would I do the shirring again? Absoluty...