Cozy 2.0

In 2014 (I know, because I found an old Tweet about it), Body Central was selling a style of sweater they called their "Cozy." It was a pretty cool concept—a long-line open-front cardigan that could be worn 10 different ways. Naturally, I never even knew the Cozy existed until Body Central went out of business and, I'm guessing, sold off all its inventory to outlets like Swap.com, where I have purchased a number of new-with-tags Body Central products over the past couple years.

Well, perhaps I went a little overboard, but I bought 4 Body Central Cozies last year. What's weird about all this Cozy-collecting? I don't even like the way they look on me!

I've tried hard to hide it with artful posing, and by pinning it into an entirely different shape the two times I pictured a Cozy in the blog, but, to be perfectly honest, the Cozy does not really suit me – it just dangles off my huge shoulders like a huge cape. I feel like a Roman Centurion. There's just too much fabric to look graceful when draped over my disproportionate frame.

However, all was not lost! I made a few tweaks that made my first Cozy look slightly better on me. I have done this twice now—the red one was my first attempt, then I repeated the process on the yellow one.

I find that my oversized shoulders generally look better when defined by crisp, straight lines without a lot of attention-grabbing detail. The shoulder seams on the original garment were actually not shoulder seams at all, but angled up from a point in the middle of my chest. So my first trick was to return the shoulder seams back to the area of my shoulders!

In the picture, the left side is finished, while the right still shows the angling original seam.

I just lifted the fabric until the seam was parallel with my shoulder line, then pinned and stitched the front to the back. (Did this all inside-out, of course!)

Here's an inside view of the new seam.

Here's an outside view! I accidentally sewed a little offset from the original seam, but it turned out to be a happy accident, because I liked the look of the resulting double seam.

With the shoulders now duly defined, I turned my attention to the drape of the garment. Another trick I've noticed for getting clothes to look OK on me despite my shoulders, is to make sure that they give some hint of a waistline beneath. It's a clue to the observer that even though my shoulders take up a lot of space, the rest of me is not the same.

There was no side seam on the Cozy, so I decided to let it drape from the armpit, and picked a point that was directly below that to serve as my new bottom edge. Then I connected the armpit to that point with a curving seam to mimic a waistline. 

Here's a side-by-side of an unaltered Cozy (yellow) next to one I modified (red). The differences are subtle. Nearly invisible. Possibly completely invisible. But at least I tried.

My first newly refined Cozy looked marginally better than the old one, but still not good enough to warrant the purchase of more! But I'd already bought a second one (the aqua one) at the same time. Then I found a leopard one for only $1.80. I could see it still had the instruction tag on it, and I wanted to be able to learn the 10 ways that the Cozy is supposed to be worn (maybe I'd be able to make better use of the two I already had)! Also, I might have gotten sucked in by all the hype around leopard print.) So I bought the third one. Once armed with the knowledge of 9 additional ways to wear a Cozy, I saw the golden one for sale, and I felt confident I'd be able to style it in lots of exciting ways. So suddenly I found myself the proud owner of four Body Central Cozies.

After modifying the gold one in the same way as I'd done the red one, I finally branched out and wore the Cozy in one of its nine alternative stylings—jauntily wrapped over one shoulder like a huge scarf!

*Note that wrapping things around one's shoulders without defining one's arms or waist is probably the last thing one wants to do if one is sensitive about the size of one's shoulders, but I really had to try something new. Maybe I look huge, but I do like the asymmetrical result. The side seam that I added in becomes clearly visible when worn at this angle, which I think adds a little visual interest!

The sweater also brings out one of the accent colors on this new pair of bold floral boots, which put a literal spring in my step in these dark days of winter!