travel wardrobe

Me Made Vienna + Budapest

As someone who grew up in both the nearly-continent-sized US and the isolated islands of Japan, the concept of traveling just a few hours to visit a different country is totally new to me. It really is quite strange to be able to say “we took a day trip to France last weekend,” but, as we live only an hour away from the French border, this sometimes-easy international travel is something I can whole-heartedly embrace.

A perfect example: a few weeks ago, John had a bridge week (a week with holidays that falls in the middle of the week) and we decided to take an extra couple of days off to spend some time in Austria and Hungary. Vienna and Budapest are only a couple hours away from each other by train, so it’s not too difficult to pay both cities a visit in a single trip. I’d never been to either country before, and while Austria was beautiful, Hungary really stole my heart. It’s really held on to its culture through its many, sometimes extremely brutal, occupations. And for fiber arts and design lovers, it’s pretty close to heaven-on-earth; Hungary is rich in folk crafts such as embroidery and ceramics, and nearly everything you lay your eyes on is extensively decorated, including extremely intricate architecture.

Here’s a brief re-cap of my travel wardrobe.


Day 1 | Vienna, Austria

We flew in to Vienna from Frankfurt, and I wore my new Vogue 8996 dress over a Monrow turtleneck and a pair of tights on the plane. My trick for packing and flying is to wear the bulkiest thing you plan on bringing during your flight. It’s not foolproof — as seen here, I picked up quite a few wrinkles on the skirt of this dress — but alternatively, I would have accumulated a different set of wrinkles if I had rolled this dress up and put it in the suitcase.

After having worn this dress all day (and more recently while hosting Thanksgiving, too!), I’m going to give it an A+. It’s super comfy, it’s cotton so it’s mostly durable and washable, and it has a full skirt which allows me to travel-eat to my hearts content. I think it will be working a full rotation during the holidays this year.

Day 2 | Vienna, Austria

It was surprisingly windy and cold for most of our stay in Vienna. I was planning on wearing a freshly made backless mock-turtleneck dress on this day in order to be able to photograph it at the National Library of Vienna, but the wind-chill easily cut through even my wool coat. There was no way I could entertain the idea of wearing a backless dress in that kind of weather, though I did consider just popping it in my bag to change into in the library bathroom. In the end, I landed on some layers; a BurdaStyle sweater-turned pop-over blouse, under my Tamarack jacket and high waisted jeans.

Day 3 + 4 | Sopron, Hungary (Burda coatigan)

I have an embarrassing admission: You know how I said above a tip for packing is to wear the bulkiest clothing you have on travel days? On Day 3 and 4 I realized the major, leaky hole in this tactic; when you have multiple travel days during your vacation, you will likely end up repeating your travel day outfit more than you’d like. On day 3, we traveled by train from Vienna to Sopron, a small town in Hungary, and on day 4, we did the same from Sopron to Budapest. Unfortunately, that meant I was essentially wearing the same outfits every day, with different undershirts. My second bulky travel outfit was this unblogged BurdaStyle Coatigan, with a second-hand J Crew wool sweater and a pair of ripped and repaired 7fam jeans, patched in true Boro style with sashiko stitches and interfaced linen scraps.

I was really hoping to get some blog photos taken of this BurdaStyle Coatigan during this trip, but I wasn’t intentional enough about making it happen. And funny enough, despite wearing this same outfit multiple times in one week, this is the only outfit I only got iPhone photos of. The good news is, this was the first time I had really worn this Coatigan out of the house, and absolutely the first time I had worn it without my leggings and classic single-slipper sewing ensemble. I was a little afraid this Coatigan was a little too loungewear to wear publicly, but on the contrary, I think it works perfectly as Secret Pajamas (or, in this case, Secret Blanket). At the very least, wearing it in Hungary has given me more confidence that this garment can be worn as outerwear.

Day 5 | Budapest, Hungary

I’ve worn my Martha Dress Hack on two vacations now—once in Morocco and now once in Hungary—but interestingly enough, I have only worn this dress once in real life, and I think it may have been New Years Eve spent on my best friend’s couch. While I love the concept and design, I’m honestly not thrilled with the fit and am also a little too busy (read: lazy) right now to take it apart and fix it. So it’s found a new home with my bestie where it will hopefully receive much more love than I was able to give it.

Here I’m wearing the Martha Dress layered under a thrifted J Crew button up shirt and a vintage fisherman’s sweater. I’m moderately obsessed with plaid on plaid atm, and this fits the bill.

Day 6 | Budapest, Hungary

We went to the Gellert Baths in the morning, which was absolutely beautiful. The bath house was built in 1918, and it’s covered in intricate Art Deco tile-work. Here I am with red hot cheeks and half-wet hair, as I’d just gotten out of the bath. I’m wearing my Vanessa Pouzet Wanted shirt tucked into a pair of high waisted 7 For All Mankind skinny jeans, and topped with my Named Yona Coat.

As expected, I’m loving and wearing both the Wanted shirt and the Yona coat as much as the weather allows. The Wanted shirt got its first wash the other day and came out looking exactly as it went in with the addition of a few wrinkles, so I’m happy with how its wearing. My only qualm with the Yona coat is that the lack of fasteners and the wrap style doesn’t provide as much coverage from the elements as I’d like in a winter coat, but it’s otherwise pretty warm. Perhaps if I make it again in the future, I’d grade up a size around the bodice to make more room.

Day 7 | Budapest, Hungary

My Tamarack Jacket has been one of my favorite pieces of outerwear that I’ve made, but because it’s somewhat light-weight and cropped (and because I run cold all. the. time.) there’s only a small window between seasons that I can actually wear it and stay warm. The cold weather thankfully eased up a bit by the end of our trip, and between a second-hand J Crew sweater, scarf, and tights under my Boro Jeans, I was able to keep cozy.


On a note of interest to all of you Sewists, I found a solid handful of fabric stores throughout this holiday. Since this post is already so long, I have a second post planned with a round-up of fabric stores in Vienna and Budapest. Thanks for reading through, and I’ll see you next week!

5 Comment

  1. I love your first day look. And I’m looking forward to see which fabric store you found in Vienna. Since I’m soon visiting my parents in Austria and during my last stay in Vienna the time was to short and it was way to hot to even think about fabric shopping. (Vienna is a nice city but not during the summer )

    1. Thank you! I only found one in Vienna and it was recommended to me by another Instagrammer, but it’s definitely worth a visit. Super close to the train stop and not too far south of city center

  2. Oooh! I was just in Vienna and Hungary (including Budapest) in October and I did not have time to search out fabric stores. I look forward to your upcoming post on them.

    1. Oh yes! I hope you have the time to make it back soon, especially to Budapest since there are so many fabric stores that we stumbled upon them just by walking around!

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