The Bionic Woman: Activewear for the Retro Modern Futuristic 70's Partially Mechanical Woman In Us All.

Actually, I've been wanting to make a "Bionic Woman" outfit for a while now (the first version didn't turn out the way I would have liked). I really should point out that this is a "THE Bionic Woman" inspired outfit. The insulting, updated version that aired not too long ago dropped the "THE" in the title, but that is all that I'm going to say about that...

Anyway, the image I recall of Jaime Sommers when thinking of the series is one in which she running in the woods in a kind of jogging suit, and as my friend Mike showed me (who, by the way, is totally buddies with Lindsay Wagner, who is the also the aunt of a girl that was in my 8th grade class), the outfit that I am recalling is most likely the one she is seen wearing in the opening credits. See the running? The woods? The Prell bouncy hair?

I struggled a little about how fitted I wanted to make the top, and in the end, decided to go with just tight enough and a little space-age-y, After all, although I would consider the Bionic Woman a superhero, the TV genre was considered Sci-Fi. I took the horizontal stripes on the original jacket and made curves stripes in blue and black, and made the bodice out of a stretchy cotton jersey. I wanted to make the shoulders a little more heavy to make them look "stronger" so I used what I had left of a stiffer white corduroy.

I considered making a one-sleeved jacket with metal inserts because it was actually only her right arm that was bionic (along with both her legs and one ear), but knew that would be too "artsy" for this outfit, so I went with the more everyday wearable path.