Monday, November 10, 2008

Tany's coat: Now I really understand…

…why a custom tailored coat is so expensive! The amount of hand work is tremendous, there are many hours spent perfecting little details. And the difference shows, I assure you: the coat is heavier, the collar/lapels are crisper and better shaped and the coat hangs much better when it’s on. As a side note, working with velvet on such a project is really hard; besides the mess (my living room’s floor is always covered with little black spots of velvet fur, no matter how many times I vacuum), the velvet acts like a magnet to all the lint/dust around and it’s looking “dirty” until I brush it in the end, so don’t pay any attention to that!

The collar is nearly finished but I still have to finish hand tacking the facings inside (so there is a little rippling on the inside of the collar but it will disappear once I finish the facings). The following pictures show the collar right after the under collar was set (following Paco’s method, the facings/upper collar are stitched first and then the under collar is first machine stitched to the outer edge of the upper collar, turned to the right side under the upper collar and finally stitched by hand to the neckline and lapel’s corner (turning in the SAs ). I still have to press and prick stitch under the edges, but you can preview the clean crisp look of the collar and lapels already:


I also managed to make some progress on the hems; they were cushioned with bias cut interfacing strips, a little wider than the hem allowances, and set by hand (following the traditional method). I also stitched a wide cotton tape to the hem edge; this tape will cover the interfacing that is peaking out of the hem. I like to do things this way because the lining will be free hanging on this coat. The hem is not finished, just hand basted so I can evaluate it’s final aspect:


Another detail that I want to share is the way that the coat’s waist is slightly eased to the satin tapes on the back; I did this to better shape the waist on the back and to avoid adding a center back seam to the coat, as I had determined with the muslin:

This was the result of a weekend in which all the free time was used to work on this coat; there is still much work ahead: tacking the facings (and finishing the buttonholes on the facing side), constructing and setting in the sleeves, applying the sleeve heads and shoulder pads (I have Els' excellent tutorial to assist me on that task) and constructing the lining and applying it to the coat (I’ll be using the traditional method, so the lining will be entirely hand sewn in place).

2 comments:

Ann Made Studio said...

WOW Tany, there is definitely allot of work to making a haute couture/custom garment, but the end result will be that your jacket will be awesome! Thank you again for sharing such great photos of the details.

Marji said...

Tany, it's truly a labor of love.
What a fabulous coat you're creating. Thanks for sharing it here.