Showing posts with label coats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coats. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

Cover Designs!: #34 Last Christmas in Paris

 


Cover Designs is a feature in which I try to match up the outfit on a book cover with a dress pattern and sometimes even potential fabric matches as well. Today's pick is a seasonal one: Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb. 


Summary from the publisher: 

August 1914. England is at war. As Evie Elliott watches her brother, Will, and his best friend, Thomas Harding, depart for the front, she believes—as everyone does—that it will be over by Christmas, when the trio plan to celebrate the holiday among the romantic cafes of Paris.

But as history tells us, it all happened so differently…

Evie and Thomas experience a very different war. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict—but how?—and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war he also faces personal battles back home where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father’s newspaper business. Through their letters, Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears—and grow ever fonder from afar. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?

Christmas 1968. With failing health, Thomas returns to Paris—a cherished packet of letters in hand—determined to lay to rest the ghosts of his past. But one final letter is waiting for him…




The startling red of the coat on the cover of this book calls out for a copy! There are a few options to make a classic coat like this. You might start with Vogue 9367. Even though you can't see the front of the cover image, you might want a coat with some interesting detail on the front, like this Vogue pattern has. The back looks nearly identical to the cover image, if you use View C for length.

You might also try the Closet Core Siena Maker Jacket. It would just need to be lengthened a bit from its above-knee option to replicate the look of this coat quite well. 



Or, you could try the free Hydrus coat from Mood Sewciety. While this pattern was created with cosplay in mind, it's quite a nice coat, with the perfect silhouette to copy this cover design. 



While you're at Mood you could check out their red wool blends, like this cashmere/wool coating



Or for something a little more fiery red, you could use this mohair wool coating from King Textiles. 


Whichever pattern or fabric you might choose, coat making could be a fun winter project accompanied by listening to this book in audio format. 

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Text Talk: The Coat Route

The Coat Route: Craft, Luxury, & Obsession on the Trail of a $50,000 Coat  / Meg Lukens Noonan.
New York: Spiegel & Grau, c2013.
244 p.

I picked up this book on a sale table one day, recalling that I'd seen it mentioned by -- I think it was  DovegreyReader & that it had sounded interesting. So glad I did - it kept me busy for a few enjoyable evenings!

The idea for this book came to the author when she heard of an Australian tailor who had handcrafted what seemed to her an incredibly expensive overcoat for a private client.

She looked into it, and was intrigued by the whole process. So she followed the route it took from raw materials to finished coat, interviewing vicuna fur suppliers in Peru, investigating Italian silk merchants, visiting British button factories & Savile Row, and much more -- including of course, long talks with John Cutler, the master tailor. And a final visit to the coat's purchaser, a Vancouver based businessman, in which she finds the infamous overcoat casually slung across the back of a chair.

It feels like an entire collection of microhistories. It is perfect to read chapter by chapter, as each one is a complete story in its own right -- I feel like following up on one or two of my favourite bits, as they are just an introduction to a fascinating topic. I think that some of these chapters could be expanded into full books on their own! I really enjoyed dipping into this one, and after reading about the vicuna cloth, the silk lining, the gold engraved tags, the horn buttons and all the tailoring itself, the cost of this coat seems quite understandable. It is valued according to its actual value; and seems in line with couture and designer clothing prices, even while being utterly customized to the buyer.

So while something like this would never be found hanging in my closet, I found the steps toward its creation wonderfully interesting. I'd recommend reading this book bit by bit and allowing some time in between chapters, as it can feel a bit too much of a good thing when read all in one go, like I did. Her writing voice is very much "reportage", like the journalist that she is, without many stylistic frills to smooth out the narrative. It works, but for myself, a break in the matter-of-fact telling was needed. I wanted to imagine the story developing as it progressed, and taking a day or two before reading the next chapter was perfect.

Any reader who is also a sewist would find this one intriguing - so many different industries involved in making up this one item, and all of great interest to those who stitch. Recommended!



The author presents a lecture on this book at the Portland Art Museum in celebration of their 2015 exhibit: "Italian Style: Fashion Since 1945"