Finished in Time for the Holidays: Gold Collarless Jacket

I can't help it: I have a thing for collarless jackets, both making them and buying them. Good thing the fashion magazines say you can't go wrong with a collarless jacket. Here's my latest addition to my faux-Chanel jacket wardrobe, made by yours truly.

Glad this jacket is finally finished, and just in time to wear to holiday parties. I plan on wearing it most often with a white-and-navy striped French sailor's shirt and jeans. Here are the details:

• Fabric: Metallic bouclé from Mood Fabrics in NYC that is gold on one side and silver on the other; you could ostensibly choose either or. Supposedly this fabric is from Ralph Lauren. Lining is sheer white silk organza and the Hong Kong seams are finished in silk charmeuse, also from Mood.

• Trim: A blue braid with gold accents from M&J Trims. I really wanted to find a bolder trim but Annie was with me at M&J and she has all the patience there of an antsy two-year-old strapped in a stroller. Fortunately she was engrossed for a bit by Orthodox Jewish teenage girls who were davening in between looking for trims.

• Pattern: I guess I'd have to say this is my own basic design. It started out a few years ago as Textile Studios' Mandarin Collar Jacket pattern, but I've altered it so much it really doesn't resemble the original pattern any more. I wanted this design to be very basic and not very fitted, hence no darts or princess seams.
  

I added lined flap pockets (decorative only) that are topped with piping in silk charmeuse. The most time-consuming part of this jacket was hand-sewing the trim in place.


Here's a close-up of the fabric so you can see it has a split personality: Is it a gold bouclé, or is it silver? I loved the gold side a little more, but I didn't want to hide that fabulous silver beneath a lining. So I decided to use sheer silk organza as a lining because it let the silver peek through.

I treated the bouclé and the organza as one layer, first hand-basting the two fabrics together before any machine sewing to prevent shifting. I Hong Kong-finished all the seams with strips of silk charmeuse and then I catchstitched the seams in place to the organza. The outer edges of the jacket and sleeve hems were bias bound: I stitched the bias strips of charmeuse to the wrong side, then flipped the strips over and stitched in the ditch to tack them down. The raw edges of the bias strip were then covered up by the trim, which I hand-sewed in place.

I got the idea to treat the interior of this jacket this way from a gorgeous Prada jacket I fondled at Saks Fifth Avenue. The lining and the fashion fabric of this jacket were treated as one unit, and the seams were all Hong Kong-finished. The inside was as beautiful as the outside.

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What I'm working on now: Annie's red duchesse satin strapless dress! You may remember this was my project in Susan Khalje and Kenneth Kings's class in August. The dress is constructed; now I have to make the lining and put in a picked zipper. My deadline is January 8th, the night of "Winter Wonderland" at Annie's high school. Annie and I will head to M&J this weekend to pick out a black trim or embellishment to accent the waist. Stay tuned!