An elegant blue coat – self drafted

Two Sundays ago I took advantage of the autumn weather still mild to show my new coat off for a stroll downtown in Monza and a visit to Vivian Maier’s exhibition at Arengario (a beautiful exhibition among other things!).

I’m very proud of this coat seen that it’s been the first one I’ve sewed up! I made it last May and it was the final project of the first year of the professional pattern cutting course I’m attending at Afol Moda in Milan. Since I started to sew, making a coat has always been my dream, so I chose this garment as year-end project.

I had been in need of a medium-weight elegant coat, that I could wear both in autumn and in spring, for a while. After a long research for styles and silhouettes, I came across a Vanessa Bruno Athé’s coat (see here and here), as I liked its silhouette very much. I tried to re-create this model fitting it to my body shape, altering some details, such as the sleeves/shoulders and the front and back bodice. The bodice has cuts both on the front and the back. It has side seam pockets, pleated sleeves (each sleeve has four pleats on its head) and a mandarin collar.

I had to design and draft the pattern and then sew the garment. I traced the coat from a block pattern of a dress without bust darts and I added 2 cm of ease allowance to each side (8 cm tot.). The original coat has a looser fitting, but I preferred a tighter garment that follows my body shape better in my case (I don’t think that a looser fitting coat like this would have been good on me). Then I altered the bodice, the sleeve and the skirt. I fit the pattern with the help of my teacher and then I sewed it at school.

After having visited three fabric shops in Milan and the Brianza area, I chose this piquè wool (95% wool, 5% elastan/spandex) in blue and anthracite (I wouldn’t know how to define this colour because it changes according to the light). I bought it at Beviltex Tessuti in Verano Brianza (MB). It’s a beautiful light soft falling wool.

As for the lining, I bought a black medium-weight cupro at Beviltex too.

I bought the metal snap fasteners in a market stall. I used a medium-weight fusible knitted interfacing to reinforce the facings, the front band and the collar. I added a wool shoulder roll to support the sleeve cup.

I’m very happy with how it came out, simple and elegant at the same time. Exactly the kind of coat I was thinking of and I needed.

Here I coordinated it with a red scarf and an olive-green jersey dress I designed and sewed up in the last few days.

In the end, here I am in front of the Arengario before visiting the exhibition!