The James Dean jacket is finished!

As always these projects take much longer than anticipated, but finally the red jacket for my son is finished.

If you remember from my first post it was a pattern hack / modification of 2 patterns and a rtw jacket

All the alterations and pattern hacking were worth it as he has just the jacket he wanted. And a further upgrade was made to the final design – the jacket is lined( which of course added time to the project). Yes, it has black lining in the sleeves to slip it on and off easily but the star of the show is definitely the lining for the jacket body. Pure inspiration!

The fabric lining was found on Ebay by searching “James Dean fabric” . It’s actually a Hollywood Stars compilation but features the man himself.

This does confirm my belief that you can buy anything on ebay.

All other pattern hacks were successfully applied

Smaller collar than the original Lekala 6006 pattern, but using the collar stand overlay from the pattern which has worked really well ( after figuring out what it was and how to do it by searching the Internet)

Addition of flat bottom band and cuffs (self drafted). Narrower sleeves

Addition of welt style pockets- again using online resources plus referencing his H&M jacket for position/ sizing etc

Addition of lining using modifications to the basic pattern I hacked together.

It took some persuading to get him to model the final jacket but I managed to get a few very un-posed snaps as he wore the jacket out for the first time last night.