Illusion Couture
Man's Frock Coat
1840's
Designed by Holly Cole
This jacket literally had a mile of thread in it.
Maybe more.
The basting alone was mind boggling.
But did I learn a lot!
This
jacket is a very fine black wool jersey.
The collar and cuffs are black velvet.
The lining is charcoal gray.
The interesting thing about this coat is the high collar. It rises well above those worn today and covered the cravat men usually wore with such a coat. This collar needed lots of structure to hold it's shape. This was achieved with stiff horsehair interfacing and yet more and more tailor's interfacing and lot's and lot's of pad stitching.
Other challenges were the tails and the front cutaway. Getting the edges smooth, flat, straight and gradually tapering were the issues.
The lapels were all hand stitched.
I had expert guidance and assistance from Kay Stuntz (NY).
