FOUNDATIONS REVEALED COMPETITION ENTRY
The Heavy Loden Bramble Coat
(click images to to enlarge)
Outline the story …
„Nature“ to me is primarily a thing to be protected I wanted to make a piece of clothing I would actually wear, not overly costumey I do love outrageous coats – they don’t call me “Sergeant Pepper” for nothing – and so I had some creative wiggle room I wanted it to be something durable, from natural materials only, washable, comfortable The fabric is Styrian loden from the historic fulling mill in Ramsau, it weighs 350 g/m² and lasts for decades All the other parts of the coat I wanted to be as durable as the loden Shapewise I was inspired by the coat of Willy Wonka in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” Some ideas of Austrian folkloristic costumes and the steampunk Austo-Hungarian uniforms some of the protagonists wear in “Dune” also went into it Originally, I sketched many leafy, flowery and thorny designs for the embroidery machine but even in the sketches these made me look like an extra from amateur theatrics, playing a tree I ended up with these very stylized brambles which I drew on pattern paper pieces, using oil pastels because they force you to draw in generous swoops as opposed to pedantic scribbles I scanned the designs and used them to digitize the embroidery file I did use polyester sewing thread and there is no way around polypropylene embroidery stabilizer, but that I did cut away Otherwise, all materials are natural: Wool, horsehair, rayon embroidery yarn and lining May my heirs quarrel about who gets
Outline the construction…
I used a vintage „Burda International“ cardigan jacket pattern in which I had to alter the very broad shoulders and add the collar and lapels, beside the normal short-waist-monkey-arms adaptations I always need to do. The embroidery was done on a CNC embroidery machine for which I made the files myself. I cut away all the stabilizer, but embroidery makes fabric stiff and difficult to force into shape.
Some of the “fabric” is hand knit. All the pieces were first stitched and then cut out because I had decided to use no glue whatsoever for the construction, no fray check, nothing iron-on. The interfacing is horsehair canvas, padstitched to the fashion fabric, and cotton muslin for the upper back.
I used the most classic of tailoring techniques I was able to execute. The main problem was the massive thickness and springiness of the loden. Every seam allowance must be seamed down invisibly with herringbone stitches. Adding the hand knit pieces compounded the problem. In many places the presser foot of my machine would not lift high enough, and I even needed longer hand sewing needles. All in all, the ratio of hand sewing to machine sewing was around 70:30.
I wish I could have sewn this last year for this year’s competition because loden improves with wearing. It is initially very stiff (as can be seen in the tails which are not backed or interfaced) but it will mold to the wearer over time and will also gain some fluidity.
Fantastisch! The colour really pops next to the grey.
That is amazing and it looks amazingly perfect on you! I may have to use the thigh slit design on a garment sometime, for stylishly solving range of movement issues.
This is gorgeous – so creative but wearable.