Photo Shoot

For the Photo shoot I sourced a shirt and stiff collar from uni. I then sourced a tie, hat and shoes from Hirearchy. I had my own collar studs and armbands. I used the screen shots along with my historical research to make sure the items I sourced were accurate. I then dressed my model and had a photo shoot at the beach. I chose the beach to create the same effect as the opening credits of the TV series, Boardwalk Empire. I am really happy with the fit of the suit and how it looks with the correct accessories. I then chose a few images that my photographer Z then edited. I believe that these images reflect the style and feel of the design and they really capture the piece well.

Prep for Photo Shoot

As I Have almost finished my suit I have began to organise the photo shoot. I have contacted the photography department and Zdravko Dimitrov is going to be taking my photos. His website is: http://zdravkodimitrov.co.uk

I met with him today and we have arranged to shoot the piece at 11 on Bournemouth beach. We have discussed the shots and the style that I am looking for.  I have begun to source the items I need for the shoot and I will continue with this tomorrow. I am excited about the shoot however it is hard to juggle this amount of tasks as I am still working on The Threepenny Opera and I have not had much experience sourcing costumes and accessories, as I am usually a maker working with a designer.

Second Fitting

Trousers

I am really happy with the fit of the trousers and with braces they are sitting really nicely. They just need lengthening slightly by 1.5cm at the front and 3cm at the back but I have left excess around the turn up to account for this.

Waistcoat

The waistcoat is slightly baggy along the neckline this can be fixed by taking in the shoulders by ¼” by the neck. Once this is done it has a really nice fit.

Note: buy a buckle.

Jacket

The shape of the jacket good now and I am happy with how it looks. The armhole needs making bigger at the top and ever so slightly at the bottom; a very thin shoulder pad also needs adding.  The back pitch needs lowering so the sleeve sits in straighter.  The sleeve needs looking at, the head needs to be reduced, the length needs to be shorter and the elbow raised. The collar is almost there but needs to be more curved in the draft. 

Budgeting

I have now purchased the majority of components for my suit and so far I have spent £264.20. I am really happy with this as my estimate for the suit and photo shot was £350. There are still items that I need to purchase and I will have extra thread to buy however I am on track to hopefully not exceed £300 for this project.

Fabric	Use	Amount	Price	Cost
wool	Top cloth	6	£24.75	£148.50
lining	lining	5	£12.00	£60.00
silesia	pockets	1	£3.45	£3.45
hair canvas	all	3	£6.50	£19.50
shoulder canvas	jacket front	1	£6.50	£6.50
breast felt	jacket front	0.5	£6.60	£3.30
collar canvas	collar, cuffs waistband	0.5	£6.20	£3.10
collar melton	collar	0.25	£6.60	£1.65
Ice wool	arm holes	0.25	£6.10	£1.53
Stayflex	Pockets, Lapel	0.5	£2.95	£1.48
thread	top cloth	4	£1.40	£5.60
thread	lining	1	£1.40	£1.40
Thread	Baisting	3	£1.40	£4.20
buttons	fly	1	£1.00	£1.00
buttons	waistcoat	1	£1.00	£1.00
buttons	jacket	0	£1.50	£-
Buttons	Jacket cuffs	1	£1.00	£1.00
Buckel	waistcaot	1	£1.00	£1.00
		Total cost		£264.20

Pattern Adaptions

The Green lines show where the patterns have been adapted after the second fitting. The trousers had no alterations and therefore there are no pattern pieces shown. These alterations have been added to the paper patterns.

Jacket Alterations

Waistcoat Alterations

Fitting

Jacket

Side seam 1" both sides down to top of vent where it's 1¼ " 

Vent is 2" above hip line

Take out ¼ " at shoulder to help with adjustments

Take 1/8th from top of shoulder 

Lower the lapel to the waistline. Extend lapel by ½" and straiten lapel.

Waistcoat

Arm hole take in by 1 ¾ " at the top, curve round to 1/2" at the bottom – see pins

Take in side seam by ½ " at the top

Lower back neck line by ½" at the centre back

Take in the centre front line by 1"curving round – see pins

Trousers

The ziggering is too tight and this is effecting the hang of the trousers, re-do this before putting together.

Leave the turn-ups, as trousers will be lengthened slightly but do this after second fitting.

Otherwise the overall fit of the trousers is fine.

I am really happy with how the fitting went today. The trousers appear to fit really well however I need to sort out the inside finishing. The jacket is still slightly to bit and I will take in the side seams to account for this. The waistcoat only needs taking in slightly down the centre front and I feel this was probably effected from were I let it out after the calico fitting. The armholes all need altering but this generally happens on very fitting. I will make the alterations to the patterns and then continue to put the suit together. After considering what I have to do I will arrange the second fitting.  

Pockets

For this suit I have 5 welt pockets to complete, 4 in the waistcoat and a breast pocket in the jacket. I also chose to do a sample pocket as this is the first time I have created a welt pocket with a chalk stripe to pattern match. I am glad that I started with a sample as I made some mistakes, however these were easily rectified and when it came to making the welt pockets on the jacket and waistcoat I didn't make these same mistakes. Creating the pattern match proved very difficult as even after taking the welts in place the pattern match moved so it was out of place after machine stitching them. I have tired to match them as best as possible however the match is 1/16th inch out in places as to constantly stitch and unpick it would start to wear away at the fabric. I am happy with the pattern matches in the welt pockets and even though they could be slightly more precise I feel that in getting that accuracy may have cost the fabric around the pocket. 

I drafted the pocket flap on the pocket and then transferred it and cut out in cloth. When making up the pockets the pattern match for the jets is difficult especially on the top jet and you cant tell how well you have created the pattern match until you cut the pocket and by this time it is to late to re do. On one side I am really happy with the match however on the second side I feel that pattern match is really out. However this shouldn’t affect the look of the jacket, as the flap will hide the jets.

I then moved on to the trousers side entry pockets. These are the simplest of the pockets I feel however I found creating the pattern match incredibly challenging. Because of this I only managed to pattern match one part of the facing but this is the facing which is visible, as the other facing is not seen and is on a rolled seam which is top stitched I felt that it was less important for this to be pattern matched. 

Finally I created the jetted pockets on the back of the trousers…

Cutting out

I cut out in cloth adding seam allowances and inlays.  Because the cloth has a chalk stripe I had to consider a pattern match when cutting out, I also needed to consider the angle of the stripe to make sure this was always at the same angle. To do this I marked the top of the fabric on the wrong side making sure this all the pattern pieces were led according to this.   the jacket back I have decide to have vents in the side seam. I have taken this detail from the image below.

Blackman, C. (2009).100 Years of Menswear. London: Laurence King  (p.92)

This image is of a late 1920’s gangster suit and I like the image that the vents create to allow for these I had to consider them when cutting out. I started around 4’’ above the waistline and they are 2’’ wide. I have left plenty of fabric as I can cut away the excess. I have also added allowances of 1’’ along the side of the turn-ups and 2’’ below the turn-ups encase there are any alterations which need to be made to the length of the trousers. All the added seam allowances can be seen below in red.

Jacket and waistcoat front

Inlays of 2cm

·      Shoulder

·      Side seam

Seam allowance

·      4cm down the CF following round the hemline.

·      1.5 cm around the neck

·      1.5cm around the armhole

 Jacket and waistcoat back

Seam allowance

·      2.5cm at the Centre back

·      1.5 cm around the neck line

·      1.5cm around the armhole

·      4cm along the hemline

Trousers Front

·      1.5cm at the waistline

·      Allowance around turn-up

Trousers Back

·      1.5cm along the waistline up to the back of the point

·      5cm at the front of the point

·      5cm in the seat tapering to the curve where the is no allowance

·      Allowance around turn-up

Pattern Alterations

After the fitting I started to alter my patterns according to the notes taken. The blue lines show how the patterns have been altered and these alterations link directly to the notes taken from the fitting. There were only minor alterations from the fitting, showing that my patterns were almost accurate. However the most important alterations that I have made are the placement of the pockets, this is something which I had to work on from Specialist Practice. I have altered the placement of all the pockets according to the models shape. This is something that is really important to get right early on as once you have put the pocket in there is no altering the placement. All the other alterations could have been made during the first fitting in top fabric due to the seam allowances and inlays. 

Jacket

Waistcoat

Trousers

Fitting

I created calico toiles to test my patterns, as I had not used these instructions before and I wanted to make sure that I had drafted them correctly. The fitting went really well and there were only minor alterations. When taking into consideration the inlays and seam allowances I would have been fine to go strait into top cloth however this was not something that I wanted to risk. This was also the first fitting that I had done alone, with only an assistant to help me. I decided I was confident in this and being a toil fitting was a good opportunity for me to see how I could work independently using purely, my own judgements. 

Jacket

Increase centre back by a total of ½’’

Increase the centre front of jacket by ¾’’ at the bottom, ½’’ at the hip line and tapering up to nothing at the brake line

Take in slightly at the side seam only on the front panel by 1’’ sweeping in to nothing by the chest line

Move the pocket down slightly by 1’’

Scoop out the armhole slightly – leave till first fitting in cloth

Waistcoat

Increase centre back by a total of ½’’

Increase centre front by 1’’at the bottom, ½’’ at the waistline and tapering to nothing at the chest line.

Move the curve of the neck down to the chest line

Move bottom pocket towards the centre front by 1’’

Move top pocket up by ¾’’ and make it start on line with the bottom pocket

Increase the side seam of the front panel by ¼’’

Extend shoulder seam by ¹⁄₈’’ on front and back

Add back dart

Trousers

Raise trouser hems by 7¼’’ 

Otherwise they fit well

Pattern alterations

After the fitting I started to alter my patterns according to the notes taken. The blue lines show how the patterns have been altered and these alterations link directly to the notes taken from the fitting. There were only minor alterations from the fitting, showing that my patterns were almost accurate. However the most important alterations that I have made are the placement of the pockets, this is something that I had to work on from Specialist Practice. I have altered the placement of all the pockets according to the models shape. This is something that is really important to get right early on as once you have put the pocket in there is no altering the placement. All the other alterations could have been made during the first fitting in top fabric due to the seam allowances and inlays. 

Fabric

I have bought the top cloth for my suit, as I was unable to find an exact match of the fabric that would be suitable I have decided to use a chalk stripe. I have chosen a 12/14oz grey 100% wool chalk stripe from H E box. The cost of this has come to £148.50 and I ordered 6 meters due to the height of my model. As I originally budgeted £200 for top cloth I am inside my budget and this can go towards styling the photos shoot. 

Pattern Drafting

For my patterns I have used Bridglands; The Modern Tailor Outfitter and Clothier as the patterns will be historically accurate, I have used this book before to draft patterns however these patterns are slightly more challenging than those that I have previously used. This is one of the reasons that I have decided to do a full calico toile. The pattern drafting took slightly longer than anticipated but hopefully because of this I will have created accurate patterns. To help me with slight variations of lapel size, turn-ups and pocket placements I referred to other tailoring books and cutting systems as well as Graham’s notes from previous projects. 

Double Breasted Jacket Pattern

Waistcoat Pattern

Trouser Pattern

Trouser Adaptations

Lapel Sizes

Table of Proportions

Measurements

I have found a model for this project who is able to attend the fittings and a photo shoot to finish. I have taken his measurements so I am now able to start pattern drafting. After taking the appropriate measurements I then arranged a calico fitting for the 6^th of February giving me just over a week to source fabric, make my patterns and a calico toile. 

Fabric Sourcing

I visited H. E. Box in Weymouth who are a woollen fabric suppliers, specialising in tailoring fabrics. They were really helpful but unfortunately the wools were to light for my suit as it is a period piece. However we did get a samples book that we could take back to uni to be put in the archive.  This trip was helpful to see the shop and meet the staff and I’m sure I will visit them in the future. We then visited the fabric shop in Weymouth to look at lining fabrics however there was nothing suitable and we felt the shop was over priced. Finally we met Linda Clift in Dorchester to view some vintage buttons and lace. I found some vintage buttons that may be suitable for my waistcoat and to be used as fly buttons. I also found some collar studs and arm garters that I hope will be useful in the future.

Details:

H. E. Box – 01305 839123

http://www.hebox.co.uk/

Linda Clift - 01305 264914

http://www.antiquequiltsandtextiles.co.uk/