Faking a Tacky Western Jacket

One of the joys of live theater is that there is always the possibility that something might go catastrophically wrong. I costumed Dirty Rotten Scoundrels a few months ago. Monday of tech week, the day after the production photos were taken, one of the two leading ladies went into the hospital. She was, obviously, replaced. Her replacement could not fit the same costume – the size was off, and she played the character differently. That sort of left me scrambling for a new concept (I settled on something around early Loretta Lynn meets GCB) and a some western wear that didn’t fall into my budget. Bring on the franken-jacket!

The Thrift Gods smiled down on me when I was running around the Savers in a dead panic between work and call. I ended up with two jackets the same with similar shoulder cuts. That’s all you need for this trick. Well, you know, that, some fringe, a little time, and a little glue.

I mean, seriously, who doesn’t need a metallic faux-snakeskin print on some sort of completely synthetic knit moleskin?

Now, the jeans jacket has a jeans-jacket style collar, and this fellow has a lapel. That’s ok. The lapel makes a straight line up from the front edge of the jacket when unfolded.

Generally speaking, a waist length or slightly shorter jacket will show off the figure on most women. A boyfriend jacket will hide it and emphasize the legs. Your standard issue, hip length jeans jacket will do absolutely no good for most bodies.

The contrast jacket is basically becoming one large shoulder appliqué.

You might notice that I’m also pinning on some festive beaded fringe at the same time. Here’s the thing that sometimes confuses people:

I am really, truly, phenomenally, remarkably lazy.

If I can sew the two jackets together and nail the fringe down in one go, I am going to do exactly that. Because then I don’t have to sew around the same line of the jacket twice. That one time will be more annoying than it needs to be, but I still won’t have to do it twice. Also, there won’t be a lot of random stitch lines inside the jacket, and really, what are the odds that I’m going to throw a lining into this puppy to hide all the ugly?

There is an awkward situation around the jeans jacket buttons and button-holes. My solution was to slit the contrast jacket enough to allow the button to pass through, then glue the slit shut over the base jacket. For the button-hole, likewise, I slit the contrast jacket and glued it to the base jacket. But, you know, it’s ok because I used actual fabric glue instead of hot glue for a change. ;)

 

The cuff business is actually half hem and half appliqué – it’s hiding the seam allowance, like a fancy-dancy version of the ribbon hem.

ps – The original actress is just fine now! :) All’s well that ends well.