Navy Jackets, the End of Me.

Outerwear Part Two

When I first started my substack I wrote a post about designing classic jackets and originality, and I wanted to continue on with this topic because I am working on a new style right now and had some different ideas to share. I have had a few jacket silhouettes that I have been rolling over in my head for quite a while now, and I have been thinking this winter about how a jacket can really create a look or pull it together: really, a coat can most importantly save or even conceal an unfortunate outfit choice.

This winter I have been wearing a black lightweight, unlined cashmere overcoat from Private 0204 the weight of a light blanket almost everyday. I suppose that’s my uniform right now. I love an elongated, mysterious silhouette that can pull things together even if I am wearing only sweatpants underneath walking my son to the bus stop in the morning. I think in an old fashioned way I love an oversized coat that you have to shrug on, wrap around you. Looseness is something I think I appreciate more than when I was younger in its possible sophistication. I say possible because of course sometimes it just looks sloppy and that is not what I have in mind, but the right cut can look elegant, louche, understated, enveloping. I love how this fit can be feminine and androgynous at the same time. Designing a jacket/ coat is always a mystery to me when I start working on one but I always like to think about how the silhouette will read.

As I said in my first jackets post- I don’t like to copy an original or classic style intentionally, plenty of designers do that very well and no one needs my rendition of that. While there is a lot of merit in elevating a classic in an exacting way, I think on a high end level for example Prada does this well most recently with a barn jacket. Put that little triangle on it and we must have it.

For my own designs I try my best to imagine and tweak either in the fit or the details, what I feel it looks like in my head more than what it actually does look like. Actually as an exercise I challenge you to doodle what you think a trench coat looks like or a peacoat. It’s funny sometimes what details you remember and which ones you don’t. And sometimes these things you leave out or add in can make it much more interesting. Anyway this is how I can create a little dreaminess to a classic jacket or coat of my own. I once set out to make a peacoat and it definitely was anything but when I was done with it, but it had a sort of nautical sailor jacket feeling and functioned somewhat in the same way.

I will note now that last year I tried on at an unnamed designer gorgeous coat/ jacket- a sort of relaxed, slouchy almost peacoat in doublefaced cashmere, sigh. I balked at the $5500 price point and quickly removed the jacket in despair, and since then it has been haunting me, a navy void in my life.

So, of course in these situations over time I start to dream and imagine how I could just make something like this for myself, and then my own design thoughts start to creep in- What if the fabric was a bit lighter so it could be a three season, and sewn as single face? (Better for here in California! ) What if the buttons were beautiful vintage ones? What if the collar was more classic peacoat and the length a bit longer? Anyway it goes on and on and then off I go sketching and searching for fabric and working on the pattern based on one of my own basic jacket patterns that I have developed. Here are some little sketches of this jacket and a variation.

Sometimes I ask myself is that designing? It definitely is a form of designing, but different than when I sit down drawing and come up something from just an idea in my head. I think over the years I have started to appreciate both ways of having ideas, as long as I can stay true to my own style and designs and not focus too much on an example. When I have heard people talking about folk music, it reminds of a similar concept, where the same music is just being reinterpreted over time by different people but it it derives from the same origin. Slowly it can morph into something else entirely, or one person’s interpretation can be even more interesting than the original.

I hope this coat is coming to fruition this spring, it has been a bit slow going so far but I am making progress and I think I must fill this void in my life at the very least. If anyone has any thoughts on jackets please comment below or send me a message. Thanks for being here, and talk to you next week. xx Katherine