Celeste est fini...The Secret is in the Chain

The Chanel jacket is a commonplace garment worn by the well-heeled and best dressed, but only dreamt about by the likes of middle-America people like me. If we are blessed with a gift for dressmaking, then we can copy the styling of this iconic jacket with the help of pattern makers. My goal was to make a "Little French Jacket" using the couture techniques that make the big fashion houses famous, before I turned 70.

I started my jacket in March of last year and named her Celeste. Though I didn't spend a year actually working on it, it was a time consuming and challenging project. I can normally make a complex garment like jeans or a lace dress in roughly four to six hours, but couture sewing techniques take time and patience, and lots of hand sewing. I tracked my time, documenting the various stages just to see how close I would come to the 100+ hours it takes the designers to whip one up.

Start to finish, Celeste took roughly 70 hours. I think part of the reason my time is shorter is that I didn't count in any customer fittings and I did use my machine in some parts of the construction.  And, as much as I tried to make hand sewn buttonholes, they looked like crap, so I opted to make machine bound buttonholes instead.  That would have probably added another 10+ hours to the total, plus the cost of a bottle of bourbon.

I have already documented some of the couture stages of the jacket construction in previous posts, but I wanted to give you a picture of some of the many aspects of the making of Celeste...and her final debut. It's funny that I finished her in a record setting heat wave in California, so I'll not be wearing her any time soon. She will just have to hang on Colette in my new sewing studio.

I won't even make you wade though the construction details to wait for a picture - here she is, up front and center...

Celeste est fini...

 

And here below, for all the sewing junkies, are some of the construction details...I made plenty of mistakes during the process and "would do it differently next time", if I were ever going to make another jacket.  I will admit as much as I loved the hand sewing, I'll not be making another. Celeste is a one of a kind, once in a lifetime adventure, thank you.

Recall that the couture method starts with rectangles big enough to fit each pattern piece, the outlines of which are thread traced onto the rectangle.  You don't actually cut the seams until after you match up the thread tracings and sew the seams...very opposite to standard garment construction.

The silk lining pieces are basted to the woolen fabric along the "quilting lines"

The bound buttonholes which I chose to add were made with grey organza and reinforced. Wished I had used a darker organza,

Passable, but not Chanelish.

 The center front edges were also stabilized with organza "tape".

 

After the quilting on each piece was completed, the princess and side seams were sewn together, matching the thread tracings.  The lining was then hand sewn at all the seams

The hem was also stabilized with some special bias tape that JoAnn's doesn't carry,  and not wishing to drive to Stonemoutain  or Britex, I ordered it off the Internet. Pick stitches hold it in place.

All the trim is sewn on by hand

The three piece sleeves are sewn together using the conventional method.  (I must have laid awake for three nights trying to figure out how they would be constructed...until I went back to the book and saw that they are just a normal sleeve construction.  I cut a narrow strip of that fancy tape to stabilize the sleeves, then hand sewed the hemline and sleeve vent.  I did cheat on the vent - no buttonholes...another Chanel faux pas.

Adding the trims...

 

The lining is basted in and the quilting lines are added by machine.

 

I love the doing the "fell" stitch...all the lining pieces are sewn together and hemmed using this stitch. The trick is to keep them tiny.

Sleeve innards...

 

Finished sleeve...

 

I have put in so many set in sleeves in my life, they are not a problem for me.  And any time you are sewing with a rich woolen fabric they are that much easier, as the fabric has a lot of give. (Be sure to always use a basting line to ease the sleeve into the armhole.  I just pinned the sleeves in my normal fashion and sewed them with my machine.

 

The hardest part of this method is that the sleeve lining is all over the place and basically in your way. Once the sleeve is sewn in, the sleeve lining is then pinned to the bodice lining and hand sewn together.

The entire lining is hand sewn to the jacket fabric...and those dang buttonholes. Not very pretty.

 

One of the last steps is making the pockets. Originally I was only going to have two pockets, which is not very Chanel, but I ran out of one of the trims - the selvage edge of the fabric (the fabric was purchased three years ago at Stonemountain).  As it was, I had to open up the back seam and cut off that selvage to make enough trim for the sleeves and pockets.  But after sewing on the two lower pockets, I knew I needed to add the two upper pockets.  Otherwise it's just another boxy jacket. I had one piece of the selvage edge, but it was cut too narrow. Solution - I just cut down the width a fraction of an inch and was able to make trim for the two upper pockets.

The pockets are lined and hand sewn to the jacket.

 When all is said and done, it's not a Chanel-styled jacket unless it has a chain at the hemline.  The Chanel chain gives the jacket it's "weight", and makes it hang better on your body.  Plus the weight of the jacket is one of it's endearing features when you slip it on.  The silk lining caresses your body...I can understand why you see a lot of sleeveless blouses underneath one of these jackets.

 

Even though I have enough fabric to make slim skirt from the wool, I'm just not that into suits anymore...and I can't even imagine a time that I'd wear one.  My Celeste will look fabulous with a pair of leather pants or skinny jeans, some sling back pointy toed heels and a huge string of pearls. Fall can't come soon enough!!

Laurel. Check that off the Bucket List!

50 Hours and It's Not Done yet...

Celeste - Part 3

Over a year ago, I started an adventure making my first Chanel styled jacket...I named her Celeste. I wrote about her beginnings in earlier blogs ( see Ultimate Sewing Pinnacle  and Celeste - Part 2 ), but Celeste lay dormant for some time and when Spring of this year arrived, I vowed to finish her. I will be doing a final post when she's finished, complete with photos of my version of the couture process, but I wanted to give you another sneak peak.

To date, I have logged 50 hours into my Little French Jacket and when I say I only have to set in the sleeves, sew in the lining, attach the buttons and the Chanel-style chain at the hem, it sounds like I'm almost done, huh? Not so much...right now, I'm guessing that Celeste will be almost 80% sewn by hand, and 20% by machine by the time she's ready to step out. Keep in mind that even the most complex dress might take me 6 hours at most.

I love hand sewing, and I'm in no hurry... couture sewing can't be rushed. So I'll just keep plodding along and hope to have her ready for our Breckenridge trip in July, and before my 70th birthday in August. We are stopping by my sister's home in Salt Lake and I can't wait to introduce her to Celeste. Jane is an excellent seamstress who makes the most beautiful garments.  The last time I visited her, she whipped out a full length double breasted coat from the closet, made in stunning blue-back (HEAVY) wool, and fully lined. I was so impressed...not that I couldn't do it, but that I wouldn't! Where would I wear it in California? Rubbish!.. she can probably out-sew me tenfold. ( I always wanted to use that in a sentence...LOL!)

She will love Celeste...

"Sleeve Guts"

Oh Celeste, I love you already...

Laurel. Bucket List check-off coming up.

"Celeste" - The Jacket, Part 2

I remember when I used to make a wedding gown, I would ponder for days, even weeks, before I would actually cut a thread of an expensive satin or lace.  I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about the pattern, the order of assembly, a particular technique that I would need to use. Hours of planning, mentally obsessing about the gown...and then one day I would just jump in and start cutting.

Making a couture jacket has been no different for me. It has been hard to get it out of my head these past two months, and yet I had not moved forward to take the first steps. Fear? Not really. It's just that the techniques for Claire Schaeffer's Chanel-styled jacket are polar opposite to the way that I have learned to sew. Daunting is perhaps a better word.

In every couture garment process the making of a muslin is absolutely essential.  And since I have made many a muslin for myself and FabricLady, it was a breeze to use the pattern in a traditional way. And so began "Celeste" - made of humble muslin fabric, all to check the pattern for fit, BEFORE I actually cut in her wool.

I cut the pattern pieces exactly as they were designed for my "size". Patterns have changed over the years...I used to be a perfect 12, but these days, I need a Vogue 16 to fit my busty size. I then sewed it together in the traditional manner: princess seams, side and shoulder seams, then sleeves.

The jacket was still a little small around the bust.  I discovered that the side panel under the sleeve was designed to be smaller than I would have normally done - the seams on the three-piece sleeves should match the seams on the jacket under the arm, and they didn't. So to alter the jacket around the bust line, I just made the side panel wider to match the sleeve seams.  Voila! It fit!

I dismantled the whole muslin thinking I would use it for my final pattern pieces and there it sat for several weeks. I again lay awake nights trying to figure out how I was going to transfer all those markings to my fabrics.  Muslin is not transparent (duh!). After some research on various marking techniques, I decided on tracing paper - it's a little more sturdy than pattern tissue. So finally, after weeks of brain drain I was ready to begin Celeste.

The tracing paper pattern pieces have all the 5/8" seam allowances removed, as described in Ms. Schaeffer's technique. (Don't forget that you have to get her book if you want to sew your jacket using her couture techniques, as the Vogue Pattern instructions describe the traditional assembly process.)

And something else I'm not used to doing when I start a garment - cutting ONE section at a time, rather than cutting out ALL the pieces, all the linings and interfacing in one sitting.  I started with the jackets fronts...just because Ms. S. does so in her book.

I cut my large rectangles of wool and silk organza and then settled into a make shift table top in my comfy easy chair by the window, where I had envisioned myself doing all that intricate hand sewing. I used a couple of different colors of thread to do my markings. (I eventually scrapped the recommended white thread as I could barely see it.)

After thread marking of the entire parameter of the jacket front, I marked and hand stitched the organza interfacing to the wool and basted the quilting lines. I then machine sewed the quilting line, using a 4mm running stitch. (Remember that I had checked out the quilting lines in the real Chanel RTW jackets in the Nieman's Chanel salon and found they were done with a machine, rather than hand stitched) So I guess Celeste won't be considered "Haute Couture", as her fabric has been touched with a machine presser foot and needle.  Oh well.

The final quilting line is hard to see, but that's the point.  It's just meant to help the jacket hold it's shape better and keep the fabric from pulling away from the lining - not be a design element.

I spent a little over four hours on Celeste yesterday, largely because I thread traced on side of the jacket in the same direction as the other side - whoopsie - the two fronts should be a mirror image! At any rate, it was great to actually get in there and start sewing.  I'll be finishing the two fronts, marking the button holes, adding some stay tape, and maybe even starting the hand sewn buttonholes.

Until then.

Laurel. Just do it.

The Ultimate Sewing Pinnacle - Chanel

At some point in a sewist's life of creativity, a deep yearning for a couture garment arises.  Whether she acts upon that urge to create a sewn masterpiece or talks herself down from the whole scary proposition is directly proportional to the no-fear, self-confidence and inner crazy inside her.

I have sewn many a wedding gown and tailored a few coats in my lifetime, but I can't say that I've truly made a garment worthy of being called couture.  I joined the American Sewing Guild several months ago, largely because they had a small neighborhood group designated as the "Couture Group".  I imagined that at the very least it would be a group a women who probably sewed as well as myself and at best, I would be able to pick the brains of some incredible sewists better than myself.  Either way, I would be inspired to create!

So began this journey into couture sewing and the world of Chanel. To a sewist, the classic Chanel jacket is a masterpiece of design and hand sewn Nirvana.  For Mr. Lagerfeld and his haute couture team, a Chanel jacket is the culmination of over 130 hours of painstaking care in every seam and stitch. Their techniques are closely guarded and unless you fork over the $4 - 5K to buy one yourself and rip it apart, you will only get bits and pieces of his genius.  To make such a garment is the height of accomplishment for any sewist.  And I am no different - I have to say "I did it", before old lady impatience and bad eyesight get the best of me.

Ms. Claire Schaeffer is a Chanel addict/collector, and fortunately for us run of the mill hoi-polloi, she is a Vogue pattern designer: hence, a Chanel - styled jacket for the masses.  So I will start with her and take you on a journey with "us" in my blog, making my first ever couture garment.

Vogue pattern in hand.... 

Her book ordered Amazon...

Watching and re-watching the DVD...taking notes

I had several pieces of wool fabric to choose from: 1) a beautiful wool that I picked up from Britex the year that retired from SureWest and I vowed at that time to make something special.  It's been in my stash ever since; and 2) a lovely soft grey tweedy wool with some metallic threads that I picked up from Stomemountain that I was going to make into a swing coat.  At first I thought I would go with the Britex wool, but in the end, my shiny crow-like personality decided that a jacket with gold threads would absolutely compliment my skinny jeans (yep, that's what I plan to wear my couture jacket with!)

 There is no other fabric lining choice for a couture garment than silk. I'm using a beautiful Silk Charmeuse...a lightweight fabric woven with a satin weave, in which the warp threads cross over three or more of the backing weft threads - technical talk that just says the front of the fabric has a smooth finish—lustrous and reflective—whereas the back has a dull finish. Stonemoutain And Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley CA (you already know it's my favorite store!) has such a huge selection it was hard to choose, but I landed on this one - who doesn't look beautiful in peach, even if it is on the inside?

The interfacing on a Chanel jacket is also critical.  Even though I own yards of fusible pellon and woven interfacing, using any version of self-sticking interfacing would be like making "a purse from a sow's ear" - suffice it to say, a ghastly faux pas in the world of couture! And thus, I spare no expense, and go right for the silk organza. Either of these amazing fabrics is not found at any Joanne's or Hancock's that I've ever been to...so get your big girl panties on and make the trip to Berkeley.

The only thing perhaps more important than choosing quality fabrics is choosing the right trim and buttons. Chanel jackets have all manner of trim designs and materials. The jacket styles of today are now as varied as any haute couture designer's runway showing, but Coco's classic designs have withstood the test of time - they are as fashionable today as they were decades ago. The only way to truly capture the essence of their genius is to actually go look at them, up close and personal.

I would have posted pictures here, but alas, that too is a no-no. I strolled through Neiman Marcus' Chanel boutique, lifted a few hemlines, fondled a few sleeves and asked for a photo of the salon.  And since I don't know Mr Lagerfeld personally to ask his permission, NO Iphone pics for me!  I totally respect that.  The sweet salesman did ask if I wanted to try one on...I chickened out. I have an aversion to trying on garments that I have no intention of buying - like I have an extra $4 grand in my checking account!

The salesman thought Karl might be filming the salon with hidden security cameras (joke)!

Across the street from Neimans and a few steps away from a Chanel store is Britex, a five or six floor mecca of expensive fabrics, trims and all things sewing.  I used to shop in it regularly...until I found Stonemountain.  But they do boast a huge selection of trims, so it's worth the drive over the Bay Bridge and into the massive traffic snarl of Downtown San Fransisco.

I spent over two hours, pulling trims, ribbons and buttons. And after all that contemplation and discussion (everyone on the floor had an opinion!) I opted to pair a trim with what would be a self-made trim using the selvage edge of my wool fabric. A little chain for the hem, some trim and buttons and my purchases for this jacket are complete...maybe...

I'll probably watch that DVD again...you have to get the entire sewing "process" clear in your brain before you start cutting, mainly because Ms Schaeffer's pattern instructions detail the "traditional" assembly process that I know backwards and forward, but her couture technique is something I have never done before. It's not intuitive for an old school seamstress, but a process that I'm already starting to obsess over in the wee hours of a fitful sleep. And I haven't even cut an inch of fabric yet.

Just for the heck of it, I will track my hours and $$ spent making my jacket.  I can't help but wonder if my time investment will rival that of the couture houses that do this all the time.  Of course, I don't have any little sweat-shop helpers armed with needles and thimbles...just me.

So, on to my "toile" - that's a muslin to you and me - if it doesn't "FIT" right, then it's not worth making.

I shall name her Celeste. Heavenly.

  Laurel. Channelling Chanel.