The first hood sample turned out pretty well, despite its quirks (an accidental gap between the hood and the neck; a collar whose points jutted out like tusks).

I fixed the gap and removed the collar tusks. I’m slightly regretting axing the tusks; they looked pretty cool, so maybe I’ll bring those back. I also made some other improvements:

  • Reflective piping added to the top, side, and back. Useful for blinding the paparazzi, and I guess for helping cars know you’re there when you cross the street.
    • Most reflective detailing on coats seems to be in places like the upper back, when a hood is up. It looks underwhelming.
    • There will also be reflective piping added to the ‘jagged’ arm seam.
  • Elastic drawcord system around the hood.
    • This is a very cool design (from a functional perspective) that I copied from an Acronym jacket I own. I didn’t take great pictures and don’t have the time to get deeply into it here, but basically, there are two pieces of elastic cord: one that cradles the upper front of your head and one that cradles the middle back. When both of these are cinched, the hood will move with your head when you turn it side to side.
    • The original jacket has the most functional hood I’ve ever worn in my life and I’m happy to say that my copy comes pretty close.

There’s another problem I’m trying to isolate as an immediate next step, which is that the shape of the neck (part of the main body piece – unrelated to the hood) seems to be too small and tight around my neck. It’s tolerable, but noticeably a little annoying.

After that, I want to add facing to the jacket. This is a piece of fabric sewn to the reverse side of the main chest and torso pieces to finish the edge and look clean (and, I think, improve the drape of the garment?). I’ll probably base the facings on the existing pattern pieces but want to do a little research and find other examples.

I also still need to figure out how I want the jacket to close: zipper, buttons, or hook and eye. Zipper would be the path of least resistance… but I’m also not that excited about it. Still, I’ll probably go with a zipper since it fits the vibe best. Remember that the photos you see here are of the ‘muslin,’ or mockup of the coat using some cheap cotton fabric I have, and the final version will be in a dark ink, kind of glossy, nylon.

Oh, and then of course the pockets (and photo panels)… which leaves me plenty of stuff to do. I’ve noticed that isolating specific areas of the garment and focusing on those seems to be working well, so I’ll probably continue doing that.

See you next time!