I fell in love with Rey's Resistance Jacket the moment I saw it at the conclusion of The Force Awakens. I knew I simply MUST have the jacket.. to... I don't know, wear around town? Cosplay with? I'm not really sure what I wanted it for, but I needed that coat.
Unfortunately, even though I've sewn many historical garments, I had never before drafted my own pattern completely from reference photos. I have, however, watched many seasons of Project Runway and hoped this would give me the confidence to bite the bullet and start this project.
First I started by draping the ugliest fabric I had on my dress form. (Finally a way to get this fabric OUT of my sewing room!) As you can see below, I just pinned things and trimmed them according to what looked right based on reference photos. Then I started drawing on the princess seams and shoulder pads.
Next, I carefully removed Version 1's pinned items and repinned them to help them keep their original shape. This allowed me to check right and left side pieces to see how they varied and come up with one version I would mirror for both sides.
I then traced the pieces onto a more suitable non-stretchy canvas fabric and added 1/2 inch seam allowances.
I originally added seam allowances on all sides including the front frayed edges (as I didn't know how much I wanted to fray it and wanted to have extra fabric to play with).
After I sewed Version 2's yellow pieces together and placed them on the dress form, I started to fine tune things such as the collar shape and checking the width of the shoulder pad rows with reference pics. It wasn't an exact science to be sure.
I changed the shape of many things so I ended up with a third version below:
Below is a side-by-side showing how it meshed with Rey in the released Vanity Fair photos. Comparing the two pics I realized I needed to adjust the collar and shoulder pad positions.
I also raised the waist seam. I wish I would have lengthened the bottom peplum as well, but I think I've really messed up there. Can't get everything right, can we?
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| I'm getting pretty tired of all these pattern pieces! |
So, below is a pictorial representation of the evolution of my pattern pieces.
(You can also tell the version number by the number of fabric weights.)
Version One:
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| I needed to straighten out the peplum, add seam allowances to everything, and really rework the shoulder pad. |
Version Two:
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| At first I tried adding extra hip fabric on the front peplum piece only. |
Version Three:
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| Then I attempted to distribute the extra hip width across both the center back and the front peplums. |
Version Four:
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| Finally, I gave a little bit extra hip width to the front peplum and a hair's width on the back peplum to help it sit right on my hips. You can zoom in to see my measurements (including the shoulder pad row spacings) |
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| The discarded pattern piece graveyard. |
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| I panicked at this moment and ended up stalling before cutting it all out. The first cut is the deepest. |
Next up... Part 2: Cutting out the wool and putting together the final jacket! |
