The London Lounge

The crude photos below are of a Car Coat I had made of the North Highland Tweed. Originally I wanted a short coat, but the bulk of the cloth, and desired features required a longer coat. The coat is quite heavy, with a quilted lining, sourced in Italy, fly front, patch and flap lower pockets with inverted pleats, handwarmer pockets, center vent, bi swing back, shirt style collar, and shirt sleeve cuffs, with two button positions on the cuff. Above the center vent is a sewn in "belt" which ends where the bottom of the large pleats close.This is a very warm coat. The coat was fitted with a bulky sweater in place, which I am not wearing in these photos. With a sweater or sports jacket the body and sleeves fill out more.

Nice job. I regret that I will miss your Tip Top visit as I should love to see it in person.

Handsome and practical. Interesting mix of shirt (collar, cuffs), sports coat (action back, martingale) and overcoat (fly front, flapped patch pockets) elements that in my opinion work well together and even more so with the cloth and the intended use of the garment.
Perhaps the half belt could have been set a bit higher (appears below the waistline) and shorter, so as to pinch the coat at the waist?

Thank you. The belt was an afterthought, with a structural purpose: the bi swing back, pleats, extend very far down to the intersection of the belt and pleats and provide (in my mind) with a cleaner termination of a pleat that extends well below the natural waist. Contrast this with the belts in a Norfolk jacket. Another option would have been several inverted pleats perpendicular to the belt, but the bi swing back seemed appealing at the time. I have some anatomical requirment for very generous side pleats on my shirts, and the bi swing back is an exaggerated variant on this. I have to say the bi swing back provides exceptional freedom of movement disproportionate to any requirment I might have. I wanted to avoid raglan sleeves/shoulders.

Terry, great looking coat. Thanks for sharing it with the members.

I have two questions for you. I would have thought that a quilt lining combined with an already heavy and rigid cloth would render the coat quite stiff and heavy (the idea does not bother me at all.) Is this the case? I have never made a garment with a quilt, but somehow I have always imagined a tweed component in the 500 gms weight to maintain flexibility.

The second question regards your choice of the fly front. What were your thoughts? I somehow would love to see five beautiful brown horn buttons on your coat to fill out the space in its middle. I am working on designing a coat that is similar and your input is appreciated.

Michael

Thank you for your kind comments. I wanted a very warm coat, hence the quilted lining. Note the sleeves are not quilt lined, so the sleeves are not particularly stiff, but the body of the coat does have a canvas (although the tailor explained this was a bit different from the usual jacket canvas---how so was over my head or I ddn't ask, I will clarify when I am in New York next weekend). I would say it is bulky but not especially stiff.

As far as the fly front, the thought was to have as much closure as possible for warmth. I think without the quilited lining, and/or a lighter weight tweed, I would show the buttons, which are terrific.

The pattern matching is so good that you can't readily see the inverted pleats on the lower pockets, and the handwarmer pockets are barely discernible. Without the handwarmer pockets I could have opted for a shorter jacket and raised the patch pockets. Maybe next time...

My coat could almost be like your example below, made by a shirtmaker I believe:



I would appreciate your thoughts on the issue of a canvas and lining. I can't seem to interest shirtmakers in dealing with heavy cloths, and one certainly pays dearly for the canvas, lining, and handwork that a tailor applies to a coat like mine. I would be very interested in less constructed variants in lighter cloths.

I think that given the heft of the handsome tweed and quilt employed, you were almost obliged to go to a longer coat, anything shorter would have looked squat and boxy. So the handwarmers were a good idea.

The tweed used for my shirtjacket is no shrinking violet, it’s a 650 gms high twist Cheviot tweed. And you need a rigid cloth like that to do an unlined shirtjacket . So you will have to find that elusive shirtmaker that can work with heavy cloth.

Your Sicilian tailor did a very nice job, do convey my compliments. Let us have the canvas details after your visit. I am sure the members will be interested

Very nice. Were you ever (or are you now) tempted to line the collar with corduroy or something soft? It seems as if this otherwise might be a little rough to the point of requiring a scarf.

Also, was this your normal NYC source for the tailoring?

Hello,

What weight canvassing did you select for the coat? Or did it not need any?

Has anyone here had a similar coat made but with a Mandarin collar? Tempted to go down that route.

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alden wrote:I would have thought that a quilt lining combined with an already heavy and rigid cloth would render the coat quite stiff and heavy

To reduce stiffness due to quilting (although I understand it is not the case with the coat pictured here), I used normal lining on a coat of similar length and had the tailor do the quilting (adding the extra insulating layer) to the waist only. The unquilted lining then continues down to the bottom hem of the coat. For extra warmth, the insulating layer may also be added to the lining on the outside of the sleeves, then quilted to keep it in place. The inside of the sleeve is protected by the close contact with the body, plus it would be uncomfortable if it were quilted all around.
This way the lining is continuous as in a normal coat and the quilting is applied by the tailor only where it is needed to offer extra warmth without adding bulk all around the coat.

The collar doesn't bother me, and so far I haven't felt compelled to wear a scarf.
I will find out more about the weight of the canvas used on this when I am in NYC next weekend. I didn't give it much thought at the time. I have kept a file of RTW advertisements for variants on these coats and the end result was a melange of things I saw in other coats.

The tailor, photo courtesy of my son:

Looks great, Terry.

The pattern matching is eerily exact. I wouldn't have realized that the jacket had handwarmer pockets if you hadn't pointed it out.

Two thumbs up, Terry! The length looks great, and in addition to the virtues others have mentioned, I like the balance and especially the taper from sleevehead to cuff.