This jacket started off as a tablecloth from Goodwill. The pants came from a pants suit at Goodwill as well. I wanted to get a really close fitting jacket, so I used Simplicity pattern #3628 as my base. I am a pretty novice seamstress but since I could make this w/o a collar, sleeves, or lining (some of the most difficult things to do) I felt comfortable doing it. I used it at a church youth function over the summer. But for Halloween I wanted to make it look even more like the reference pic.
I tried to use bleach to “weather/distress” it, but the fabric was EXTREMELY colorfast, no fading at all! After much trial and error I had some success w/a shoe “brightener”. Since it had a sponge tip applicator I just rubbed it on, I am pleased w/the result. To get the dark lines I initially tried a spray color dye. Convenient, but since I had to mask off the areas I didn’t want painted – it created a line that was too sharp and defined, definitely NOT what I was going for. In the end a jumbo poster-sized maker did well.
Finally, in reference material that I was using to create this, they said there was a floral pattern all over the coat, however, this pattern is not really visible in the reference pictures. I bought a $1 foamie stamp and $1 dark red ink pad and stamped a pattern first in vertical lines on top of the dark lines as much as possible to make that area darker. Then I went in larger diagonal lines. The pattern, much like in the real thing isn’t visible in farther shots, but is close up and I believe adding it really helped to make the costume a better recreation.
Finally (although I will never look like Keira Knightly) the blond “Beyonce” wig helped a lot as I normally have short brown hair. The reference pic. shows the character w/a black hat, but I really liked the distressed look of this hat even though it is brown. Similarly I had to go w/black boots that I already owned instead of buying a pair of brown ones, at some point money has to win over accuracy.
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