#coat construction

[pants-magic-pants]

✧⊹JARETH BALLROOM COAT⊹✧

[This post is part of a series about constructing Jareth’s entire masquerade ball costume. Visit the master post here.]

Making the Buttons [Post 1 of 2] - This post is an explanation of the process. - Post 2 is a video.

The buttons were the very first thing I made, once enough pretty shiny materials had been collected. They were so much fun. They weren't hard, it just took a bit of time and attention to detail. With that, let's get to it...

The coat has two in front and two in the back. Here are two different photos, the first from Aria Couture and the second from Yosa Addiss.

You’ll see that they’ve suffered some damage through the years, and as of now there are no high definition close-ups of them, so that we can really look and discern what might have been there back when everything was intact. One of the front ones is gone!

What I did notice was a general warmth and multidimensional sort of coloring about them, which is why my approach involved layers. A lot of aspects of this costume don’t present themselves as definitively colored; there’s always a two-toned or iridescent quality to them. For that reason, I built everything on top of a layer of copper flakes. It gave the buttons the warmth they needed despite that the rest of what is seen within them is cool-toned. 

There are the blue, spherical cabochons lining the outside; spherical, not angular. Within them, there is seemingly a mix of silver/metallic beads, and “crystals” that may have been anything from blue, to green, to yellow. Hard to say. This part comes down to the individual!

Does this diagram make sense and it is necessary? Probably not.

My choice was to do alternating silver and transparent grey beads, and then pool the center with hot glue and sea glass shards that were left over from the breaking down process. Since making the video of the replica, I did start to feel that less vs. more looked better for the glass, so I pruned a few pieces out of my buttons. I like them overall, but they need to be secured really well, and there was/is still a risk of shards popping out. It is a delicate costume. 

Next, we need to discuss the actual button bases. This was tricky. The whole thing is going to be covered, so they can’t be stitched on in the normal way, as there’s no outlet for the needle. You might be thinking a shank button would be good, since they are flat with protruding holes underneath:

BUT there's so much stuff that needs to go on them, they would definitely end up drooping. My solution to this problem was to buy flat just run-of-the-mill 4-hole buttons that were stapled onto cardboard, and remove the cardboard with the staples still attached. Then tighten the staples so that my needle could juuuuust get through. 

How do you like these puppies?!

Attaching them wasn’t too hard. I held the button a little bit away from the coat, brought my needle to the inside interfacing, and poked it out where the button should go, then brought the needle underneath the staple, then back into the coat, etc. etc. making 5-10 loops before pulling the thread and drawing up the button against the coat. Then, the needle was brought through the inside and knotted tightly into the interfacing, almost exactly where it had begun. 

Yayyyy buttons.

Because these were so delicate, they were almost the last thing added to the coat. They had to go on before the lining was closed, obviously, so that’s the only reason they came before the glue shenanigans. Glue shenanigans were all top switched once the coat didn’t need to be handled or laid down anymore. 

So... there it is. Some of this felt redundant but then I remember that there are new people visiting my blog, and I want things to be easy for them.

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[pants-magic-pants]

✧⊹JARETH BALLROOM COAT⊹✧

[This post is part of a series about constructing Jareth's entire masquerade ball costume. Visit the master post here.]

Fabric Selection [Part 1 of 2] The Saga of the Metallic Valvet

Welcome back to another episode of Coat Construction. I want to first say that my decisions about fabric, and many other things, were informed by the amazing reference photos I had from both Aria Couture and Yosa Addiss. This post will make more sense after you've looked through all those glorious images of the actual costumes. I may also sometimes be referencing AC in my commentary. I stand on their shoulders, and cannot be given even half the credit for all the great costume study that's already been done about this coat.

With that, let's get to it!

One thing I have noticed is that screen accurate fabric for this costume is extremely hard to come by, and it seems as if those of us who’ve done this cosplay raked over google enough to happen upon, and choose, the same fabrics?! Or at least consider them? I suspect I’ve seen the same golden damask fabric used for Jareth’s cummerbund amongst me and two other cosplayers. Hahaha More on that in the cummerbund post.

What I really want to talk about is the royal blue/navy colored metallic velvet that makes up the coat. It’s like a majestic night sky, but not midnight – late evening, when the darkness plays with the vivid blue of the day. The decorations on top of it are entire constellations, planets, comets, meteors...

I think the important thing to know about the fabric and to insist upon is that it’s real velvet, and not velour, nor velveteen (even though the Jim Henson exhibit sign says it is. It just AIN’T. Whoever wrote that sign needs a talking-to.)

So, what is the difference between all of these? They’re all woven fabrics made from usually silk or cotton. They each have a pile, which is a raised surface comprised of loops or strands of yarn (think carpet). Velvet has a long pile, and it’s usually very glossy and soft, and it more easily drapes over things. Velveteen has a very short pile and less sheen, and it can be a bit stiff. Velour is what you see more often in stores, because it’s an affordable look-alike to velvet, made with less luxurious cotton or synthetic fibers, and it’s stretchy. People will use the terms “velvet” and “velour” interchangeably, but they’re not the same. True velvet doesn’t stretch.

And that is why it’s the best and really only option for this coat. You’ve seen it. It’s heavy, and has heavy things hanging off of it. To be more specific, every step of the way while creating it I was being harassed by gravity. Gravity was trying to claim this velvet back to the depths… I’ve said it before: turning it into a coat felt highly non-consensual because of the heaviness and slippery nature of the materials. 

That being said, weight puts stress on the seams, and even if your seams are stabilized, a fabric that’s not sturdy enough or yields to any kind of tugging is not going to be good, and it could lead to warped or misshapen areas. There’s also the glue and jewel shenanigans (which my friend calls Crust). They need to be able to cling to something that reliably keeps its shape. The ballroom coat is extremely structured and exudes power – we wouldn’t want it to start looking like a popped souffle, or like it was melting, would we? 

From here I also want to point out that the coat seems to be made from velvet with metallic fibers. This means that it’s classified as a type of lurex - and you can read more about it here. This is different from foiled. Any fabric described as “foiled” if you were to try searching for metallic velvet, is not what you’re looking for. Foiling is the process of adding a metallic sheen to the surface of fabric, usually with heat. It tends to look a lot more solid and shiny, rather than sparkling. The process does not result in soft fabric, either, so it definitely messes with the pile and is much less elegant. Lurex, on the other hand, incorporates metallic fibers in just the same way you’d dot the night sky with stars. ;) 

ANYWAY. Since I spent months and months roaming multiple search engines, and don’t wish for others to have to suffer through it and waste their time, I have some opinions to share about what I found. Some of these fabrics have even been mentioned by Labyrinth cosplayers as possibilities. 

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Mood Fabrics - Ava Navy Metallic Velvet (Link)

I’ve seen this fabric mentioned by a commenter on Aria Couture’s blogs, because it really does seem like a possible match. I bought a swatch of this fabric, thought about it for months, and then finally bought four yards, but returned them. Here’s what I have to say:

The company is reputable. They treat their fabric and customers with care. This fabric is gorgeous and quality, but it didn’t work for me because the shade of blue was too warm and light to match everything else. I only came to this realization after buying four yards of it, because the swatch that they originally sent was (I suspect) from a time when they were using a slightly different dye. What this means for anyone else is that they may not be able to rely on the swatch to make their decision. I had to return it, but they were very understanding. I still very well think that someone could use this to make a beautiful Jareth ballroom coat, if their color scheme is a little warmer. 

Here are comparison photos of the swatch and the actual fabric that was sent, however. Just so you can see what I mean. 

(The swatch is on the bottom, the actual fabric sent is on top.)

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Blue Moon Fabrics - D Isis Foiled Stretch Velvet in Black/Royal (Link)

I ordered a swatch of this. I have a friend who also did, and was happy with it, so I feel like kind of a jerk for writing here that I don’t think it works, but I really truly don’t, and I want to save anyone from starting a project with it, only to have it possibly ruined. The reason why this fabric doesn’t work is that it’s very stretchy, and I just know that it couldn’t handle all the stress that would be put on it. In person, it also is an extremely bright, electric blue that will steal the show and will not serve as a good backdrop for all the top decorations. In terms of “what type of sky” it is, it’s more like 7pm on LSD. *covers mouth and laughs* But it’s still cool on its own.

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Etsy Seller AlexLAFabrics - Lurex Velvet (Link)

The reason why I’m including this is because it was listed as lurex velvet, appears to be so, and has possibly the right coloring, so it may be easy to find this one and consider it, because I certainly did. Well, I’m here to say do not bother with it unless you’re willing to sacrifice $30 just to find out what this fabric is like in person. The photos aren’t good enough to tell the true shade of blue, there’s no info on how it behaves, and the guy won’t offer you a swatch or get back to your messages.

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Zelouf Fabrics – Lurex Velvet in Navy (Link)

The fabric I ended up using. It’s lurex velvet, it’s the perfect shade, but it’s not super quality, definitely not as quality as the Ava Navy velvet from Mood. It was sometimes quite offended by being handled, and didn’t appreciate steam. It seemed a little thin for true velvet, and it puckered so relentlessly that I had to buy a new f*@#%ng sewing machine, and by then there were a couple of seams that had been redone so many times that the edges were… how to put it? Like skin without collagen. There were entire pieces that had to be re-cut, it was so bad. 

The company also kinda sucks. Originally, I bought four yards, and it arrived shoved into a plastic wrapping that had been poked throughout transit and bursted open on my tabletop. The fabric inside had been severely abused, obviously not stored well, wrinkled, poked, torn, and they STAPLED the order details onto it. Come on. I wrote a stern email, and was not met with much professionalism, but they also weren’t out for my money and owned up to the mistake. They refunded me and then sent another four yards which was less abused, but still a little sad. Ended up with eight free yards, and some of the more abused fabric could still be used for parts of the coat that were buried under lace. 

Ultimately, what I would say is… I have a love-hate relationship with it. It’s beautiful when it wants to be, very soft, and I can’t say I’d have picked something else if I did the project again, because for me it was the best option.

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Here is one more interesting but sort of outrageous photo, of me holding the Mood Ava Navy fabric together with the Blue Moon D Isis fabric.

You can see all the ways that these two fabrics are different!

Anyway, I hope my bit of foot-work and 2c is valuable to someone, no matter what project they're working on or thinking of working on. The coat took about 14 months to complete, and for at least 5 of those months, I was in a stalemate about velvet. Hoping I can save someone else from that.

There will be another post about the lining fabric. There will also be separate posts about making the cummerbund and the shirt, so those will include information about choosing those fabrics.

Thanks for reading! If you've made it this far and appreciate any of my content, I'm going to be obnoxious and mention that I set up the tip function on this blog. All the posts have a button that looks like this ($) where you can tip me however much you want. This helps me be able to afford further work on this costume, and to go to events where I and fellow Labyrinth cosplayers can create content for you. Yay!

-Jareth--- uh I mean Jenny

[pants-magic-pants]

✧⊹JARETH BALLROOM COAT⊹✧

[This post is part of a series about constructing Jareth's entire masquerade ball costume. Visit the master post here.]

Fabric Selection [Part 2 of 2] The Drama of the Lining

Hello all you fine goblins, goblinettes, masqueraders, bog creatures(?)... I'm back to ramble a lot, and unless you are really into sewing or want to make this coat, this post will probably bore the hell out of you but by all means here it is.

Firstly I want to say that I'm part of a Labyrinth cosplay group now, have a beautiful Sarah waiting for me in just a state above, a masquerade dancer who is already my good friend, and we'd love to do a dreamy photoshoot for everyone at a ballroom or wedding venue somewhere between us. However, I'm financially strained. I'm working extra shifts, offering commissions, etc, but it's only doing so much. If you've made it this far and have been appreciating any of my content, please consider tipping the blog. All the posts have a button that looks like this ($). Please help us unite. Please please, throw a dollar into my guitar case, won't you?

ANYHOO! I'm not good at lining, as I think I've mentioned. There's a lot more I need to learn to get it looking good and structured, and in this case there was so much gravity working against it too. I also am sure you notice that there are ghastly black stitches across the middle of the pleats on the inside... had thought that wouldn't be showing... whoops.

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We’ll start with the creamy, slightly sparkly, crimped(?) fabric that lines the tail first. It doesn’t appear to be lurex/foiled silk or satin, as it seems to be even lighter weight than those fabrics. That’s the first thing that I would say is important about picking this lining: it needs to be something SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT.

The reason being that, at least for the way I did the pleats, there was as much of it needed as the velvet, as it all got folded together. Even if you didn't do it this way, you would only want to add the least amount of extra weight as possible, using something that is still durable and isn't going to blow every which way.

That made the search pretty limiting, as did the fact that it needed to be opaque, flowy, and non-stretchy. Originally when I began searching, I was looking for things like organza or chiffon with crimps/ridges, which looked very pretty, but they were too sheer unless layered, and layering would have made them too stiff. 

After doing further research post-completion of the coat, viscose seems like it would have looked and behaved correctly, since it's soft, light, non-stretchy and not sheer, but apparently it isn't the most environmentally friendly fabric, so it’s something to consider. There's also cupro, though I've never gotten my hands on either of these so it's hard to say that definitively. It’s supposed to have a similar appearance and drape as silk, but it's not quite as shiny. It's opaque, and unless it's mixed with elastane or rayon it's not supposed to be very stretchy either, which leads me to…

What not to use: a stretchy fabric, like for any lining on any project. I already made that clear, but did I follow my own advice? Not this time. I got fed up with fabric drama and settled for a very pretty but stretchy foiled fabric, hell if I know what it was because it was late one evening at Jo-Ann Fabric, and I was Over That Shit™ and suffered a lapse in judgment. The result was slight warping from over-handling, and the entire seam between it and the inner facing was bubbly. I’m still kicking myself. Shoulda’ gone home. Shoulda’ said “no, Jo-Ann.”

Here's what I used. Yeah, it's pretty right? But that's all it is.

Another thing to note is that there are subtle ridges in the bottom lining. Not pleats, but like, crimping? It’s a very similar texture to Sarah’s dress. Searching for terms related to ridges would help find something similar, and as for colors, I searched for mainly creams, or borderline beige. Sometimes “champagne” also yielded good results. It’s definitely not white or even ivory, as white will turn the color scheme of the coat way too cold, stark, and sterile. Ivory (while warm-toned) may have the same effect. 

It helped me to look at a color wheel and decide the most complimentary combination based on the exact shade of blue that my velvet was. The ballroom coat’s actual shade of blue may seem to vary based on the photograph, but after seeing a lot of reference photos, I started to be able to tell which ones had been, em, tweaked, enhanced, etc. and that tended to be the ones that presented it as electric blue or leaning towards turquoise. The true shade seems to be like one shade cooler than true-blue. Am I making sense?

Given that, the lining’s shade of cream would need to be basically a pure cream color, not leaning towards rosy/orange NOR towards green on the color wheel, in order to be complimentary. However, for anyone who’s making the coat who wants to use a warmer shade of blue for the velvet, this is perfectly fine, it just will change just about every other color choice that you make, down to the color of the jewels and buttons. You may find that all your other blues need to be warmer shades, and that a rosier cream lining (champagne) looks best. 

Before moving on to the top lining, I want to mention that there is - strangely – a piece of cream colored tulle in the back? Not sure how that looks if you were to open the coat and look in, and since I couldn’t think of a way to make that look good, I didn’t include it. 

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The top lining! We can’t see what’s in there, so this comes down to intuition and preference. I wanted a fully lined coat that looked good and had an aesthetically pleasing transition from one fabric to another, so I pretty much lined the top as if it was its own mini jacket, and I chose satin in a slightly lighter shade of cool blue. A little too light to be called navy but I’m sure people still would call it that.

I wouldn’t recommend using the same fabric used on the tail for the top because the fabric for the tail seems too textured to be smooth enough to get in and out of without issues. Best to stick with classic lining: silk or satin, in blue or a neutral that would match something else on the coat. Black, cream, maybe even dark/metallic grey or silver? The extra challenge of using a shade of blue is that you’d have to be very discerning about whether or not it matched. I had to take the velvet with me everywhere when making my decisions.

Almost nothing featured here is what I used, but here's me being diligant and bringing my swatches everywhere.

Not only did the color have to match, but the texture and amount of shimmer also mattered. Super matte silks/satins seemed to anchor down the splendor of the sparkling velvet too much. The really shiny fabrics looked best. I settled for something a little more subdued, but okay. It was okayyyy. Again, I was Over It™. 

Well, was that super interesting, or what?

[pants-magic-pants]

Ahoy, loveys!

I'll be hopping around to what I feel like, so for tonight... Materials for decorating the coat! It's the main, most consistently seen pretty shiny stuff that made the coat look... just right. 👌 But not everything. Click the diagram for a better view. More information and photos of my original findings are under the cut.

This was actually the first thing I did when it was decided I'd make the coat, was scribble out a diagram like you see above and go on multiple scavenger hunts, and search online, and then fail to find stuff and realize I'd have to make it somehow. The cabochons in particular, the ones that look like blue jewels, had to be made from hot glue and nail polish and colored paper, and it was a lot of fun. There will be a separate post about how to do that.

What was also great is there was still room to improvise and find other pretty decorations that matched and looked cool. I enjoyed getting to whip out my bead collection. I also made the little gold circular pieces from scrunched up wrapping paper.

Anyway, hoping these Aria Couture pictures with corresponding letters to different pieces will be helpful in pointing out where they are seen. She has a blog post mentioning that all the tiny stuff was meticulously sewn on, while the large stuff just dropped in with glue, and it's... true. It was hours upon hours, upon days, upon weeks, sewing a pattern of seed beads onto lace pieces, but worth it. The cuff trim also had some small beads sewn in, so I wouldn't have to worry so much about them falling off from me shuffling around.

(It's like a jewel pizza, in'it?)

Everything else was either placed on top of a network of hot glue or weaved between or underneath it. I actually never got around to sewing the strings of black discs. Maybe in the future.

Besides the cabochons, a lot of this is easy to find at craft stores. The sea glass was from a $10 container of larger chunks in different colors. I put it in a pillowcase and slammed it onto the sidewalk like a totally sane person, then ended up using the different sized pieces for multiple projects, including the buttons. (Separate post for that too.)

Uhhh I feel like I'm forgetting something, so if anyone has questions just ask.

[pants-magic-pants]

✧⊹JARETH BALLROOM COAT⊹✧

[This post is part of a series about constructing Jareth's entire masquerade ball costume. Visit the master post here.]

The Nightmare of the Lace [Part 2 of 2]

In part two, we will explore the decoration of the lace pieces that would be sewn/stitched on top of the velvet of Jareth's ballroom coat. This moment in costume construction was all about peering deeply into exhibit photos, pondering, designing, and stitching beads for countless hours. It took at least a month or two to finish, but it was definitely all worth it. Read more below!

Creating a design -------------------------

Trying to map out what I was seeing in photos was a bit of a challenge. There's a lot going on. What's under there? Is there a point to adding the beads if you can barely see them? And the answer is: yes. Because in photos, their splendor is not captured. In person, they're beautiful, so if you were thinking of forgoing this step for your own costume, or any costume with what you may call "discreet" beading, I ask you to reconsider. They really add a magical dimension to your work.

ANYHOO, I put photos into a program, and tried to draw what was there, and it didn't seem to be anything more complex than random loops and fishhooks, which got a little more deliberate further down, where it was no longer covered by hot glue. Towards those buttons, they start to interact with and frame them.

Photo (c) Yosa Addiss

I’m sure you could come up with all sorts of cool designs that work, and you could get more complex, but me, I basically just made, uhhh… florally fishhooks. Hahaha But I did give them some… hm… some joints, so to speak? They’re a bit branchy. 

The designs were drawn on my original pattern pieces for the lace. I pinned the lace to these, then unpinned where I was working on, so I could work on it, lie it flat, and see which direction I was supposed to be going. An embroidery hoop might've been more ideal, but it wouldn't really work in this situation because I couldn't trace my design on the lace. Maybe thin paper could have gone into something like this, without tearing? But I didn't have one anyway so I just did it the way I did it.

There was less loyalty to my design when it came to the shoulder piece because it was so massive, and a lot of it would be so heavily under beads and jewels, there was no point in making it too specific – there just needed to be something the eye could catch sight of between small windows. 

At a certain point, the designs stop, and I had it marked off where I knew you would not be able to see them anywhere.

Selecting a bead -----------------------

The most obvious choice for something like this would be a kind of seed bead, which come in different sizes. What I chose was a size 11/0, which are only about 2mm wide. Proportions (how big everything looks within its context) matter as much as "objective accuracy", so even if the original had slightly larger beads for this, which I think it did, I also was making a very tiny coat, and definitely doing other math to decide on what size other decorations should be, so for me 11/0 made sense. If the coat itself were bigger, more firmly in the adult size range, a seed bead size of 10/0 or even 8/0 might've worked better.

In the original, there's also something a bit course about them. They may be oblong, like tiny pebbles. You can find seed beads like this, but by the time I realized that, it was too late. I did think mine seemed so very clean and consistent, but *raises hands*

Also, it seems as if they're all black, but I wanted to have a bit of fun, so mine were a mixture of 75% black and 25% dark iridescent. Photos make them seem silvery, but in person they appear faintly blue/green.

Stitching the beads ---------------------------

If you are new to stitching (as I was) and would like to do some for your project, any project, I would suggest learning the back stitching technique, as shown here. It was easy to get the hang of, and you can do curves, not just straight lines. I did anywhere from 1 to 4 beads in a row, caught a single thread of the lace, pulled the needle back towards what I had already stitched, and then stuck it through the last bead again before adding more. At extreme curves, only 1 or 2 could be done at a time, but in places where it was a more continuous trajectory with only a slight curve, I could get away with 4. At 5 beads, things looked a little too straight.

Here are a couple pictures on the journey:

It took a f*&^ng long time to complete this. For things like this, you go into it knowing you'll be chipping away -- you'll spend hours working on something, step back and look at it, and go "oh.. okay... that little part is done. woo---hoo..."

Long-term tedious projects can scare people away, and I understand that, as someone who feels overwhelmed by her thoughts and what she wants to do, often. It was easier to get this part done by pairing it with something else that I could enjoy and that would engage my mind while my hands were busy. So, for a little while, it was my hobby to stitch while listening to Better Call Saul, which I'd seen before, but I'm also a huge Breaking Bad universe fan so revisiting it again and again is a pleasure. I'm sure you could pair your projects with all kinds of stuff: shows, movies, audiobooks, podcasts, youtube channels. I love a good story, but I also love to learn, even just passive learning, having people discussing something interesting in the background while I do whatever it is I'm doing. It becomes a joint hobby (some kind of engaging content + your project) which you can look forward to and appreciate as a ritual.

Moving on, here’s some of the finished pieces before they were added to velvet:

Some trimming was done afterwards, to make the lace's edges look less blocky, especially around the shoulders.

That concludes the seed bead business. But, if you look in front, despite that the lighting is not our friend, you may see that there are extra designs comprised of larger, more raised beads/cabochons. I edited this photo and upped the contrast:

Photo (c) Aria Couture

It’s not clear. My take on it was that they were black, shiny cabochons, so that is what I used. Really basic cheap ones. They seem to be placed in synchrony with the seed beads. Some are in wavy streaks. Other, large ones are stand-alone, but never too close to the buttons. I added these with hot glue before the assembly process.

Voila!

Attaching to the coat -----------------------------

This part was the true hell of the process, as mentioned in the first post about the lace. The plan originally was just to (very carefully, and with buffer fabric between the sewing machine foot and edge of the bead design) combine velvet and lace pieces, at the seam allowances that had been created for them.

However, there was slight distortion and shrinkage of the pieces because of all the bead stitching, and I did not know ahead of time what to do to avoid any issues this may cause. In retrospect, the lace pieces shouldn't have been exact replicas of the velvet pattern pieces... they should have been a teeny, tiny bit larger in all directions, with generous seam allowances. Because I had no foresight about this, it was difficult to attach the lace to the velvet without falling short, or tugging on the velvet in random places where warping had occurred.

Combine that with the impossibility of keeping these two fabrics still, and you have the reason for these posts' names: the nightmare of the lace. It would not stay still, and there was not enough of it.

My solution for this project was to expand some of the lace pieces by sewing more lace onto the edges (dear god it was so silly), and place a non-slippery fabric in between velvet and lace, baste it, sew it, and then cut away the middle fabric, so that it wouldn't go past the seam allowance, effectively hiding it once it was sewn into the garment. *heavy sighing*

Once all the hell of getting these pieces attached to the velvet was past, what I ended up with when it came time for assembly was a standalone collar and two standalone cuffs (velvet + lace). There was the lace shoulder piece by itself, which went in first (since the shoulder seam is one of the first places you start when assembling a coat), and there were the two lapels, which were stitched to the top of the inner facing velvet. 

You see how much that seam allowance struggled?! -->

Those pieces were large and strange-looking, and connecting each part of them in the right order just so was key to the whole coat looking good. Because of the slipperiness of the material, I needed to work downward, so first the top of the inner facing pieces were married with the collar and outer fabric. Then I had to baste-stitch the seam with the zipper inside, turning it back right-side out each stitch to check that there were no hiccups and that the zipper was discreet. The right angle between the front and the tails was another tricky spot, because clipping the lace diagonally was the only way to get it folded into that seam. 

AND THEN, ULTIMATELY, I gave up on sewing the lace into the seam! Folded it around and stitched it inside because it was tugging and slipping and all its usual fuckery.

The last thing that needed to be done to the lace was to stitch it down anywhere else where it would need to lie flat. The lapel lace folded inward in a curve parallel to the lining. The back drips needed three easy stitches. The lace is free-falling past the armpits, but around the waist area it was also tucked back and stitched there. 

It seems as if Jareth’s own coat has windows cut out of the lace in front, near the buttons, but for me, I was so sure that it would have disrupted the delicate balance and caused drooping in random places, that I just forwent it. 

And there you have it! This feels like it was too long, but maybe it’s not because it is really so important to talk about this part. There are a million ways to screw it up, that I myself didn’t always escape from. As always, I hope that was, erm, helpful.

-J 

[pants-magic-pants]

✧⊹JARETH BALLROOM COAT⊹✧

[This post is part of a series about constructing Jareth's entire masquerade ball costume. Visit the master post here.]

The Nightmare of the Lace [Part 1 of 2]

Welcome back to another long overdue episode of making that damn coat, which it's crazy to think was a year ago, that I was actually doing these things that I'm talking about. This seemed like a good time to round up all of my notes and pictures and diagrams etc. etc. about this, before content from my upcoming event fills my blog haha

There will be two posts about the lace, and in this post there will be two halves. The first half is about creating the pattern pieces, and the other half is about plans vs. reality, and some important things I've learned while attempting these steps.

Alright. Let's get into it, shall we?

First and foremost, I’ve gotta say… the lace was one of the most maddening aspects of this entire costume. I’m sure what made it so was a combination of velvet’s general menace towards any other material, the technique I ended up going with, my order of operations, and general lack of knowledge about the beast I would be pitted against. 

Let’s start happy and optimistic. 

Choosing the lace -------------------------

Photo (c) Yosa Addiss

The lace on his coat is a compromise between looks and durability. It seems like it’s very, eh, mossy and thick, and generally when you see lace like that, it’s either very light and stretchy or thick, stiff and raised. Light and stretchy just plain won't work, if the plan is to embroider or add beads on top of it. The weight of the beads will add up and distort/destroy the delicate pattern, and the stretching will give you no control over the design. On the other hand, thick, stiff, and raised lace uh... could potentially look, well, ugly. This is a matter of opinion, but I was not inclined to go for lace like that because of how stark the difference is in texture and light reflection, which you can see in the original in some photos, and for me it just doesn't look cohesive, and it's blocking out the beautiful metallic velvet instead of harmonizing with it.

Because of my issues finding something that resembled the original's lace without being weak/stretchy, or overpowering, I chose something less mossy, and less raised, but was durable and could withstand being stitched a million times.

The most important takeaway here is this was the kind of thing to either choose in person or at least order a swatch to test on, see if it can handle being worked on top of, and if it complements the fabric underneath it. Designing the piece shapes -------------------------------------- The plan for the lace pieces was to use my pattern for the coat as a guide. You can refer to the above diagrams.

Some areas of the coat are exactly a layer of velvet and a layer of lace, making it pretty straight-forward, but I’ll talk about the largest piece that drapes over the shoulders first. Because this is all one continuous piece, I needed to combine the back and front pattern pieces at the shoulder seam, lay the entire thing out, and then draw on top of it how the lace would fall down the shoulders and back into those characteristic “drips”, skirt past the armpits, and then tuck in around the waist. What resulted was a piece that looks like a lumpy shawl. haha 

There is excess lace past the edge of the shoulders that drapes in a leafy sort of shape, and all of it will house jewels/beads, even the part hanging down the sleeve. Also, the center drip in the back falls lower than the two side drips, passing the pleat seam about 2-3cm. 

Photos (c) Yosa Addiss

The back drips and the front sides only needed to be stitched in place, but the bottom corner in the very front (including the seam where the zipper is) needed a seam allowance, so that it could neatly disappear and be sewn into the coat. There was no seam allowance around the collar – it just stops there, goes straight down, and has its raw edges hidden by the collar and lapels. 

One other thing that isn’t in my diagram: I did not trust the massive shoulder piece to just be draped and stay put, so while tracing off the pattern piece, I marked where the shoulder seam was, and created a folded rectangle of lace to stitch on underneath it. This went into the coat, so I may have peace of mind it wasn’t going nowhere because. You know. THAT LACE ALWAYS HAD A PLACE TO GO. *curls fist*

The other pieces (lapels, cuffs, collar) mostly were just replicas of the velvet pattern pieces. As far as I can see, only the top of the collar has lace. The only pieces that needed some extra designs were the lapels, which I thought should be held in somewhere at some seam, so they had allowances added to the whole top, allowing for a clean look at the marriage of the inner facing and collar. The lower diagonal parts of the lapels were just stretched and stitched at the edges. They also had allowances for the zipper seam of the inner facing, which I ended up just cutting off, because there were too many other slippery things that I was trying to get into that area.

I will discuss decoration and assembly in a second post, but I want to stop right here and spend the rest of this first post talking about...

Plans vs. Reality -----------------------

Originally, I thought it was going to be simple. I’d cut out pieces shaped like the coat pattern pieces, tediously stitch beads on them, add some seam allowances to some parts, sandwich them into the seams, and stitch down any other free-falling parts. 

It would not be simple. It would become the bane of my existence. The actual bead stitching was not the bane. It was tedious, but in no time I had a technique, and a comfy chair, and I would just stitch for hours, watching Better Call Saul. To this day, when I see the beads, nostalgic thoughts of Nacho and the cartel run through my head. 

But… here is what happened: the lace would become subtly warped by the stitching. It made the pieces like 2% smaller than they were originally. Pair this with the fact that from the start, they should have been 2% bigger than the velvet pieces, because as a general rule if you have two pieces that are going to be sewn together (like the front and back of a collar), the one on the outside needs to be ever so slightly bigger because it has to stretch around the other, and in this case, the lace needed to slightly stretch over the velvet. So we can say that by the end of all my bead stitching, the lace pieces were now 4% smaller, and that was enough to completely screw up my ability to line them up with the velvet and sew them together where they needed to be sewn together. 

Also also, velvet is slippery, and has a pile that sends whatever you put on top of it swiftly off. Think of a man stepping out onto some sleek pavement and landing on his tailbone, or… or a conveyer belt…. You ain’t gonna find nothing where you put it. This velvet and lace were like oil and water. Didn’t want to be combined. The lace was constantly fucking far away, houdini’ing itself several millimeters as I worked just to pin it down. It moved while I was basting it. All these things you’re supposed to do, to keep fabric in place, were already failing me. Ultimately, the only thing that worked was to cut out a courser sturdier fabric (for me it was Kona cotton), place it on top of the velvet, place the lace on that, then pin it, then baste it, then sew that, then trim the cotton so that it wouldn’t be seen past the seam allowance. 

And even then, the pieces were too small, and some needed to have lace added to the edges, in a less than neat process, or I had to consent to stopping just short of my original intended seams. This affected a lot of the coat, and because of this and the length velvet takes up just turning around its seams, the coat ended up being slightly smaller than I had planned, slightly shorter, slightly more form-fitting. I still am disappointed about this. It affected how high-rise I needed to make my pants. It affected where I had to place the cummerbund (unnaturally high….) So, yeah.

If I could have done it differently, I would have 1.) adjusted all the lace pieces so they were 2% bigger from the start, 2.) sewn them right away to the velvet pieces, 3.) stitched on the beads through both layers. Then, maybe, things would have worked out better. 

Part two, about lace decoration and assembly is here.

[pants-magic-pants]

heyy, hope you doing good! and sorry to keep bothering you lol

so you got me really curious

idk if this is something you would share, and it’s totally fine if not, but i was wondering how much went into the costume? both time and money -wise

Hello! I'm... surviving! I hope you are as well.

I am also curious about this question, as I certainly didn't keep track of it. Initially, I did save some receipts, but this project was so long-term that work on it became scattered. Scattered in terms of when I was able to find the right materials, when I was well enough (mentally, physically) to work on it, when progress was actually being made vs. me searching and bumbling around unsuccessfully...

When there was any sort of momentum, it was almost like a part time job, where substantial amounts of hours were put in on all or most of my days off (which I have three). I spent many days hyperfixating on it all day with just a few breaks, so maybe 12 hours in a day, for 2-3 days in a week, so 24-36hrs in a week. But not all my weeks were like that. I went a couple months not working on it at all because it was stealing my soul.

If we were to say that on average there was just one day a week from September 2022 when I began the project, until November 2023, that I worked on it all day, it'd be one day (12hrs) x 4 weeks in a month x 15 months... That means a minimum of 720hrs went into it.

As for the costs? I was very scared to tally this up, but it's not terrible?... If you consider what some cosplays cost? Some of it is ridiculous, like the fact that I probably spent $100 on beads.

I had to look up what some things cost roughly, and sort of guess, but here's my tally:

MATERIALS -- $143 $90 in various beads $10 sea glass $9 aquamarine crystals $9 blue/mirror crystals $10 hot glue sticks packs x 2 $3 black acrylic paint $6 button bases x 2 $6 blue cabochons for buttons

FABRIC -- $146 $65 velvet x 4yds (but mine was free) $13 cuff lace x 1yrd $13 upper coat lining x 1yrd $13 lower coat lining x 1yrd $5 interfacing x 1yrd $12 thread x 4 $20 swatches x 3 $5 felt for padding

TOOLS -- $80 $8 french curve and other curved rulers $15 rotary blades x 3 $30 rotary cutting board (not even a big one) $23 pattern paper $4 microtex needles (Not included $20 walking foot that was useless) (Not included I had to get a whole goddamn new sewing machine, $500)

A few notes about the spending and amounts:

As you can see! The materials COST AS MUCH AS the fabric. hahahahahahahaahahaa It adds up, it seriously adds up. You keep needing more and more, and honestly I bought it all at such spread out intervals that I wasn't aware it was adding up. It could have also been less because there were a few sales at the craft store. hahaha

I did not have to pay for the velvet because of the issues the company had in getting it to me. Overall, you may notice that regardless of that my yardage is pretty low. It won't be the same for everyone. This was what was needed to produce a garment that is roughly a children's size large, or a women's XXS. It's one way that being a miniscule, little pipsqueak is an advantage... for one's wallet. Not much else good to say about it.

Anyway, tools. Tools is an important category. The fabric needed for this project was finicky and troublesome, and it required not only study on how to handle it, but the right tools and a worthy machine to handle it. I literally could not finish the coat without getting a new machine which was actually gifted to me... as I could not afford it in a million years... There is also no way to cut velvet without a sharp rotary blade and board, and you'll go through several blades in very short time.

So I guess that comes to about $370...

Not terrible... right? And it was free velvet. And I was gifted a machine, and I also had a couple patrons who donated over a hundred dollars, bless them. On the other hand, this was only the cost of the coat, and NOT the cost including the dress shirt, cummerbund, wig, etc.

Needless to say, I am dirt poor this year. No sort of spending like this will be occurring any time soon for further work (to make the pants, to get new boots, to go to events, take pictures) unless I'm able to pick up freelance work or earn more patrons. Yeah.

[pants-magic-pants]

I truly apologize for not doing more coat construction posts. I had one almost ready, and then decided I didn't like any of the footage. I have another one almost ready but I need to shoot some footage and I think the problem is that I need better lighting. My friend was going to lend me her ring light but then she said she needed it and things came up, and I can't comfortably buy one myself.

Although, I did very uncomfortably buy the boots I've been wanting for Jareth's ballroom/vampire ensemble which I'm happy about but

...but yes they were not cheap

My ko-fi is still open

Http://www.ko-fi.com/jennyrose