First Mockup

For my first mockup (and probably the second and third), I sewed only the front and back pieces for the basic fit. No sleeves, no collar. I didn't really have any idea what size this pattern was, and some major adjustments might be necessary, so those things would just get in the way.


Luckily, the coat is a little small for Chris, but not too bad. I'd say this pattern is probably a good 36" chest. Chris wears a 37"-38" jacket, and we needed to open it up at the armholes and reshape the back, but it wasn't too terribly small on him.


The biggest correction needed on the front is the angle of the bottom edge. It droops down and needs to be picked up to be horizontal. I'm not going to just cut off the bottom edge to form a new angle - that would push the whole piece off-grain. Instead I pick up the front in the neckline, and I'll reshape the neckline & collar later (see why I didn't attach the collar yet?).

Uncorrected Jacket Front - note the tight armhole
and the drooping front

Close-up of the Drooping Front correction.
The pencil arrowmark at the top edge
 is to remind me to fill in that angle.
I also clipped the armhole to fit better,
as it was tight and needed to be reshaped.

Less Droopy now! Plus the grainline is running
 the right direction. Whew!

The back looks a little messier, but it's really not. I'm pinching a little out of the back princess (are they called princess seams on men?) and extending the armhole a little, so I had to add an extra piece of muslin to draw my new armhole seam. There are a couple other little issues (like the back neck - see the wrinkles?) but I'm going to deal with that on the next mockup. Big stuff first.

Back View

Interesting thing about these coats - see that seam going across the back shoulder? That's the shoulder seam. It's so far back it almost looks like a yoke. Why did they do it this way?

Also, coats in the early Regency period didn't have sideseams or waistline seams, so less body shaping was possible. (Waistseams started to be added around 1820, and sideseams were around 1830.) Like I mentioned before, I'm not adamant about perfect period accuracy on a hobby costume reproduction, but this is important information to know because the patterns don't make much sense unless you have this info.

Because Chris likes a good fit, I'm going to deviate from the Tidens Toej pattern and add a horizontal fisheye dart at the waist. (I should really find out what Tidens Toej means...) This simulates the effect of a waistline seam. The coat from the Cut of Men's Clothes has the waistline dart, that's where I got the idea.

Side View shows the waistline dart, pinned to fit