Learning from RTW: deconstructing a jacket

As I've told you, I took apart my favorite jacket. This jacket comes from a Romanian designer and it fits me beautifully. However, the fabric is horrible. 100% polyester, with quite a cheap look to it (this designer usually has beautiful fabrics, I don't know what happened this time). The advantage is it never wrinkles and you don't even have to iron it. The disadvantage... I completely hate it!
Therefore I took it apart, to copy the pattern and learn from the construction as well.

This is what the pattern pieces look like:



I forgot to take a picture of the jacket before taking it apart, but here is a photo of the half left, still in one piece, except for the collar:



As I already knew from Kathleen Fasanella, seam allowances are 1 cm (3/8 inches), the allowance of the seam joining the facing to the fronts and the lining to the hem is 0.6 cm (1/4).

What I've also noticed:

• The entire fronts are fused (but then I'm doing this all the time)
• The side panel is fused too, even if it extends into the back as well
• The back has a fused panel, covering the entire neckline and the armholes
• All the hems (back and sleeve) are fused and the interfacing extends past the foldline (I was doing that too)
• There are little cut slits instead of outward or inward notches
  
• THERE IS NO EASE IN THE SLEEVE CAP! But then, Kathleen Fasanella says that sleeve cap is bogus - see her post about it here. There was also a discussion on PR - go to Message Boards, Creative Sewing, and then Making Clothes Look Less Homemade - the discussion starts on page 11 of that thread. The sleeve looks perfectly OK and suits me perfectly.
  
• The sleeve cap is fused too! (I wasn't doing that nor was I ever instructed to do it) - see below what I'm talking about:

Also, I like very much the shoulder pad. It is the best I've ever had in a jacket. It gives shape without being too bulky (I have round defined shoulders and I really hate how I look with shoulder pads thicker than... let's say 1 cm).

See the pad below, compared to the best shoulder pads I can buy here (they are Italian and cost a bit more than 2 euros per pair, which is about 3 times more than "normal" shoulder pads):



Notice how the shoulder pad from the jacket doesn't have a symmetrical shape, like the bought one. The part going in the front is longer and thinner (lower part of photo), the one going in the back (upper part of photo) is shorter and fatter. Also, the pad is made out of three layers, assembled with pad stitching:



The bought pad is made out of foam, one layer and covered in soft knit mesh.

I'm thinking of making my own shoulder pads from now on. I must find foam for that. The foam piece in the picture above is thicker in the middle and thinner at the ends, but I can achieve this by layering several pieces of foam, in different sizes.

My houndstooth jacket from this pattern is coming along in a great way so far. I'm taking this opportunity to use all the tailoring techniques that I know of: shaping the lapel with an additional piece of interfacing and using stay tape for the lapel roll line; taping the fronts; adding a chest shield; adding a wigan strip to the sleeve hem; sewing the collar in a bulkless way etc.

When the jacket is finished, I'll post links to what I've found online about tailoring and also some pictures showing how I sew the collar to the jacket (a bulkless method, I think).

But... the International Salsa Congress starts tomorrow in Bucharest and it will keep me very busy.

Despite the pompous name, a salsa congress is an informal and fun event. You have workshops (about three simultaneous workshops in each time slot) the entire day, led by the greatest international instructors/dancers, and parties at night. People come from every corner of this world.

At the end of the congress (Sunday night) I'll probably be half dead, but it's definitely worth it!