The Tailcoat of Uncertain Execution

So, I looked at a LOT of pictures before beginning this tailcoat for my fine fellow. I have never really made any kind of coat for a man (beyond a jerkin for Ren Faire), and was terrified to try it. To prepare myself, I researched paintings, contemporary cutting diagrams, extant museum pieces, and fashion plates. In fact, I fastidiously avoided beginning the pattern because there was just so much research to be done. The excuses I give myself.

And then, in the end... I had to make up the coat in less than a week. Really, a few nights. And I just hoped enough research had sunk in so that whatever pattern I spit out would be moderately authentic, because I had no time to carefully deliberate over my patternmaking. 

My primary reference for drafting the pattern was Men's Garment's 1830-1900: A Guide to Pattern Cutting and Tailoring. The first tailcoat pattern draft in the book is for a coat circa 1830, but it looked like something that I could tweak slightly into a moderately accurate pattern for my desired time period (1800-1810). Another GREAT reference was an article posted on the Regency Society of America forum (post is here, actual article is via ingentaconnect), The Clothing of a Georgian Banker, Thomas Coutts: A Story of Museum Dispersal, authored by David Wilcox. There are a couple oddities about Thomas Coutts clothing, but I find those to be most interesting (sometimes, when researching reproduction clothing, I think it is easy to limit oneself to only attributes commonly found in extant clothing/research. However, clothing then, as now, was just functional - it was edited and altered to serve its purpose best.) The clothing documented in the article is mostly for an older Mr. Coutts, so it must be taken into account that he may not have been on the forefront of fashion, even if his wardrobe is dated close to 1810. 

Observe below, the differences between the 1830 (R.I. Davis) pattern, and the 1810 (Thomas Coutts) pattern.

Pattern detail from The Clothing of a Georgian Banker, Thomas Coutts.

Pattern being drafted (ignore the armhole mishap - I used 1/8 scale as a reference at one point, instead of 1/4 scale. It was fixed after a little confusion.) from R. I. Davis's Men's Garments 1830-1900.

Differences between earlier vs. later patterns: (I also compared these to a couple Norah Waugh coat patterns, one of which is too early and one of which is too late for my period - why is there nothing available for 1805-1815? I had to imagine the progression between patterns):
- fit: early patterns have a lot more straight lines, late patterns are pretty curvy. By 1830 they are starting to hug the body pretty snugly. 
- waist seam: early patterns have none (and very little shaping, although I think I could get away with a fish dart at the pocket for 1810), whereas late patterns have evolved from a slight fish dart at the pocket to a full-blown waist seam, nipping in at the waist to create a bit of a flared skirt. Maggie Waterman wrote a great article about when the waist seam on Regency coats appeared (as well as a stout defense of well-researched costuming!) on her blog Serendipitous Stitchery, (article here).
- armscye: I noticed that on some patterns (namely the Coutts and Norah Waugh patterns) the armscye is very large and round. But on the R. I. Davis pattern, it's fairly narrow and close. Observing extant garments, the armholes appear to always be pretty closely-cut to the front-shoulder and underarm, and cut 'round closer to centre-back than modern coats. Maybe the large-looking armscye is just a proportion thing that I am not understanding. Maybe the R.I. Davis pattern would look correct if I raised the underarm seam, rounding out the shape of the armscye. But I didn't worry too much about that. As long as it looked right post-fitting, I determined to not fuss. 
- length: coats around 1810 tended to be shorter (above back of knee), and around 1830 they tend to be longer (solidly mid-knee).

 I busted out (fiercely quickly) the first pattern, using Kenny's measurements. Once the pattern looked about right, I laid it flat on muslin and traced around it with red marking wax. Pins didn't enter into it. I had Kenny cut out the pieces with really wide, haphazard seam allowances, and then I stitched the pieces together by just matching the marked lines and stitching down them. My teachers would possibly have cringed. But, I was able to make a mock-up in an evening, and make all my pattern adjustments!! It worked out.  

Kenny looks like such a hobbit in this picture. His breeches are not hemmed and don't have buttons holding them in at the knee, so they are kind of flapping out and making him look squatty (need to remember this picture for future hobbit costumes!) We decided that the coat needed to a) be cutaway higher, and b) re-angled at the opening - the angle of that opening is old man angle, not a chic young gentleman angle.

My sweetie-pie! He let me drag him away from his desk multiple times to re-try things on. He still smiled at me for pictures. I surely do love him.

A couple issues here: drag lines from the side-back neck (probably needed to slash+spread the front neckline close to the shoulder seam - maybe - armholes confuse me), tight across-front chest (I did slash+spread a little bit into the lower front armhole, which, now that I think about it, addressed my patternmaking qualm about the armscye being too narrow!).  The sleeve looks weird. But I was really trying to set it as far into the body as possible, like the extant examples I've seen! I don't think it looked to weird on the end result (but I still haven't examined those pictures, so we'll see...)

These sleeves are SO long (which is pretty authentic). Now that I am looking at these pictures, I could have possible re-angled the sleeve when I set it in to help with the awkward back-bulge at the armscye. Got a couple unattractive drag lines going on there. 

No collar! Totally should have put the collar on for the fitting. I hang my head in shame. But it would have taken me another twenty minutes to draft correctly, and I did not have that kind of time. This bit me in the bum later. 

Skirts are too long. Unfortunately, I forgot to trim them when I stitched up the coat (a lot of stitching happened in the car on the way to Louisville, so that was easily overlooked.) Will have to go back and fix that!

Here you can see that I started to pull the armscye back toward the CB/shoulder. I brought it in by roughly 2". That wrinkle under his arm? Could not figure out how to get rid of it without restricting movement. I have seen this bulgy wrinkle in quite a few plates and paintings, though. I assume it is inevitable with the high, tight armscye (although... I probably should have rotated the sleeve a little bit, might have helped). Observe how I pinched in the fish dart; I totally forgot to mark and execute that in my hasty construction of the actual coat. Yet another thing to go back and fix. 

Now I really want to see pictures of the actual coat on Kenny again. Have to get those photos from my mom, and then I'll dissect them here.