A nice visit

I had a visitor at the office today. Someone else who enjoys buying expensive clothes and taking them apart; she may be familiar to some readers.



Claire Shaeffer is the author of a number of books on couture sewing techniques, and whose book "Behind The Seams- Chanel" I reviewed in this post. There were a number of interesting details in her book that I wanted to have a closer look at so when she told me she was coming I asked her to bring a few garments along. Fortunately for me she had room in her suitcase!

I have talked about the shaping that can be done in a tailored suit by stretching and shrinking using heat and steam on wool cloth, instead of using darts and seams, and that this shaping can be sensitive to humidity. We see inside this Chanel jacket that the craftsperson made provisions for this; the back was shaped as described, without the use of a dart, and to preserve the shape, a darted piece of organza has been carefully pad stitched to the shell fabric. Brilliant. The gold lines are bits of lining left over from when the lining was removed without removing the quilting- Chanel quilted the linings to the shell fabric, which was the inspiration for the quilt-pattern handbags that are now so famous. Another design element of those handbags is the gold chain- Chanel would sew chains onto the hems of jackets to give them weight so they wouldn't flop all over the place.



Another brilliant little couture detail can be seen on the belt of another Chanel jacket she brought. It's not immediately obvious, but the blue edging around the belt is really just the stripe in the tweed- when the belt was cut, an additional length of just the blue stripe was cut, and this was worked around the ends of the belt and slip stitched by hand to give the impression of a braid trim.



Then there was this jacket from Yves Saint Laurent, one of my favorite couturiers.



It was interesting to find that the canvas had been laid in on the bias, and that every single panel was canvassed from top to bottom. This jacket would be just beautiful when worn.



And, of course, my favorite shoulder treatment.



That pagoda shape is probably the most difficult of all to achieve- there are a series of cuts in the canvas, similar to what I do in mine, but whereas I put one cut in the shoulder, this tailor has put two. Then the cloth has to stretched and shaped properly to fit over the canvas.

Just a brief taste of what we looked at this morning- my camera has been acting up- but these are garments that have been fully and beautifully documented in her books which can all be found on Amazon and which I heartily recommend.

Oh, and I almost forgot.

This label looks familiar.

Where have I seen something like it before? :)