Trench coat toile take two

Thanks everyone for all the advice on fitting my coat. I’ve made some adjustments to the toile and it is vastly improved already.

I’m making Burda 105 02/2019, a single breasted trench coat style. Here’s one of the model photos.

Burda 105 02/2019 trench coat model photo

My first toile came out looking oversized on me. This was a particular problem because the fabric I am making the coat from is on the heavy side for this style so it was going to look very bulky indeed when pulled in with the belt. I went off and did a bit of browsing for images of trench coats to see what sort of shape would work better for fabrics without much drape. Burberry have some good ones in leather and metallics (the gold crocodile leather was a particularly spectacular version). The hem on theirs tends to be mid knee rather than mid calf and they are much more shaped in the body, having front and back princess seams. They often style them with the collar turned up too.

I didn’t really fancy adding princess seams, but I shaped the side seams and the centre back seam on my toile to nip it in at the waist, and took a whopping five inches off the hem. I also shortened the sleeves slightly. My husband wasn’t available to take photos so excuse the awkward mirror selfies.

Burda 105 02 2019 toile take 2

It definitely still needs shoulder pads – unfortunately I didn’t have any handy when I was fitting – and I think the back vent needs to start a little higher now I’ve shortened it so much. But it looks a great deal better already. That odd wrinkle on the sleeves seems to have gone too, but I’ll look at those more closely once I have the shoulder pads.

12 thoughts on “Trench coat toile take two”

  1. It’s looking so so much better – good job, keep going … it’s like building a bridge or something equally marvelous. I always think sewist are really fabric engineers. Looking forward to seeing the next steps you take … thank you too, to the other commenters re tipping the sleeve forward in the armhole – good advice I can use myself … dam forward shoulders … almost like another set of boobs to learn how to accommodate. All the best, Majena

  2. This looks great! Definitely see the improvements from Version 1.0. Hopefully the shoulder pads will help with the sleeves so you won’t have to do too many more edits!

  4. It looks pretty close to Burda’s model now and it fits you so much better. When I saw this version it reminded me that I’ve been sitting on the StyleArc Stella pattern for years. You’ve inspired me to get that done for autumn. 👍🏻

    I’m such a copy cat, I want all of the things.

  5. Looks good to me! I would be wary of making the back vent start up too high. My RTW trench has very high back vent and it gets a bit chilly back there sometimes!

  6. Adjustments have really helped: the higher hem, the slight taking in, the shorter sleeves. I would raise the back vent a touch too. The standing collar is fab!

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