MAKE SURE THE GARMENT FITS YOU IN A WAY YOU LIKE, if you're gonna put many hours into altering it it better be something that you're gonna see yourself in and not cringe. You want it to be something you wear a lot so it better be comfortable and make you feel comfortable. Alter the fit before you start really working on it - I cut off about 10 cm off the bottom of every jacket I alter, cause I have a short torso and prefer the semi-cropped look on me (if you have wide hips you probably want to try this as well - if you want to hide them cut just above the widest point of the hips, if you wanna show them off cut higher). If it's too small it's not gonna magically grow, add panels or get a bigger jacket. Add pockets if you want more

TAKE YOUR TIME. You are not gonna be done in a day. You're not gonna be done in a week. These projects take weeks to months to years of slow additions and tinkering. They are a showcase of your patience and time on the scene. If you are new and you try to make a fully decked out jacket right away it will show. There is nothing wrong with being new, but like in any area of life, pretending you're more seasoned than you really are will backfire the second you encounter to actually seasoned people. Don't force ideas onto your garments, don't frantically search for patch ideas. Wait until you run into something that speaks to you - this extends to copying patch ideas off of the 30 jackets on pinterest. We've all seen them. We know where it came from. Nothing wrong with being inspired by them, but if every single thing you put on can be traced to a popular pinterest image it looks amateur and frantic. The jacket is a vessel for your own voice, and if you haven't found it yet, it's okay, but maybe focus on finding it.

TEXTURE. Any maximalist garment needs texture. Before you start adding your complex patches make sure there is visual interest on the base of the garment. If I toggle off the patches layer this jacket is still cool and punk, with the visual language alone. texture can be anything, this one I tried to look like it was dipped in bleach - if you're bleaching black it will probably turn out rusty orange, if you're bleaching denim it will lighten the wash of it. You can dye the bleached areas any colour you'd like, I made this example in earthtones. It also has a white paint splatter effect, you could spray paint yours, flowersmash it or just use a stained jacket.

And of course metal - spikes, studs, screws, washers, charms, chains, o-rings, d-rings, shit you found on the ground, anything that you can sew that will shine under the light, anything you can get in a hardware store or the gallantry. Make sure the metal is compatible with how you wanna use the jacket - it it's just for looks you can make it as impractical as you want to, if you wear a one-sided bag make sure one shoulder is not covered in spikes. If you always pull up your sleeves don't cover them in spikes or thick fabric. If you're gonna wear it a lot, maybe ease up on the chains or choose a lighter metal. Make it suit your needs and your lifestyle.

Texture can be patterned fabric, either random scraps of many different fabrics or you can use the same one in many places. You can follow the structure of the panels of the jacket like I mostly did on the left, or you can just sew rectangles, or any shape really, patches don't need to be rectangle. Texture can be also textured fabric - if you're going for an achromatic look sewing velur, lace and leather onto your jacket will give it texture without sacrificing the one-colour look. (monochromatic means one hue, could be in different shades, achromatic means b&w fyi, I see a lot of people using these words wrong)

A cheap way to aqquire studs that I like a lot is thrifting these ugly ass pastel belts from the early 2000's and stripping them for parts. If you have time on your hands and live in a place that has by-wight thrift stores this could be a method for you. Don't fucking buy hardware on amazon, you're better than this.

CREATE FOCAL POINTS - dress is not an art project, it's a language and you better learn how to speak it before giving a presentation. If all you do is cover a garment in hand-lettered word patches of the same size, same font, on the same type of fabric you will look like an arts and crafts project from middle school. You need places for your eyes to rest - traditionally its a big backpatch on the back and large studded/spiked areas on the front, but if you for whatever reason want to differ from this formula, you better have a plan and know what you're doing. I'm making a jacket rn that I didn't want a lot of metal on for comfort, cause I carry a backpack and commute by bike everywhere, so I sewed a bunch of cross charms into the shoulder panel, so that there is still a busy metal area that draws in the eye in all lighting, without being heavy.

Some of visuals that catch the eye

- contrasting colour (f.e. white or red patch on a black jacket, plain or printed)

- faces will always be the first thing people look at, cause our brains are trained to look for them, be mindful where you put them

- eyes, hands, other body parts

- big patterns (animal print, spirals, flanel, stripes etc)

- bold symbols

- metal elements; chains

- shiny texture overall

If you don't know what you're doing you want to position them crating triangles on the garment, to make it easy for the eye to ground itself while taking the whole garment in. About 3 focal triangles are usually just right, all of them of different eye-catching elements. Try not to have too many more, that's how the muddled (derogatory) look gets created (unless you know what you're doing)

You can then surround it all in written patches randomly and it will remain fairly balanced, because the three flashy designs are anchoring it in place. A simple hand-lettered patch will fade into the background, so try to not have too many of them, I'll talk about patch design later. Also don't be afraid of blank patches and sewing found objects on.

PATCHES are not required at all, but are a drawing point of the culture for many. There are ways of doing them wrong, lame or corny so here are my tips to avoid that. First of all for the love of god put some punk band logos on. Of course if you're going for a goth battle jacket you want goth bands, and if you're making a battlevest you want metal bands, this goes without saying, but make sure the visual language you're using matches the music you put on. Nothing wrong with let's say emo punks, but if that's you, you better lean into it rather than trying to pass it off as pure punk. Add the stripes, the zebra print, the checker, the neon colours and wear it with kandi jewelery. Make it intentional. If you're not sure what direction is right for your music taste make a list of your favourite alternative bands, and their genres and see the common theme. If it's all indie rock maybe you wanna learn more about punk before making a punk jacket, there's plenty of bands you will like I'm sure, and in the meantime you can wear your battle jacket in the plain but textured state.

If you are aiming for a classic punk look, make sure the bands you put on your jacket are political - if not in lyrics then at least have their members be vocal on politics. I love Taco Hemingway, but I reserved myself to one small patch on my pants referencing his work, cause his body of work is vaugely leftist and he doesn't speak publically, making it not punk at all. Research the history of the bands you're putting on, even if you do so briefly. Sex Pistols is a cruicial band in punk history but I wouldn't want to wear their logo. Marylin Manson is not a cool name to wear in the present. If you google ''band name + controversy'' and the articles are about how they're demoralising the youth and are satanic then you're probably good. If there's something about sexual assult allegations look into it, look at their response and follow your own moral compass.

POLITICAL PATCHES are cruicial to the subculture of course, however, make sure they are not redundant. You don't need five anti-police patches on the same jacket. You can put them on five different garments, making more of your closet punk. Also make sure you are putting movements you are actually involved in on, not just everything you support. A pet peeve of mine is battlegear that I like to call ''leftist propaganda'' garments. They have every politically correct statement on them, but are so unfocused that they do not tell me anything about the values of the owner. To use myself as an example, I am heavily involved in queer and especially trans activism (co-founder of a collective level of involvment) and to a lesser degree in the pro-choice movement, in local antifa happenings, polish politics and art. My garments reflect that, the more involved I am with something, the more patches referencing it I have. You can easly tell what's most important to me. You can also see that I fucking love buildings, cause I have a lot of patches with them, and if you know the references you can tell I love graffiti. And if you talk to me all of it is reflected in my personality. Don't false advertise yourself as an animals rights activist if you don't even know if there's an animal shelter in your area. That's what gets you called a poser.

The language you use with political slogans is very important and often overlooked by people. You can have two pro-trans patches - one says ''trans people are valid'' the other one says ''transsexual liberation now''. You are talking to two very different people. Punk is about being uncensored, radical and if vulgar about it. Double check if what you're putting on your clothes is the way you would say it, or the way you would code switch when talking to a bigot. Don't censor yourself in your own house. This is why a lot of jackets come off as lame or soy, is cause when making a garment that's a symbol of liberation and freedom you are still censoring yourself. Be vulgar, go off bestie. Radicalise yourself. Your clothes are not tiktok you can say fuck.

If you are not american why are you wearing mostly american politics patches. Nothing wrong with support, especially in this evil time, but are you involved in US politics more than your local onces? Well you are going to wear your gear in the real world that you live in, it better relate to it. I've made a whole long post about ways to find local slogans and issues, it's the ''what to put on patches when you have no ideas'' post that looks cringe until you click read more. Localise yourself. Care for your people before you care for people you'll never meet.

Memes are fine but in small quantities. You have a limited amount of room on your jacket and if half of them are memes you look like someone who's not taking politics seriously, or like someone who doesn't know politics. I fell into this trap when I first made my patch pants. I covered a lot of these patches lately, leaving out maybe 4. On a jacket one on the front and one on the back is probably enough, and it better be fucking funny. You don't need an among-us patch. Maybe go for inside jokes, I like redrawing funny graffiti i see irl or online, or designing a joke to look like a band logo.

Speaking of design, a lot of people just hand letter their political patches and that's fine when there's a few, but if your entire garment is covered in them, you look like that shirt that everyone signed at the end of summer camp. Get your sentence, open canva or a better program if you have one, and just play around with the proportions of words. Add symbols to them, use fonts (as complicated as you're willing to paint/cut a stencil for), add lines of interest, add splatters. I can do a whole seperate tutorial on how I do that if you want to. It really elevates a project from arts n crafts to clothing.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO HANDSEW but it looks better. If you find handsewing flimsy pin your patches with safety pins, or honestly glue them to the fabric with school glue before sewing down. In the golden age of crust punk dental floss was used as sewing thread, hence why the traditional white-stiched look, and if you want to replicate that by all means go for it. If you already have thread, just use that. You can buy spools for cheap these days, sometimes surger thread will be cheaper (big cone shaped spools). You can use different colours, but make sure it's intentional. Avoid embroidery floss. If you know what you're doing, be my guest, but if you want to sew down everything with embroidery floss then for the love of your wallet, just get thread. Especially if you haven't sewn much in life. It's gonna look clunky. If you're sewing down heavy metal get a spool of denim thread, or if you already have embroidery floss you could use that (it's weaker).

HAVE A PLAN. Just draw out what you want to do in not much detail, the base shapes and patterns you wanna put on. The basic colours. It doesn't have to be perfect, just have a vision. If you don't have the full vision, but you want to start, just focus on what you know how you want to look. You can then go from there and think what could go well with it. You can alter your plan, change your mind, change course, make new ones as you go, but don't switch your brain to autopilot during the decision making process, if this isn't a visual language you're fluent in.

HAVE A NAME for your garment. Be aware if you are making a battle jacket, patch jacket, punk jacket, crust jacket. Do research. I wanna make a post about the differences soon but there's plenty of information online. This circles back to your main genre. If you love hardcore you want your jacket to look like the ones that people who love hardcore wear, don't you. Be aware of your direction and be aware of the category of your creation. Pants with My Chemical Romance and Lovejoy patches are not crust pants. Respect history by not putting yourself in categories that don't describe you.

Punk is not a kumbayah of ''you are punk no matter what you do <3", it's not a culture that likes being morphed into whatever the person wants it to be. It's politics and political music based, which inspire everything that go with it - the diy, the anti-capitalist behaviour, open queerness et cetera. It's a whole mindset, and if you don't have it and don't want to have it, why try to look punk. It's not gatekeeping, its making sure the community has a spine. A lot of the times when getting into the community you will be met with ''just do whatever you want!!! punk is breaking the rules and whatever the fuck!!!'' and at the same corner people will also call you corny for doing it wrong. I care about making resources for new people, so that they can understand this mostly unspoken inner language of what is cool and what isn't, and I say this with the most love for baby punks as a person can have: if you're not punk don't try to look like one. If in your heart you don't care about the effects of capitalism, you don't have sympathy for your community, you believe some people are better than others and you believe everyone should fend for themselves, I fucking swear to god, don't you dare call yourself punk or make yourself look like us. If you don't know shit and aren't willing to learn get out.

i always start with a sketch to visualize what i want to make

i fully used scraps for this project, i pinned together a base and sewed that together, then added the pockets and loops. i machine sewed this altho you could also do it by hand, if you have the patience for that.

i only sewed this onto the pants afterwards, to make working on it easier, make sure you check while youre working if everything still fits where you want it to go