#burdastyle pattern

The Fall Cut Away, AKA Bouclé Blazer 119|Burda Style 09/21

With fall upon us and the turn towards cooler weather where I live, I am thinking of wool clothing for work. Women turned to suit and away from dresses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when they wanted to be taken seriously and when dresses were mostly seen as social clothing. Up until the 1960s, there was a rich design vocabulary expressed in women’s suits, no matter what the current fashion favored.

This fitted jacket from Burda Style has several nice features to offer and comes in sizes from a 34 inch but to a 42.  It has a small revers, or turn-back lapel, as well as a back collar that is merely an extension of the main jacket pieces which is then fitted to the curve of the back of the neck with darts. I have always preferred a collar across the back of the next, especially on a jacket that is meant to keep you warmer. This combination is one of the easier kinds of lapels and collars to make if you are new to tailoring.

Then there is a nice detail below as the lower front hem is then cut away which creates a mirror of the V created at the front neckline by the revers lapel. The addition of buttons and buttonholes below the cutaway, which means they serve no purpose, reminds me of menswear which often enjoys superfluous buttons. And then if you found some buttons you really love, you get to use more of them. Multiple darts, front and back, allow you to tweak the fit and the set-in sleeves use two pattern pieces which means they shape acknowledges the natural forward bend of the arm. It is lined as well. Alas, there are no pocket, but experts might add welt pockets and newbies could ponder the addition of small patch pockets.

They recommend jacketing fabrics which is awfully broad, and show it in a plaid boucle. Any wool with a bit of structure to it would work, but if you are new to tailoring avoid plaids as you have to match them, but a very small check would work, or one of those tweeds that doesn’t seem to have a clear pattern.

Do choose a fabric with a bit of texture to it. Texture works in your favor in two ways. Textured woolens are not as tightly woven as gabardines or twills, so it will be easier to easy the sleeves into the armholes, and any little error will disappear. The very first suit I made was a gabardine and I remember the struggle I had to set in the sleeves.

BurdaStyle patterns come as pdfs, so you download it, and either find a printer that can do very large sheets of paper, or use a good deal of tape to put the pieces together. BurdaStyle offers a video to walk you through using a pdf pattern if the process is new to you.