And here's one I made earlier...

Product design coursework. The brief? To make a jacket that shows military influence. I had a long think about what I could do, which hurt my brain a lot. I didn't want to go down the route of bog-standard military cut, gold buttons, big shoulders, etc, so I looked at the theme of war. This then lead to WW2, which lead to rationing, which lead to the slogan "Make Do and Mend." Simple, but there are so many ways to go. Using second hand or vintage materials, homemade features, recycled objects, the list was endless!

To reflect the little possessions people owned during the war, I wanted to keep the cut of the jacket simple. So I found a vintage (more brownie points) Vogue suit pattern and won 10m of wool on ebay for £10. For the lining I found a vintage yellowish brown flower fabric. Sounds hideous, I know, but it was second hand and cheaper than buying new.

Next the detailing of the jacket.

Military decoration was originally very ornate, so I wanted my jacket to have simple features with a twist to make a bold statement. I wanted ribbon detailing for the cuffs and collar of the jacket and while I was looking through the pretty box full of lovely ribbons, I came accross a fabric tapemeasure. And it was ORANGE (ooo pretty colours...). It really stood out against the grey wool and gave a lovely twist to a seemingly normal cuff feature.

Then came buttons. I'm a sucker for vintage things, and I love buttons. There's just something about them that makes them so likeable! Anyway me and vintage buttons are a match made in heaven so you can imagine my delight as I went around countless vintage fairs and charity shops, being forced to shop for buttons... But nothing suited the jacket, so I made the decision to recycle a vintage object and use it as a fastening. I then explored the different ways I could re-use objects to make buttons: typewriter keys, old brooches, all kinds of things. But I decided on wooden cotton reels, ends chopped off, sanded down and holes drilled into them. And they looked brilliant. They still had the original Sylko labels which added that little bit of extra charm.

10 hours later, after many metres of thread later and sore pin-pricked fingers, this was the final result:

Took me bloody ages, but I'm very very pleased with it. What would I do differently if given the chance to make it again? Make it my size so I could wear it.