Street Style : Military Inspired Coat

I feel the need to apologize because I haven't posted in 4 EVER...sorry. But what can I say ? Life has been crazy busy , between school and well.. school. Fashion Design is no joke.
I just finished tailoring, which is creating suits/ coats/ etc. What a lot of hand stitching and pressing, I thought maybe I would die. I also draft my own patterns, and there is a lot of pieces involved with a coat.

BUT it pays off.. sh*t looks professional
So for my final tailoring project I made this coat. I am obsessed with monochromatic colors  and military inspired clothes, and the easy going street style with a cool edge.

Deats 

 It's a olive coat, box silhoulette , with a edwardian collar (seen on trench coats). The sleeves are brown leather, 2pc#1 sleeve , with top stitching for a detail. Leather welt pockets , leather buttons, and exposed zippers for a design feature.
 I drafted all of these coat pieces, along with the interfacing and lining pieces.

Construction

I want to breakdown the construction, I'll try to generalize so it won't get confusing.

     I realized that I am more detail oriented then I thought. EVERYTHING is hand sewn in this coat.  All the outer edges of this coat had to be interfaced, which is hand sewn with several different types of stitches. The coat is also fully lined,  coat lining and sleeve linings, also hand stitched in the coat.And hand made shoulder pads. There is hand stitched interfacing in the hem and the lining is hand stitched to the hem also.

 The exposed zippers are functional, and adds a little something to the coat. Talk about nerve racking trying to get the zippers to appear even (which they are). This was challenging because I had to separate my lining and interfacing pieces, so when you unzipped the zippers they wouldn't show.

Leather touches, I chose double welt pockets for this coat. I beleieve working with real leather probably would have been easier. Leather does not want to press, and kinda does what it wants. So forcing the leather welts to be the same width was a challenge.

Topstitching for the leather sleeves. I used a denim needle and wax paper, and marked my rows and stitched using a smaller stitch length. It really gave the sleeves some texture and suddenly made them look cool and exspensive.

What really makes a home made tailoring project look professional is top stitching. I bet on all of your coats/ suits you can find topstitching. It helps gives a polished finished look, and helps everything lie flat. So around my collar, lapels, CF, and hem I have top stitching.

Number one key to tailoring is to PRESS as you go. If you are not pressing you are screwed.

Bottom line I love this coat,I love that it's edgy, and totally me. More projects are coming up , I promise to make more of an effort to post.
Here are some photos .
-xoxo JT