Wednesday 17 December 2008

Button for Punishment

So I had the flu and a couple of rather hectic weeks - where did the time go; a minute ago it was November. I actually got around to rebuttoning a coat after constant reminders from the blogs of Sunday Best and Style Salvage. Of course in my haste to rebutton, I forgot to take a 'before' pic, but you can see on the first one, the old buttons are the darker ones. I found the new ones eventually in good old John Lewis; going for a classic military look. I saw some gorgeous gold-fronted wit a star-imprint butons on Liberty, but they hadn't enough. I also added the top row of buttons to lengthen the coat's appearance, and sewed in the cuff-buttons a little tighter, so that the sleeves would be slightly more nipped-in. All in all a successful evening's work, and the new coat gets lots of compliments. Especially when I wore it with a brown leather belt which cinched in the waist too. Though one tip; perhaps this should be avoided with a moustache; a little too much military can deliver unwelcome 'Hitler' comments - thanks Janine, Ross, Ben, etc for that. Aaanyway, I guess this rebuttoning has brought this coat back from the dead and this conforms to the whole credit-crunch-chic thing of redoing rather than repurchasing. The less said then, about my cashmere jumper and 12th cardigan from Uniqlo purchases, the better (except they are both lovely). Other Staples this December:
Rebuttoning an old coat
Watching an entire DVD boxset before breakfast (thanks flu)
Managing to bag some cheap first-class train tickets home
The Champion pub in Fitzrovia
Uniqlo knitwear
Covent Garden soups
Jean Genet's 'Querelle de Brest'

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear staple, I bought a vintage Aquascutum tweed full length coat at Greenwich market last year. After getting it home i realised that the coat was a hideous length, almost calf length. Not great on a skinny boy of almost 6'3". Other than taking it up do you have any suggestions as how one would go about updating such a garment. after your button swap it's made me consider possibly making it double breasted. It would be a shame to pass it on as it really could be a lovely coat. Any ideas? IS