Two years ago when Anthropologie came out with the Floe and Current Coat, I became obsessed with it. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of clothing I have ever seen.
front
back
This coat originally retailed for $498. I believe it went on sale for $150 at some point, but I never tried to get it. I had already decided that I was going to do a knockoff. I live in South Alabama and have a hard time justifying spending more than $100 on coats. Except for this year, we really don't have that much of a winter. I have a long list of items I want to sew, but I finally made it to this one in the past couple of weeks. From what I could tell in the pictures, the fabric looked alot like pique. The lining of the coat is a butterfly fabric.
I spent awhile looking for a good coat pattern to make this and I decided on B5415.
I made version B that is pictured in white on the pattern envelope. I did do a few things differently, though.
I cut the front bodice and back bodice into two pieces and added a seam allowance so that I could have a seam in which to insert the flounces.
I had made flounces before when I knocked off the
fluttering pencil skirt. I did a similar thing this time, but I graduated my flounce outward in width. I most definitely made a muslin of this coat first using actual real muslin fabric that I bought at a discount fabric store near my hometown. The flounce was a bit too flouncy (is that even possible?) so I took out some of the fullness at the shoulder of the flounce.
I did not want to have to do a narrow hem on the curved edge of the flounce (too stressful) so I just sewed two right sides together and turned inside out. I made four flounces and sewed two together at the shoulder to achieve the look on both the front and back of the coat.
The original Floe and Current coat has large eyelets on the front and does not have an inverted pleat in the back. I chose to do an inverted pleat like the pattern and also I used some pretty buttons instead of eyelets. Honestly, I was scared to death to put eyelets that big in this coat. I have not had good experiences inserting even small eyelets, so I did not want to chance destroying my coat. Also, my flounces are a little flouncier than the ones on the original and I tacked them down in different spots to make them lay like I want.
button closeup and a fabric closeup
Another thing I did was to insert the sleeves differently than the pattern described. I don't have the foggiest idea why these patterns are giving instructions to insert the sleeves the way they are doing, but I just set in the coat sleeves, set in the lining sleeves, and then put the lining sleeves down inside the coat sleeves and hemmed both individually.
Also, the original coat just had welt pockets on the front and I opted to make flaps and flaps are all they are. I do not have any pockets. The buttons on the flaps are a smaller version of the front coat buttons.
I did a hot pink lining with some basic polyester lining fabric. The original coat has a butterfly print lining. Honestly, the reason I used this fabric was because I have Christmas money each month to spend at my local fabric shop, and if I had bought butterfly print lining (from somewhere else) , it would have to come from some different sewing money I might want to use on something else. That was a small sacrifice since you don't see the lining anyway. Also, I just love the way hot pink looks with turquoise.
Lastly, the fabric I used was some stretch pique in powder blue that I bought from fabric.com a few months ago. When it went on sale, I made sure I bought enough to make this coat. I still have enough left to make a skirt or a small short sleeved jacket.
Here are some pics of my coat:
WHEW!!! That was not an instant gratification project and I am ready for one. However, the next project I feel driven to make is another anthro knockoff. It is really more of an inspired-by piece. However, it should not be as time consuming as this coat, but I am probably just kidding myself.
