You may recognize Jamie from her muu muu revamp, polka dot dress revamp or her sheer blouse update, but this time she had something to revamp for her friend. Her friend’s father had given her a jacket from his travels to Tibet. It has some really amazing details, but did not fit well and was not easy to wear. When Jamie first brought it in I had no idea what we could do with it, and knew it would require some major creative thinking. The most we decided on was that it would likely end up being a vest. I got an idea of what budget we were shooting for, and let Jamie know I would email her with some ideas. Here’s the before (ignore the pins indicating I almost forgot to take a before pic!)

I set aside the jacket for a few days to allow myself time to daydream about design ideas–sometimes you just can’t rush these things otherwise they will seem too forced. So after the few day pondering period, I team-worked with my trusty mannequin and it was clear we had 2 major options to pull this off, both of which involved flipping this jacket on it’s side or upside-down. I sent Jamie the pictures to see what she thought. Here’s revamp idea #1:

And revamp idea #2:

And the winner was the 2nd one with the stripe straight down the front, and the point at the center back bottom.

So away I went! I used the old hem to create the front panels (flipped 90 degrees), the sleeves to create the sides, and the old front (flipped) to create the main portion of the back. I kept the neck swoop relatively in the same place and basically turned it into a yolk, and converted it to feed into the stripes on the front. I am so happy with how well this revamp came together, but boy did it give my brain a workout!!

And for reference, that point on the back used to be on the front in the armpit:

Jamie gave this revamp to her friend in Montreal as a gift, and the report is she loves it and it fits in well with the Montreal aesthetic!

Do you have an item that has so much potential but you are just stumped with what to do with it? Email me about it at kristen@rethinktailoring.com and we can go from there!