One of my sewing goals, or dreams, really, has been to make a French Couture Jacket. Coco Chanel’s boxy button-down with its multiple pockets [for handkerchiefs, lip-sticks, or micro-notebooks — not phones!] remains iconic. I certainly cannot afford the $14,000 jacket or the $7,800 skirt from the Chanel 2026 Spring ready-to-wear collection [first pic, below]. Vintage is often just as spendy. And, fast-fashion knock-offs are NOT my vibe. The real task, the “fun” in this for me was always going to be making a jacket [and skirt and coordinating blouse] for myself.
INSPO
NOW, THIS IS A “MAXIMALIST” POST
For those of you who could care less about the down-and-dirty of how I made my own Chanel-inspired suit, I’m posting my finished pieces just below before I get into any specifics.
MY COUTURE JACKET, SKIRT, & BLOUSE
MAKING MY COUTURE SUIT
HUNDREDS OF HOURS IN 60 SECONDS…
ALRIGHT DIE-HARDS, READ ON…
RESOURCES
I thought long and hard about signing up for an in-person or online course for the French Couture Jacket and Skirt. I love the community-building of in-person courses. And there are even few options for French Couture sewing retreats as destination vacations! Self-paced online tutorials also seemed like a viable option. Only, I wanted to keep things simple and focus my relatively small budget on the fabric and notions I needed for my garments. So, I went with freely accessible options! Claire Shaeffer’s iconic books, Couture Sewing: The Couture Cardigan Jacket and Couture Sewing: The Couture Skirt, both of which come with companion DVDs, are available from the Toronto Public Library. I also consulted Victoria Jin’s YouTube video, the most beautiful and most helpful of the many YouTube options out there, particularly when referenced in tandem with Shaeffer’s books.
PATTERNS
My one “splurge” was to buy a a copy of Claire Shaeffer’s out-of-print Vogue 8804 pattern from an Etsy seller here in Canada. But you can easily use a pattern like Vogue 7975 and apply Shaeffer’s couture techniques. For the skirt, I chose Views C/D of Vogue 8956 with some alterations. I also made a coordinating silk blouse with the Sewing Patterns by Masin Sicily Slip Dress, View A, by cutting the pattern off at the hip.
Fabric & Notions
I found everything right here in Toronto.
I chose a black and black-metallic wool tweed, a leopard silk for the blouse, jacket lining, and front wrap skirt linings, a black Bemberg for the skirt back lining (not pictured), and silk organza interfacing (not pictured), all from the fabulous Leo’s textiles.
I found my buttons, organza ribbon for stays, skirt hooks, silk millinery needles, silk pins, and black silk sewing thread at Neverens Sewing Supply, white cotton basting thread and gold chain for the jacket weights at Leather & Sewing Supply Depot, Sashiko and hand-sewing needles at Fabric Spark, a wide braided cord gimp/trim, black silk buttonhole twist, petersham ribbon for the skirt-waist, and black all-purpose thread from the fabulous Hilary at MacFab Sews, and a beautiful thin metallic bit of ribbon or passementerie at the jaw-dropping Mokuba Canada.
MAKING THE JACKET
The Pattern and The Toiles
Since it’s out of print, I did not dare even slice into my uncut pattern for the original Vogue 8804! I traced the pieces [marking only my size and a size up] onto pattern paper. Now, the Vogue pattern includes seam allowances. But, Claire Shaeffer’s book calls for using a pattern WITHOUT seam allowances. So, I measured and marked the seam lines on my traced paper pattern.
I then traced the paper patterns onto my muslin and re-marked all of the stitching lines, darts, etc. onto the fabric with colourful sharpies – TWICE. I ended up making a test garment in EACH SIZE. After fitting, I chose to go with my original size, grading one size up from waist to hip at the side seams while grading to what imagine to be a size smaller around and below the bust. I also lengthened the sleeve pieces by a few inches, so that the jacket would fall all the way to my wrist.
Once I was happy with my fit, I marked the changes on my traced paper pattern and boldly cut my pattern along the finalized stitching lines, removing the seam allowance!
CONSTRUCTION NOTES: NEW-TO-ME TECHNIQUES
I’m not going to go into micro-detail re the construction of the jacket. All of that can be found in the pattern instructions, in Shaeffer’s book, and on various professional Youtube accounts. There were, however, several new-to-me techniques here which I’ll note and illustrate a bit. [This may all sound like gibberish. So be it!]
I used the new-to-me technique of “thread tracing” the paper pattern by hand-basting around the pattern’s edge, ie the seam-lines, onto the bouclé, marking all of the darts and quilting lines and notches. With the bouclé, I had to make sure to pattern-match the various pieces of the jacket. I basted a few strands of coloured thread across my fabric to keep track of where the main “plaid” pattern began. And I tried to match the sleeve pieces to one another and to the main fabric by matching the pattern of the bouclé fabric at the notches. [P.S. I decided that I would not “pattern match” the leopard silk lining, because I knew that, with the various darts and quilting lines, etc, it would be extremely difficult. I just made sure the front bodice pieces were cut in mirror. ]
I interfaced the front bodice pieces with silk organza, quilted them, and attached “stay” strips of organza to the front hems by hand. That was novel.
I taught myself how to hand-sew buttonholes, to line them for a faux-bound-buttonhole look, and to later attach the lining fabric with more hand stitching. I think I streamed an entire season of Hacks while sewing buttonholes.
For bust shaping, I used a silk organza “bust stay” on the back of the bouclé, and replaced the traditional sewn-in dart with gathering and steaming the bouclé. When you attach the lining, you create a dart on the bust by matching the corners of the cut bodice pieces and folding/hand-sewing. It’s wild, but the bouclé really took to steam-shaping, and the gorgeous leopard silk did well under the iron.
Most of the machine sewing took place along the main joins of the bodice and arm seams on the bouclé, as well as the quilting of the boucle to the lining pieces. This machine work happened after hand-basting everything together first. What I liked about the machine sewing was that I basically stitched just a hair from my hand-based thread-tracing lines, so it was really easy to sew the suit properly. I really did not have to make any changes to the suit in terms of fit.
I really enjoyed sewing the silk lining pieces together by hand throughout. The only “visible” stitches in the garment are the quilted lines. I think if I were to make another jacket, I would quilt by hand. I mean, why not?
To “shape” the back bodice pieces, I had to figure out how to mark and hand-sew darts on the lining fabric on the inside. Then, I steamed the outer fabric to cinch in the back waist without bubbles. I think I did a bang-up job. I love a good steam!
I lined the pockets in silk and hand-sewed everything. They’re lovely.
It took me forever to decide on what kind of trim I’d like to use. I ended up making my own “fringe” trim by cutting lengths of the boucle, stitching a straight line down the centre, and stripping the fabric thread by thread on each side, leaving about 1/4 inch of fabric in the centre. This I joined with a slim ribbon or bit of passementerie down the middle, which I placed to the top or top-right of a wider woven trim, as seen on the pockets, above.
I applied a good deal of the trim with hand-sewing, particularly on the pockets. It was easier to attach the trim in sections by machine on the bodice and sleeves [which you trim before sewing into a tube], because you could unfold the hems and push the lining back. I DID end up using a fabric-glue stick to secure the small passementerie ribbon to my fringe trim before sewing, which saved me a lot of unnecessary effort.
The jacket sleeves looked punk AF with all the pins inside. Oh, and it was a LOT easier to gather and steam the shoulder of the sleeve than I thought it would be. And, you betcha, the sleeves were set in by hand and hand-sewn.
That’s right, I did a MASSIVE AMOUNT of hand-sewing: hems, lining pieces, buttonholes, you name it. The majority of this sewing was quite meditative and pleasant, especially as my fabrics were easy to iron-set before pinning and stitching. Hand-sewing the chain onto the hem of the jacket with some gold thread I think I’d had on hand since I made my wedding dress “back in the day” was quite the thrill. I can’t tell you how many “fashion” inspired films I watched while hand-sewing. Oh, and the noir, so much noir.
5 million evening-, weekend-, and holiday- hours later, I cannot even tell you how much I love her!
MAKING THE SKIRT
Construction Notes
I used similar couture techniques to the jacket to make the skirt, removing seam allowances on the pattern (which I just did, here, by folding the original paper pattern under to a smaller size), and thread-tracing the pattern onto the bouclé. Shaeffer suggests you make a “faux wrap” skirt with a zipper at the back. She also has you join the back skirt piece to the front wrap piece before cutting the fabric out. But I wanted a wrap that could open, and more control of the side seams for shaping and sizing, so I cut the pattern as is, omitting the “facing” pattern piece in lieu of a full lining. I did, however, square out the front panel of the skirt, because the o.g. pattern is “angled.”
To repeat, I added a lining. Using the main pattern pieces as guide, I cut the back of the skirt out of bemberg, the hip-portions of the front skirt panels in bemberg, and the front 9 or so inches of the wrap skirt panels in leopard silk. I just about halved the width of the waistband, as well, so the front could be cut from boucle and the lining could be cut from joined lengths of leopard silk and black bemberg.
With the “couture skirt,” as with the bust-stay and back darts of the “couture jacket,” I don’t have visible “darts” in the skirt. In place of the darts, I gathered the skirt and remove the length of the darts across the gathers. It’s very easy to do on the constructed skirt and lining. I also “quilted” the lining to the skirt using Shaeffer’s instructions.
And I used a petersham ribbon to “interface” the waistband of the skirt. I found it particularly easy to work with ribbon as a guide to cutting, ironing and sewing the band.
I had just enough trim to sew one line down the front of the wrap skirt from waistband to hem. And I used some organza ribbon along the hem so that I could maximize the length of my skirt and keep the insides tidy. Hand-sewing the side and bottom hems was, again, a slow and steady meditative act.
I finished the wrap with one visible button with its own hand-sewn buttonhole, skirt hooks on the interior, and a few snaps on the button-side of the hip. I added 2 more buttons “for show” along the front trim, making sure these buttons remain under the hem of the matching jacket when it’s buttoned closed over-top of the. skirt.
She’s very soft and swishy, and she fits like a dream.
MAKING THE BLOUSE
EASY WIN
I simply cut the pattern for the Sicily Slip Dress at the hip notches. Then, I followed the pattern instructions from start to finish. I ended up cutting an inch or two off the base before I did my baby hem. 10/10. I’ve already cut an actual dress from the pattern in some crepe I’ve had in my stash for years.
Et voila, a million hours later, my Couture Suit.
It fits like a glove.
At some point, I’ll post a picture OF MYSELF wearing it.
[I was too busy admiring everyone else’s outfits at Toronto Frocktails 2026to take time to step into the photo booth.]
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