Woven Jacket

The Story

In the 1970s,  Sherri Smith challenged me to design a woven coat or jacket -- modeled here by my beautiful niece. See Sherri's current work here.

The Design
It's a relatively simple cotton twill, with a few (vertical and horizontal) reverses of the chevrons to create details on the back yoke and up the sleeves. It's a nice medium weight. With a heavy sweater underneath, this jacket is warm enough for mid-autumn or early spring.

All of the pieces are rectangles taken directly from the loom. The hem and front edge were rolled and handstitched to finish the edges and create a trim detail. Read about the braided collar and trim below. Click on photos to enlarge them.

Cut My Cote
It may have been inspired by Dorothy Burnham's Cut My Cote, which illustrates early garment designs based on rectangular fabric cuts taken directly from the loom -- as a way to maximize use of precious fabric and keep designs simple. The 1973 copyright on Burnham's paperback would have been around the time a friend first showed it to me, but I can't remember if I had already made the jacket or not.

Years before seeing Cut My Cote, Sherri told me about the way kimonos are made and laundered. They are made from narrow lengths of cloth (see illustrations here). All the pieces are rectangles. When it's time to launder the kimono, the seams are opened and all the rectangles are sewn together as they were when first woven, and then the length of cloth is washed. Then all the pieces are taken apart and put back together as a kimono. Think about that the next time you have to do laundry!

Dobby Loom

I believe I used Sherri's dobby loom when I wove this. That loom is also called a witch. It looked something like this. According to The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, a witch-loom is "equipped with a witch or dobby attachment for weaving fancy patterns".  Here's a video of a semi-industrial dobby loom. The one I used had no electronics or computers. Back in the day, the joke around the studio was that my next loom would be a jacquard loom (because my designs were so complex). Jacquard looms control each warp thread separately. Because of their use of punch cards, jacquard looms were an important step in the evolution of computers.

Chinese Braid

The collar is braided. Sherri called this a Chinese braid. I can't find anything online to describe it. As I recall, it was very easy to make. I remember going to a movie and working on it in the dark while I watched the movie! The braid is what makes it possible to wear the jacket collar two different ways. I made the braid, folded it in half lengthwise and stitched it to the body of the jacket. The loose "fringe" is also Chinese braid; most of it is a continuation of the strands that make the collar. A few additional ties were braided separately. They -- along with two cloth-covered snaps -- are the fastenings.

View more pictures of the jacket here.