Description

This is a picture of a tailcoat and skirt set I made for myself about 10 years ago.

The majority of both the coat and skirt are made from .048" wire wrapped to 3/8" I.D., if a different size was used it is noted below.

The tailcoat is woven, for the most part, in European 4 in 1. I worked the armpits differently, and came up with (as far as I know) my own pattern to keep them from sagging. The main body of the coat is made from stainless steel. The collar and cuff are made of brown leather and attached with .045" brass wrapped to 3/16" ID. The buttons I bought are gold tone and go through actual working button holes. The coat contains 36,864 of the stainless rings and about 130 of the brass rings.

The skirt is made from bright aluminum rings, stainless rings. The stainless rings are woven European 6 in 1 for a sturdy waistband. The aluminum is woven in 8 panels of hexagonal expansion (like you'd do for the top of a coif), to give the skirt a slight over-gore for a very nice swing and twirl when moving. The waistband is closed with 2 more buttons. The skirt contains 14,782 aluminum rings, and 3890 stainless rings. The skirt is made from aluminum so that it won't crush the petticoat underneath it, which can be seen as the blue edging at the bottom.

The tailcoat weighs 18 lbs. and the skirt is another 3 lbs. This makes for a total weight of 21 lbs., before adding corset (the extra back support is nice when wearing this), underwear, petticoat, shoes and whatever other accessories one chooses to add. Any activity becomes an instant workout, but it looks darn good!

It took me close to 3 months to make this outfit, 2 weeks of which were spent closing and tearing out the armpit until I got it looking the way I wanted. :)

Total number of rings: 55,666
Cost to reproduce in the same materials: $1,900

Weave(s) Used (Click to View Weave)

European 4 in 1, European 6 in 1

Images Tags (Click to Search Gallery)

Tag(s): Bright Aluminium, Clothing, Skirt, Stainless Steel, Womens
Weave(s): European 4 in 1, European 6 in 1