Getting Ready for Gatsby: 2012

Hello!

Since KBD posted about her own outfit escapade, I thought I’d wax poetic about my own duds. Personally, I find it very hard to find vintage clothing in my size since I’m a man of a larger stature. Besides, I’m always wanting a specific look anyways so I find it easier to find something new with a vintage look that fits my needs or cut and sew something myself (with the help of my costume designer partner of course).

It all started with a Ralph Lauren Rugby blazer that I've owned for years. It has a nice “ivy league/preppy” look that I love and wanted to sport at the picnic. The blazer is a rich plumb color with a creamy pinstripe. Originally there was a very cresty RL patch sewn onto the pocket. It was nice and I liked it, but it had the roman numeral date of 2009 embroidered upon it. Knowing that that wouldn't do, I replaced the patch with a vintage gold bouillon patch that Thom had in his stash. I backed it with some black suede and sewed it on.

I also had to update the buttons. The Rugby buttons were a pewter color and didn't match the new gold patch I had just sewed on. Fortunately, again rummaging through Thoms' stash of vintage buttons, I found these vintage navy blue enamel and gold buttons. The crest was perfect and so was the addition of navy blue since I had purchased socks with the same color incorporated into them (more on these later).

     Doing some research about casual styles of the periord I knew I wanted to wear a knicker or plus fours. At first I was going to make a pair since Thom had a pattern already made, but KBD stumbled upon a website called golfknickers.com that sold, well, golf knickers. What they sold looked to be of great qualiy and buying rather than making a pair for myself would save me some time. Especially since Thom and I still had to sew elements for the tent.
      Long story short, the pair of knickers that KBD ordered for her husband was too buttery to match his outfit. So, instead of returning them, I bought them from KBD and decided to dye the knickers to match the color of the blazer. RitDye.com is a great resource if you’re trying to mach colors. On the Rit site there are formulas for all the colors you could possibly need to match.
     Oh, and I had to switch out the buttons on the pants too. The one's provided were plastic and dyed a weird color. I replaced them with mother of pearl buttons.

So now I had pants and a blazer. Luckily also on Golfknickers.com, they sell all the other accessories that go along with your golfing outfit and I needed socks. They had socks in all sorts of argyle color combos. I went with the natural/navy/maroon combo to match the overall outfit and to add a third color for contrast (and to match them buttons on the blazer).
Since I had so much dark going on, I definitely wanted to go with a white collared shirt, but when I put on the shirt, and necktie (which I found at a church rummage sale for $1) it seemed like something was missing. Especially since I wasn’t on planning to wear the blazer all day. At some point the weather was going to get the best of me and I was going to have to take of the jacket. So, Thom suggested a vest. But I did not already own anything that would match and we couldn’t find anything off the rack that suited the look. So I set about to make one.

A trip to Joann’s revealed some great light cotton shirting with a lovely (and slimming) pinstripe pattern fabric. We only needed a yard since we were going to make the back of the vest solid white (fabric that Thom has tons of in his studio). A Vogue vest pattern (slightly edited to better fit my frame) was all we needed to get started. Unfortunately, I was in such a rush to make my vest I didn't really take any process photos. :(

My hat was something I had purchased years ago for another event, but never had a chance to wear it. Though KBD was a strong proponent for a flat cap, I really wanted to wear my straw pork pie. However, the hat came with an existing red/white/blue hat band that needed to go. To better match the hat to my outfit, Thom wanted to sew in a new hat band. Thom and I searched and searched, but we could not find a ribbon or grosgrain that would match. Thom decided to make a matching band by amalgamating several ribbons into one. We purchased two grosgrain ribbons and one silk ribbon and voila! New hat band.

The shoes I already owned, but next year I may sport a two tone wingtip. If I can find a pair I like that is.

-HWC

Now that we have had time to recover from Sunday, here are the photos from my camera! We have many more to share from HWC & Julia & we look forward to seeing what the event photographers captured. Again - What a lovely, lovely day & the perfect way to celebrate Beckett's 1st Birthday!